XXII
Masculine moral struggle is usually noisier than feminine—unless the woman is seeking to impress some man, before yielding of her own free will what she wishes him to fancy his superior charm and force and subtlety are conquering. Thus, woman being by nature freer from the footless kinds of hypocrisy than man, it was only in the regular order that while Courtney quietly accepted the situation and conformed to it, Basil should accept it with much moral bluster. He accused now his own wickedness, now the wickedness of destiny, and again woman's sinful charms. Still, the masculine conscience no less than the feminine is bred to be an ultimately accommodating chaperon; and Basil's conscience would soon have gone to sleep had it not been kept awake and feverish by a contrasting presence. That contrast was Helen's virginal beauty and virginal purity—both of which fascinated his overstimulated and degenerating imagination.
Helen was, as Courtney had said, a girl of the old-fashioned type. This does not mean that she was a rare survival of an extinct type, but simply that she was the girl of yesterday as distinguished from the girl of to-morrow, and from the girl that is partly of yesterday, partly of to-morrow—all three of whom we have with us in this transitional to-day. Helen had by inheritance and training all woman's ancient instincts to be a possessed and protected property. These instincts originated in the necessities and the ignorance of former societies; but they are cultivated and clung to because masculine vanity dotes on the superior attitude, and because the female very humanly finds it more comfortable to be looked after than to look after herself, to have her thinking done for her than to think for herself, to be supported than to support herself, to be strong through weakness than to be strong through strength. The male wants to pose as master. The female yields, since the usual cost to her is merely putting up with airs of superiority at which she can secretly laugh; at worst, the cost is only that intangible thing, self-respect. So, why not? Self-respect is purely subjective, unseen. It provides no comforts or luxuries. Lack of it attracts no attention in a world that sees only surfaces. So, why not sacrifice it, when it becomes inconvenient? Men do. Why shouldn't women?
Helen had no desire to be of full human stature—to be free. She wished to be a "true woman," meek servant of a lord and master, and never under the painful necessity of taking responsible thought for herself. Having no capacity or desire for comradeship with men, she denounced it as unwomanly. Her physical virtue—"purity," she called it—she regarded as her chief glory. She was glad it was still woman's chief asset in the struggle for existence; for, she could not help knowing she had beauty, and it is beauty that makes virtue valuable, though of course beauty adds nothing to its glory.
Helen certainly had beauty, nearly as great beauty as she imagined in that heart of hearts where our vanity feels free to spread its tail to the last gaudy feather and to strut as no peacock or gobbler ever dared. Her skin was white as milk, her features were classically regular, and she was now a shade taller than Basil, could almost look level-eyed at Richard. Her dark hair was commonplace in color and texture, was rather short, did not grow especially well about her brow or behind the ears; but it was thick and abundant, and the brow and the ears were charming in themselves. Thanks to Courtney's skill in devising a corset, the defect of waist too close to bust was no longer conspicuous. She had sound teeth, good arms and legs, narrow hands and feet. Her large brown eyes were of the kind that has been regarded as ideal for woman from the days of Homer singing the ox-eyed Juno, down to our own day when intelligence is trying to get a place among feminine virtues and the look of intelligence among feminine beauties. She had learned from Courtney—who knew—a great deal about dress—dress that all women talk, but only the rare exceptional woman knows.
Also, she had from her a practical training for what she regarded as woman's only sphere, the home. Courtney had taught her how to keep house with comfort, order and system. As Courtney had none of the teacher's vanity but used the method of suggestion, she fancied she had learned and was learning from herself; the more so, since she in defiance of daily experience could not credit a woman of Courtney's lively and, because light, undoubtedly thoughtless and careless temperament, with enough seriousness to be a good housekeeper. Helen there showed herself about on a level with the human average; for all but incredible is the stupidity of our misjudgments and mismeasurements of our fellow beings. There was not in her the capacity to reflect who thought out the new ideas that were constantly being put into effect, who told her what to do and who quietly and tactfully saw that she did it.
The most obvious improvement in Helen was through her unconsciously acting on Courtney's advice of delicately veiled suggestion and dropping the culture pose. She was now patterning upon Courtney's naturalness so far as she could. She had the handicap of an ingrained and incurable passion for those innocuous little tricks of manner with the men; also, she was greatly hindered by a conventional assortment of the so-called "lofty ideals." Still, she was letting much of her own natural personality appear. She was only slightly exaggerating her bent toward sweetness and sympathy. She was not quite so strenuous in advocacy of fine old-fashioned womanliness—heart without mind, purity that is mere strait jacketed carnality; virtue that, when it yields, makes lofty pretense of yielding only in reluctant tolerance of man's coarseness and of nature's shameful way of reproducing. At Tecumseh, when Dr. Madelene Ranger delivered a course of lectures on the profession all young women are candidates for—that is, on matrimony—to the girls of the senior class of the college of liberal arts, Helen was one of those who refused to attend and signed the—unheeded—protest to the faculty. She was no longer so proud of this as she had been, although she still thought she had done what ought to be right though it rather seemed foolish.
But the greatest improvement of all in Helen was the subtlest. She had come there, expecting to be a dependent, feeling and, in a sweet refined way, acting like the poor relation, harbored on sufferance. Women, trained from the outset to be dependents, easily degenerate into sycophants, like men who have always looked to others for employment and have lost self-confidence if they ever had it. But lack of self-reliance, a vice in a man, is regarded as a virtue in a woman; so, women have absolutely no restraint upon their abandoning even the forms of self-respect, once they get in the way of degenerating. Thus, Helen's relations with Courtney might easily have become what is usually seen where there is intimacy between a poor woman and a woman of means. But Courtney—not deliberately but with the unconsciousness of large natures—made this degradation impossible. It was not merely that Helen had not been made to feel a dependent; it was more—far more. It was that she had been made to feel independent, more independent than Courtney herself felt. And this fine feeling, this erectness of spirit, permeated to every part of her character, would have made a full-statured human being of her, had she had the mentality to shake off her early training as mere conventional female.
Richard frankly declared her an ideal woman; Basil secretly agreed with him. Helen became the constant reminder of his lost honor, of the heaven he had given up for the forbidden delights. He reveled in Courtney the tempest; but during the lulls his eyes turned yearningly to Helen, the serene and pure calm. Courtney represented sinful excess, Helen righteous restraint. Courtney's was love the devastator; a love for Helen would be love the uplifter. He wanted Courtney; he felt that Helen was what he ought to want. And in the lulls, with passion exhausted and needing the stimulus of contrast—he sometimes fancied that, if he could somehow contrive to assert his manhood and escape from slavery to Courtney, he would be happy with Helen, and once more noble and good. Like many another, he flattered himself that he had an aspiration to a better life when in reality he was making pretense of virtuous longing merely to whet his appetite for vice. He shut his eyes to the obvious but rarely seen—or, rather, rarely admitted—truth that a man is as he does, not as he pretends or dreams.
Before finally and fully condemning Basil—or Courtney or anyone—for anything he or she may have done contrary to our views of propriety and morality, it would be well to reflect upon the true nature of conscience—to which Basil and Courtney and all of us habitually refer all moral questions for settlement. As we grow older we are awed or amused rather than shocked—and, unless we have lived as the moles and the earthworms, are not astonished at all—by the wondrous ways in which our conscience adjusts itself to necessity—or to what overwhelming inclination makes us believe to be necessity. But in unanalytic youth such adjustments take place unconsciously to ourselves; the mind, in the parts of itself hidden from us, concocts the proof positive that what we desire is necessary and right; all we are conscious of is that we suddenly have the mandate of necessity and the godspeed of conscience. Thus, conscience in youth can be as flexible as occasion may require, yet can, without hypocrisy, be for the conduct of others a very Draco of a lawgiver, a very Brutus of a judge. This, in youth only. But— How many of us ever do grow up?