“I suppose I have no character!” said Mrs. Lewin resignedly.
“Not a shred! You are much too good-looking, and your clothes suggest Bond Street and general wickedness.”
Again Leoline laughed, for she was content that Key Island should bracket her with Brissy Nugent. Her conscience was nearly dormant during those days, and only roused occasionally when a gust of remorse or realisation swept over her reasonlessly and made her shudder. Then it would pass, and she would face the situation steadily again. Had she been in England, among influences which had moulded her life, and with the chance of a larger outlook, she would not have deemed such a state of mind as her present one to be possible to her. That her whole self could be absorbed in a man whom to love was frankly dishonourable, would have seemed to her impossible while she had the intelligence to foresee and fight it down. But it is impossible in a land policed by the conventions of countless generations, where at least one lives in wholesome fear of one’s next door neighbour, to realise or understand the influence of the waste places of this earth under the sway of the Imperial Government. Men lose their boundaries there, and be a woman what she will she is bound to feel the influence in her thoughts if not her actions. The laxity of the manners and morals in such rat-traps as Key Island is due to the opinion of the majority, for sin is after all a matter of the law of nations, and there is no universal standard of right and wrong. When the thermometer stands at 90° in the shade, and Society consists of forty persons who must go on meeting each other indefinitely, it is probable that the forty will tacitly agree to overlook each other’s peccadilloes for the sake of comfort. And it is hard to be less charitable to one’s own failings than one’s neighbour will be.
The stronger nature with which she was in close intercourse, too, was influencing if it could not entirely dominate Leoline. Gregory had absolutely kept his word with regard to their relations with each other; he did not ask her for a material proof of her affection, but it was not in human nature that they should not be often together and alone without some such hint of passion as had overtaken them on the evening of Alaric’s departure. His visits were spasmodic, and dependent to a certain extent on caution while Halton was still at Government House, but she never knew when he might not appear, and had given herself up to receiving him with a submission that yet kept her nerves on edge. Sometimes they merely talked—intimately, it is true, for he unfolded his plans to her as to no one else—but with hardly a kiss to disturb her pulses. It was a relief to Gregory to confide in a mind which he found both receptive and capable of following him, even of counselling him at times. He made her the partner of plans he would not have trusted to a fellow-man, and would have missed her from his life as a confidante, apart from her attraction as a woman; for the craving for sympathy is as great as the craving for alcohol—once aroused, it becomes a habit, and is hard to satisfy. During the greater part of his life Gregory had taught himself to live alone, and regard men and women alike as likely to be a hindrance to him unless he could make a passing use of them. Now he had found a helpmate he meant to bind her to him by the strongest tie he could fashion.
Leoline gave regally in the expansion of all her forces, and made him the master of her brain and spirit as well as heart. Every vital power she had was at his disposal, and while she gloried in the bestowal she was troubled that her sensations were not all clear gain in perfect joy. The temperate, uncomplicated affection she had felt for Alaric had in a way made her less unhappy, if also less happy, which was disturbing. Take it how one will, being in love is not a comfortable process, provided it is a real case of unreasoning attachment between two human beings—unreasoning in that the advantages of such an attachment do not influence the feeling at all. No one really enjoys violent emotion, and of all experiences a sexual love is most likely to be violent, however it may differ in degree, through a warmer or colder nature. “All pleasure is negative,” says Schopenhauer, for the fulfilment of a desire only concludes the pangs of it. Love as purely, as mentally as one may, it is a torturing joy—a bewildering experience that upsets and revolutionises the ordinary routine of life, and which one naturally resents. Who cares for the unused depths of his being brought up to the surface, and forcing him to live in extremes? It is the memory of love which is divine; the present experience is by no means so pleasant, and sooner or later brings the pain that is only tolerable when it has passed.
On the day when Mrs. Gilderoy came to see her, Leoline was looking forward to the arrival of the mail with mixed feelings. It was due the next day, and Alfred Halton was going to leave Key Island by it, for there was peace in Hashish Valley and China Town, and the natives of Port Victoria were dully quiet, almost as if the burning of the crops had been a salutary lesson and had cowed them. There had been very little drunkenness in the streets of late—always the prevailing sin of Key Island—and thefts of cattle had been rare. So far things were well, and the removal of Halton would be an unfeigned relief, for Mrs. Lewin had an intuitive dread of him that all the rest of the population could not inspire. She had warned Gregory, who would hardly be warned because of an instinctive contempt at the roots of his nature for the man who had always been afraid to act; but the boat that took Alfred Halton out of her immediate life was as welcome as a human rescuer, if it had not also brought the mail. Mrs. Lewin dreaded the mail, and the sight of her husband’s familiar handwriting. It would force her to face her own intention again, to consider their relations, and how she should deliberately sever herself from him. While he was absent there had been a certain pause in action that had left her finally uncommitted. She did not mean to flinch from the actual step, and yet she wished that his return might be delayed.
She had not expected the Administrator that night, for he had been to Port Albert, and she had not heard of his return. His visits were almost always made in the evening after dinner, when he could snatch a half-hour unobserved and likely to be undisturbed, and his appearance on this occasion was later than his usual hour. There was something hurried and almost abrupt about his entrance too, partly from the fact that he was in riding dress, and it seemed as if he must have come straight from his return journey.
She had risen rather hastily as Abdallah announced him, and instinctively looked past his broad shoulders to see the white turban vanish out of sight before she greeted him. But he hardly waited for safety, and drew her into his arms with an unusual demonstration of passion. They stood silent for a moment, and she was suddenly a little faint. Either some desperate feeling in him communicated itself to her, or the violent demand of his nature sapped her strength. She had not the resistance to draw her lips away, but it was a relief when the interminable kiss was over. She gave an odd little laugh to recover herself, and laid her hand against his face with tender familiarity.
“You haven’t shaved to-day! How dare you kiss me?”
“I know—I’m only just back. I came straight in.”