"Pussy," said she, talking English to it, "were you ever in love?" She kissed it softly and held it up to her fair cheek. "I wonder what it is like," she said to herself. "I wonder whether being in love is always like this! People who love always say they would die for each other. I am not sure whether I would die for Marcantonio. He is very good. Yes—of course—one's husband! Any woman would die for her husband. And yet—if the knife were very sharp and cold,—or the poison very dreadful to take,—I am not sure. Perhaps there might be some other way out of it, and one would not have to die after all."
Poor Leonora, she made herself think she loved him, and then she applied all kinds of tests to her love which it would not bear, being but a very thin and pitiful little ghost of a love.
"I really believe," she said at last, kissing the cat and half closing her eyes, "that there is not anything much in anything after all. Things are not much more real than the shadows in the cave that Plato talks about. Oh dear me! And then to have people think that one is clever! They have such an absurd idea about it,—Marcantonio, I mean. Of course it is the nicest thing in the world to be loved more than one deserves,—but, on the other hand, it is just as terrible a bore to have other people forever thinking you really worth more than you are. And then, to have him think that my little bit of knowledge is dangerous! As if so very little could help or hurt any one! I must know a great deal more before it can do me any good. I think I will read something hard to-day,—how pleasant it is to be alone!"
The last reflection came quite naturally, and she did not even pause and think about it, the sudden interest she anticipated in reading having chased away the dutifully affectionate ideas she made it her business to build up concerning her husband. With characteristic quickness of determination she rose, got herself a volume of Hegel's "Æsthetics," and buried her whole mind in the question of subjective and objective art.
To a woman—or a man either—who has not what is called an interest in life, all manner of things temporarily take the place which should be occupied by the leading, absorbing thought. The things that are but relaxations, amusements, or even unimportant bits of usefulness to the thoroughly busy woman, to a woman like Leonora become in turn objects of intense study and care, only to be cast aside and forgotten when the next day brings in a new era of speculation, weariness, or excitement. It is good to read many kinds of books, it is good to do many pleasant and agreeable things, but it is emphatically not good to think many kinds of thoughts. If a woman must change her opinions, it is well that the change should be gradual and the result of careful study and examination, instead of taking place according to the weather, the cut of a gown, or the conversation of a stray caller. Men change their minds as completely as women, but not so often, and above all not so quickly. To be unchangeable is the quality of the idiot; to change too easily belongs to children and lunatics; and the happy faculty of a sensible judgment permitting a change for the better and forbidding a change for the worse is the high privilege of the comparatively small class of humanity who are neither fools nor madmen.
With Leonora to live was to change, and to change often. Brimming over and exulting in strength of physical life, neither her mind nor her nerves could keep pace with her vitality, and the result was the inevitable one. After great excitement there was morbid reaction, and in the state of rest there was a restless, insatiable craving for motion. A strong man, ruthlessly ruling her by sheer superiority of massive power, would have brought out all that was best in her, and would have driven her to her very best weapons for defence. But her husband was quite another sort of person. His love for her was by far the best thing about him; save for that, he was not an interesting man. He was young and very tactless, though full of good impulses and gentle courtesy to her and to every one. But he wearied her with useless details, and made her doubt whether his affectionate manner meant love or mere good breeding. He had an entire incapacity for making any one believe that he was capable of great things. His sister knew how real was his goodness of heart and how generous he could be, and she knew also how much he loved his wife. But she had no power to put into him the passionate, burning romance which was precisely what Leonora most longed for; and Diana did not believe that such a woman as Leonora would long be satisfied with such a husband as Marcantonio.
Meanwhile the day wore on, and she read seriously, and had her midday breakfast in solitude and tried to read again. But by and by she nodded over her book and fell asleep in the humming heat of the summer's afternoon. As she slept she dreamed of a strong, black-browed man who kneeled there beside her in her own house, and who presently took her in his arms and bore her fast down the dark stairs and passages through the rocks to the sea, where a boat lay; and as he carried her his eyes gleamed like burning stars, and she felt that her own grew big and bright. And suddenly he would have leapt into the boat with her, but he stumbled and fell, and she heard the deep roar of the waters in her ears as they sank together.
She woke with a start. The white cat had climbed up and lay on her shoulder, purring with all its might. That was evidently where the sound of the sea came from. She laughed, a little startled at the dream and amused at its cause. It had been so strange—so—so wicked. She was shocked. How could her thoughts, of themselves unaided, have gone to such a subject! Besides, it was not the first time. She had dreamed of Julius Batiscombe before, and always of that strange look in his eyes, gleaming wildly with something she could not understand.
"It is dreadful!" she exclaimed, rising and going to the window.
She had slept long, for the sun was low, and when she looked at her watch it was six o'clock. She reflected that she had not been out all day, and that she wanted a walk. She wrapped something thin and dark over her white summer dress and left the house. The white kitten followed her to the door, mewing sorrowfully, and wistfully waving its little tail.