“Then after all you admit the genius,” said the Baxter girl triumphantly.
“No. No. No. My judgment says no. When I read her books in cold blood—no. But we’ve been talking about her. It’s as if she were with us, and when she’s with us my judgment goes! That’s the secret of Madala Grey. She does what she likes with us. But the next generation, the people who don’t know her, whether they’ll find in her books what we do, is doubtful. Who wants a dried rose?”
“Yes, but Miss Serle—in the Life? Won’t she—preserve her?”
“Preserve—exactly! But not revive. No, I’d sooner pin my faith to The Spring Song, although I haven’t seen it. It ought to be a revelation. She eluded Nita, impishly. I’ve seen her do it. But there’s no doubt that she gave Kent his chance.”
“Every chance. She’d deny it, I suppose.”
“Oh, she did.” Miss Howe laughed. “Have you ever seen her in a temper? I have. I was a fool. I told her one day (you know how things come up) just something of the gossip about Kent and her. I thought it only kind. But you should have heard her. She was as healthily furious as a schoolgirl. That was so comfortable about Madala. She hadn’t that terrible aloofness of really big people. She didn’t withdraw into dignity. She just stormed.” Miss Howe laughed again. “I can see her now, raging up and down the room—‘Do you mean to say that people——? I never heard of anything so monstrous! What has it got to do with them? Why can’t they leave me alone? I’ve never done them any harm. I wouldn’t have believed it, pretending they liked me, and letting me be friends with them, and then saying hateful things behind my back. I’ll never speak to them again—never! That they should go about twisting things—Why can’t they mind their own business? And dragging in Kent like that! Oh, it does make me so wild!’ ‘Oh, well, my dear,’ I said to her, ‘when two people see as much of each other as you and Kent do, there’s bound to be talk.’ At that she swung round on me. ‘But he’s my friend,’ she said. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that’s just it.’ ‘But I’m not expected to marry everyone I’m fond of!’ ‘Are you fond of him, Madala?’ I asked her. ‘Yes,’ she said directly, ‘I am. I’m awfully fond of him. I’d do anything for him, bless his heart!’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you needn’t be so upset. That’s all that people mean. If you’re fond of him and he—he’s obviously in love with you——’ But at that she caught me up in her quick way—‘In love? Oh, you don’t understand him. Nobody understands Kent. He doesn’t understand himself. Dear old Kent!’ Then she began walking up and down the room again, but more quietly, and talking, half to herself, as if she had forgotten I was there, justifying herself, justifying him. ‘Dear old Kent! Poor old Kent! I’m awfully fond of Kent. So is he of me. But not in the right way. He’s got, when he happens to think of it, a great romantic idea of the woman he wants, of the wife he wants; but the truth is, you know, that he doesn’t want a wife. He wants a mother, and a sister, and a—a lover. A true lover. A patienter woman than I am. A woman who’ll delight in him for his own sake, not for what he gives her. A woman who’ll put him first and be content to come second with him. He’ll always put his work first. He can’t help it. He’s an artist. Oh, not content. I didn’t mean that. She must be too big for that—big enough to know what she misses. But a wise woman, such a loving, hungry woman. ‘Half a loaf,’ she’ll say to herself. But she’ll never have to let him hear. He’s chivalrous. He’d be horrified at giving her half a loaf. He’d say—“All or nothing!” But he couldn’t give her all. He couldn’t spare it. So he’d give her nothing out of sheer respect for her. That’s Kent. He’s got his dear queer theories of life—oh, they’re all right as theories—but he fits people to them, instead of them to people. Procrustes. He’d torture a woman from the kindest of motives. It’s lack of imagination. Haven’t you noticed?’ ‘Considering he’s one of the great imaginative artists of the day, Madala,’ I said to her, ‘that’s rather sweeping.’ ‘But that’s why,’ she said. ‘It’s just because he’s a genius. He lives on himself, in himself. Kent’s an island.’ I said—‘No chance of a bridge, Madala?’ She shook her head. ‘Not my job.’ I said I was sorry. I was, too. It would have been so ideal, that pair. I wanted to argue it with her; but she wouldn’t listen. She said—‘If I weren’t an artist too, then maybe—maybe. I’m very fond of Kent. But no—I’d want too much. But, you know, there’s a woman somewhere, rather like me—I hope he’ll marry her. I’d love her. She’d never be jealous of me. She’d understand. She’s me without the writing, without the outlet. She’ll pour it all into loving him. I hope she’s alive somewhere. He’d be awfully happy. And if he had children—that’s what he needs. I can just see him with children. But not my children. If I married——’ And then she flushed up to the eyes in that way she had, as if she were fifteen. ‘I—I’d like to be married for myself, for my faults, for the bits I don’t tell anyone. Kent would hate my faults. I’d have to hide my realest self.’ She stood staring out of the window. Then she said, still in that rueful, childish voice—‘I would like to be liked.’ ‘But, my dear girl,’ said I, ‘what nonsense you talk! If ever a woman had friends——’ She flung round at me again—‘If I’d not written Eden Walls would Anita have looked at me—or any of you?’ I said—‘That’s not a fair question. Your books are you, the quintessence, the very best of you.’ ‘But the rest of me?’ she said, ‘but the rest of me?’ I laughed at her. ‘Well, what about the rest of you?’ Then she said, in a small voice—‘It feels rather out of it sometimes, Lila.’”
“I say,” Mr. Flood twinkled at her, “are you going to present all this to Anita? She’d be grateful.”
“Not she,” said Miss Howe sharply. “Too much fact would spoil her theory. Let her spin her own web.”
“Agreed. There’s room for more than one biography, eh?” They laughed together a little consciously.
“You know,” the blonde lady recalled them, “she must have been quite a good actress. She always seemed perfectly contented.”