"Yes, that is what I should say—I say it to myself now even in the short while I am absent from you dressing!"
The lady's eyes brimmed with tenderness. "Paul!—you do love me, my own!" she said.
"Oh, why can't we go on and travel together, darling?" Paul continued. "I want you to show me the world—at least the best of Europe. In every country you would make me feel the spirit of the place. Let us go to Greece, and see the temples and worship those old gods. They knew about love, did they not?"
The lady leant back and smiled, as if she liked to hear him talk.
"I often ask myself did they really know," she said. "They knew the whole material part of it at any rate. They were perhaps too practical to have indulged in the mental emotions we weave into it now—but they were wise, they did not educate the wives and daughters, they realised that to perform well domestic duties a woman's mind should not be over-trained in learning. Learning and charm and grace of mind were for the others, the hetaerae of whom they asked no tiresome ties. And in all ages it is unfortunately not the simple good women who have ruled the hearts of men. Think of Pericles and Aspasia—Antony and Cleopatra—Justinian and Theodora—Belisarius and Antonina—and later, all the mistresses of the French kings—even, too, your English Nelson and Lady Hamilton! Not one of these was a man's ideal of what a wife and mother ought to be. So no doubt the Greeks were right in that principle, as they were right in all basic principles of art and balance. And now we mix the whole thing up, my Paul—domesticity and learning—nerves and art, and feverish cravings for the impossible new—so we get a conglomeration of false proportions, and a ceaseless unrest."
"Yes," said Paul, and thought of his mother. She was a perfectly domestic and beautiful woman, but somehow he felt sure she had never made his father's heart beat. Then his mind went back to the argument in what the lady had said—he wanted to hear more.
"If this is so, that would prove that all the very clever women of history were immoral—do you mean that?" he asked.
The lady laughed.
"Immoral! It is so quaint a word, my Paul! Each one sees it how they will. For me it is immoral to be false, to be mean, to steal, to cheat, to stoop to low actions and small ends. Yet one can be and do all those things, and if one remains as well the faithful beast of burden to one man, one is counted in the world a moral woman! But that shining light of hypocrisy and virtue—to judge by her sentiments in her writings—your George Eliot, must be classed as immoral because, having chosen her mate without the law's blessing, she yet wrote the highest sentiments of British respectability! To me she was being immoral only because she was deliberately doing what—, again I say, judging by her writings—she felt must be a grievous wrong. That is immoral—deliberately to still one's conscience and indulge in a pleasure against it. But to live a life with one's love, if it engenders the most lofty aspirations, to me is highly moral and good. I feel myself ennobled, exalted, because you are my lover, and our child, when it comes to us, will have a noble mind."
The thought of this, as ever, made Paul thrill; he forgot all other arguments, and a quiver ran through him of intense emotion; his eyes swam and he clasped more tightly her hand. The lady, too, leant back and closed her eyes.