The Angel of Pain

by E. F. Benson

But after thus dismissing the question of the accidents and essentials of life with this ill-timed little jest about the champagne, Evelyn quite suddenly returned to a matter as serious.

“You called me undeveloped just now,” he said, “and I expect you are right in a way that you did not think. Tom Merivale told me once that I had not the rudiments of a conscience, and I have often thought of that, and believe it is quite true. That is where I am really undeveloped, and I expect it is that”—and his face lit up even more with this piece of intuition—“I expect it is that which you miss in me. He also said I had no depth. You miss that too, probably.”

Evelyn announced these discoveries with a perfectly serene and unclouded air; perturbation that he was lacking in so large a piece of moral equipment as a conscience would do no manner of good; nor, because his wife missed it, would it help matters that he should mourn with her over his deficiency. But the unshadowed brightness of his face, his frank acceptance of this so genially and generously made, was something of a reproach to her. All the sunshine of his beautiful nature was hers, all the brilliance of his talent, his extraordinary personal charm, his blithe acquiescence in all that happened was hers, and yet she was discontent. And with a pang of self-reproach she contrasted all he gave her with what she had herself thought good enough to give to Philip when she promised to be his wife, affection, respect, esteem, just a platter of frigid odds and ends, compared to this great feast and glorious banquet of love.

But there was no doubt as to the accuracy of the diagnosis which Evelyn had made as to what she missed in him. He had risen from the sofa, and was standing in front of her, and at this she rose too, and laid her hands on his shoulder.

“Ah, I’m an ungrateful little brute,” she said; “but I believe that is a woman’s way. Whatever you give a woman, she always wants more, and you—you, dear, whatever I give you, you always say you did not know so much was possible. So I confess, and am sorry.”

He looked at her still smiling, but without speaking, and the warmth of her contrition cooled a little. He ought to have known, so she told herself, that what she had said was not very easy to say; he ought to have met the warmth of her amende with welcome and acceptation, and even acknowledgment of her generosity, for she had been generous.

“Well,” she said at length, “have you nothing to say to that?”

He put his head a little on one side, as he did so often when he was painting.

“Yes, I was just arranging it in my head in beautiful language,” he said, “but the beautiful language won’t come, so you will have to hear it plain, not coloured. It’s just this. I don’t think one does any good by pulling oneself open to see what’s inside—oh, yes, rosebud, that’s part of the beautiful language—like a rosebud. One flowers best, I expect, by leaving oneself alone, by just living. Surely life is good enough! I suppose some people are naturally analytical, people who write books, for instance, about other people’s moral insides. But I’m quite certain that I’m not like that. I paint pictures, you see, of other people’s outsides. And if I went on painting your face for years, Madge, I should never get to the end of all it is, or all it is to me. Well, that’s Evelyn Dundas: I beg to introduce him. And you are Evelyn Dundas, let me tell you. You are me; you can’t get away from that. So don’t make either the best or the worst of me; don’t let us regard our relations like that. They are what they are, and want no interpretation or examination. Let them just burn, and not examine their light under a spectroscope. Dear me, there’s more beautiful language. I apologise.”

She could not help laughing at this conclusion; his earnestness, for he was absolutely earnest, was all of one piece with utter flippancy, and from one he passed to the other without break or transition. How that could be she did not know, only it was all he. And as far as any one person can convince any other, she was convinced. Indeed, it was tearing flowers open to behave and to think as she had been doing, and she answered him in his own manner.