The old life and death struggle between conflicting ideas had died down. She could see the self who had lived so long upon that battle ground, far-off; annoying, when thought of as suffered by others. But it was not without a pang that she looked back at that retiring figure. It had been, at least, with all its blindness, desperately sincere. She was growing worldly now, capable of concealments in the interest of social joys, worse, capable of assumed cynicism for the sake of advertising her readiness for larks she was not quite sure of wishing to share. And thought was still there, a guilty secret, quiet as a rule. Sometimes inconveniently obtrusive at moments when she wished most to approximate to the approved pattern of charming femininity.
Fearful of really forgetting her commission she wrote at once to Michael and floated off into her day, her mind away in the bright pattern of life, the scenes of the many dramas being played out all round her, of the new worlds into which unawares her obscure career had led her, secure in the knowledge that while she lived thus sunnily, all difficulties in the daily routine would solve themselves under her hand.
A charm, the charm that came over the leads where the birds hopped, and into the conservatory-office in the spring sunshine, lay over everything. Shadows were there. The shadow of Nietzsche, the problem of free-love, the challenge of Weiniger, the triple tangle of art, sex and religion. Poverty and Henry George. But she was out in the dance of youth, within hearing of all that was happening along the rim of life as it pressed forward into a future that was to be free of much that had darkened the being of those who went before, and had freed her already from the fear of isolation and resourcelessness. She was ready now to drop all props and wander forth.
Lo here, lo there. But the Kingdom of Heaven is within. Communist colonies were not a solution of anything.
Yet the kingdom within is a little grey and lonely. Marriage is no solution, only a postponement. A part solution for some people.
I am a greedy butterfly flitting in sunlight. Enviable, despicable. But approval of my way of being speaks in me, a secret voice that knows no tribunals. The joy and ease of this evening-lit life is a presage because it is a fulfilment. Man never is, but always to be blest. But I am blest. Alles ist relativ. I am blessed beyond anything I ever dreamed of, within these inexorable circumstances.
The happiness that came when they were even bleaker was a presage. Of what? Someone says there is nothing meaner than making the best of things. But happiness is incurable. A thing you can’t help. Perhaps it is the result of being a woman. One of Wells’ crawling cabs waiting to be hailed? Bosh. If I wait for anyone it is for one who will show himself to have been hailed by the same kind of happiness.
2
Mrs. Cameron running singing up the stairs, pushed open the door and stood tall, a bright questing figure; determinedly bright, a deliberately cheerful blue overall covering all but the sleeves of her multi-coloured gown; hanging from her arm a great basket of primroses.
“Good morning,” she laughed. “How ist with thee?”