CHAPTER XXII.
For Conscience' Sake.
I hear a call through the silver night
And across the golden day,
"Go forth and work, for the fields are white!"
And I dare not disobey.
It was during the winter which Joanna spent at Davos, that Edgar Ford screwed his courage to the sticking point sufficiently to ask Alice Martin to become his wife.
By this time Alice's views of life had completely changed. She had not only forgotten that she had ever loved Paul—a comparatively trifling feat; she had not only fallen in love with some one else—an accomplishment likewise not difficult of feminine attainment; but she had succeeded in putting Edgar so completely in Paul's place that the change was retrospective, and Edgar was actually the richer for Alice's former devotion to Paul.
She had not blotted out the sum of her old love—she had merely transferred it from Paul's account to Edgar's; which was a decidedly wiser plan, as thus no good material was wasted. All the dreams of her springtime and the romance of her early summer, now went to the making of a rich harvest of affection for Edgar Ford to reap. Alice was one of the women who cannot live without loving; the man that such a woman happens to love is a mere matter of detail.
To an artist his art is everything, and it is born in him; the masters, under whom he studies, can only teach him style and manner and the tricks of his craft. In after life the pupil may learn in other schools, but he will always be a better artist because of the education which he received from the teachers who first trained him. Thus it is with women of the type of Alice Martin. The power of loving is part of themselves, and nothing can crush that out of them. They may learn technique from the master under whom they first study; but if in later days they turn to other teachers, that particular instructor will be forgotten, though they will always be able to love better because of the education which they received from him.
It may be true that "over the past not heaven itself has power"; but in this respect, if it be so, certain women have the advantage of heaven—at least as far as their own feelings are concerned. They can recolour the past so as to make it a becoming background for the present, just as we can repaper our drawing-rooms when we buy new furniture; and they can change the cast of their little dramas, long after the play has been played and the lights turned out.
The conies are a feeble folk; but their strength lies in their power to make use of the rock so as to meet their own requirements.
It was a better thing for Alice to love Edgar than it had ever been to love Paul, because Edgar was suited to her and Paul was not. A woman can always adapt herself to the man she loves, and be—for as long as she chooses—the sort of woman that he approves; but, though it is not difficult for a woman to be somebody else instead of herself for a time, it becomes fatiguing if kept up for too long. After a while it feels like walking in boots which are a shade too short, or biting crusts when one has the toothache.
It was a source of keen delight to Edgar that Alice shared his socialistic views with respect to the sanctity of the individual and the wrongfulness of riches; he did not know that she would have agreed with him just the same had he preached the subjugation of the masses and the divine right of kings.