“Yes, she was altered,” said Anita. “Her whole attitude to herself and her work changed that spring. How she horrified me one day. It was soon after Ploughed Fields came out, and we were talking about her new book, at least I was, pumping a little, I confess, and suddenly she said—‘Anita, I don’t think I’ll write any more. This stuff—’ she had her hands on Eden Walls, ‘it’s harsh, it’s ugly; and so’s Ploughed Fields. Isn’t it?’ ‘It’s true to life,’ I said, ‘that’s the triumph of it.’ ‘Is it?’ she said. She looked at me in an uneasy sort of way. And then—‘I’d like to write a kind book, a beautiful book.’ I told her that she couldn’t, that she was a realist. ‘That’s why,’ she said, ‘I don’t think I’ll write any more.’ I laughed, of course. Anybody would have laughed. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I mean it. I haven’t an idea in my head. I’m tired and empty. I think I shall go away for a wander. There’s always the country, anyhow.’ ‘Well, Madala,’ I said, ‘I think you’re ungrateful. You’re a made woman. You’ve got your name: you’ve got your line: you’ve got your own gift——’ ‘Oh, that!’ she said, as if she were flicking off a fly. I was irritated. It was so arrogant. ‘What more do you want?’ I asked her. ‘What more can you want?’ She said—‘I don’t know,’ looking at me, you know, as if she expected me to tell her. I disliked that mood of hers. One did expect, with a woman of her capacity, to be entertained as it were, to have ideas presented, not to be asked to provide them. Then she began, à propos of nothing at all—‘If I ever marry——’ That startled me. We’d never touched on the subject before. ‘Oh, my dear Madala,’ I said, ‘you must never think of anything so—so unnecessary. For you, of all people, it would be fatal. It would waste your time, it would distract your thoughts, it would narrow your outlook, it would end by spoiling your work altogether. I’ve seen it happen so often. It’s terrible to me even to think of a woman with a future like yours, throwing it away just for the——’ She interrupted me. ‘I wouldn’t marry for the sake of getting married, if you mean that. Not even for children.’”
“You didn’t mean that, did you, Anita?” said Miss Howe smiling a little.
“Certainly not. But I had always been afraid that she might be tempted to marry for the adventure’s sake, for the mere experience, for the——”
“Copy,” said Mr. Flood. “I always said so. Yes?”
“‘Oh well, Madala,’ I said to her, ‘you know what I think. I’m not one to quote Kipling, but—He travels fastest who travels alone.’ She looked at me so strangely. ‘Alone?’ she said. ‘Alone. Its the cruellest word in the language. There’s drowning in it.’ ‘Well, without conceit, Madala,’ I said, ‘I can affirm that I have been alone, spiritually, all my life.’ ‘Ah, yes,’ she said, ‘but you’re different.’ And that,” Anita broke off, “was what I liked in Madala. She did recognize differences. She could appreciate. She wasn’t absorbed in herself. She said to me quite humbly—‘I’m not strong, I suppose; but I don’t suffice myself. I can’t bear myself sometimes. I can’t bear the burden of myself. Can’t you understand?’ ‘Frankly,’ I said, ‘I can’t. I’m a modern woman, and the modern woman is a pioneer. She’s the Columbus of her own individuality. She must be. It’s her career. It’s her destiny.’ She answered me pettishly, like a naughty child—‘I don’t want to be a pioneer.’ ‘You’re that,’ I said, ‘already, whether you want to be or not.’ Then she said to me, with that dancing, impish look that her eyes and her lips and her white teeth used to manage between them—‘All right! If I’ve got to be, I will. But I’ll be a pioneer in my own way. I swear I’ll shock the lot of you.’”
“Oho!” said Mr. Flood with exaggerated unction.
“Exactly!” Anita gave his agreement such eager welcome. “That put me on the qui-vive. Knowing her as I did, it was a very strong hint. I awaited developments. Frankly, I was prepared for a scandal, a romance, anything you please in the way of extravagance. That’s why the Carey marriage, that tameness, upset me so. It was not what I was expecting. Really, I don’t know which was more of a shock to me, The Resting-place or the marriage. Hardly had I recovered from the one when——”
“Oh, The Resting-place was the shock of my life too.” He giggled. “I mourned, I assure you that I mourned over it. That opening, you know—‘There was once’—And the end again—‘So they were married and had children and lived happily ever after.’ Pastiche! And then to be invited to wade through a conscientious account of how they achieved it! Too bad of Madala! As if the poor but virtuous artist’s model weren’t a drug on the market already! And the impecunious artist himself—stooping, you know! Oh, I sat in ashes.”
Miss Howe clapped her hands.
“Jasper, I love you. I do love you. Did she pull your leg too? Both legs? She did! She did! Oh, there’s only one Madala!”