“What is truth?” asked Pilate, but to this perplexing question received no answer, not even from the Divine Man, who was best able to give a satisfactory reply. In the same way we may ask, “What is love?” and receive many answers, not one of which will be correct. The reason is simply, no one knows what love is, though every one has felt it. The commonest things are generally the most perplexing, and surely love is common enough, seeing it is the thing upon which the welfare, the pleasure, nay, the continuity, of the human race depends. Yet no one can define this every-day passion, because it is undefinable. “’Tis the mutual feeling which draws man and maid together.” True, but that may be affection, which is a lesser passion than love. “’Tis the admiration of a man or a woman for each other’s beauty.” Nay, that is but sensuality. “’Tis the longing of two people of the opposite sexes to dwell together all their life.” Why, that is only companionship. Affection, sensuality, companionship, all three very pleasant, very comforting, but Love is greater than such a trinity. He may not give pleasure, he may not bring comfort, but, on the contrary, may make those to whose hearts he comes very unhappy. Love is no mischievous urchin, who plays with his arrows; no, he is a great and terrible divinity, who comes to every mortal but once in life. We desire him, we name him, we delight in him; but we know not what he is, where he comes from, or when he will leave us.
These reflections were suggested to Maurice by the extraordinary feelings with which this dream-face of Helena inspired him. Never before had he felt the sensation of love—not affection, not admiration, not desire, but strong, passionate love, which pervaded his whole being, yet which he could not describe. He had not seen this woman in the flesh, he was hardly certain if she existed, for all the evidences he had to assure him that there was such a being were the portrait and the name, yet he felt, by some subtle, indescribable instinct, that this was the one woman in the world for him. Maurice, who had hitherto doubted the existence of love, was now being punished for such scepticism and was as love-sick as ever was some green lad fascinated by a pretty face. “He jests at scars who never felt a wound;” but Maurice did not jest at scars now, for the arrow of Cupid, shot from some viewless height, had made a wound in his heart which would heal not till he died; or, even granting it would heal, would leave a scar to be seen of all men.
It was the old story of Ixion over again. Here was a man embracing a cloudy phantom of his own imagination, for, granting that this beautiful face belonged to a real woman, Maurice knew nothing about her, yet dowered her with all the exquisite perfections of feminality. He dreamed she would be loving, tender, and womanly, yet, for aught he knew, the owner of that lovely face might be a very Penthesilea for daring and masculine emulation. But no; he could not believe that she would unsex herself by taking upon her nature the rival attributes of manly strength, for the whole face breathed nothing but feminine delicacy. That broad white brow, above which the hair was smoothed in the antique fashion; those grave, earnest eyes, so full of sympathy and purity; that beautifully shaped mouth, like a scarlet flower, speaking of reticence and womanly shrinking. No; he was quite sure that she was an ideal woman, so therefore worshipped her—unseen, unheard—with all the chivalrous affection of a mediæval knight.
Day and night that faultless face haunted his brain like some perfect poem, and, waking or sleeping, he seemed to hear her voice, full and rich as an organ-note, calling on him to seek her in that Island of Fantasy whereof the Greek had spoken. Was she indeed some fairy princess, detained in an enchanted castle against her will? was this mysterious Justinian, whose personality seemed so vague, indeed her jailer, guarding her as the dragon did the golden fruit of the Hesperides? and was Caliphronas a messenger sent to tell him of the reward awaiting him should he take upon him vows of releasing her from such thraldom, and accomplish his quest successfully? Curious how the classic legends and the mediæval romances mixed together in his brain, yet one and all, however diverse in thought, pointed ever to that beautiful woman dwelling in an enchanted island sea-encircled by the murmurous waves of the blue Ægean.
True, he had fallen in love, and thus regained in one instant the interest in life which he had lost erstwhile; but the object of his adoration seemed so far away, her personality, about which he could only obscurely conjecture, was so lost in dream-mists, that the cure of his melancholia seemed worse than the disease itself. He again became sad and absent-minded, grieving—not, as formerly, for a vague abstraction, for something, he knew not what—but for an actual being, for an unfulfilled passion which seemed in itself as elusive a thing as had tormented him formerly. The indistinct phantom which had engendered melancholia had taken shape—the shape of a beautiful, smiling face, which mocked him with the promise of delight probably never destined to be fulfilled.
All his guests noticed this lapse into his former melancholy, but none of them guessed the reason save Caliphronas, who was beside himself with rage at the discovery. The stratagem with which he proposed to draw Maurice to Melnos had succeeded beyond his highest expectations, but he was very dissatisfied with his success, and began to wonder if Crispin was not right after all concerning the folly of presenting a possible rival to the woman he desired for himself. The woman was to be the reward of his success; he had made use of that woman’s pictured loveliness to achieve that success, and by so doing had complicated the simplicity of the affair by introducing a third element, that of a rival’s love, which might place an obstacle in the way of his receiving the reward. It was Mephistopheles showing Faust the phantom of Gretchen, and the same result of love for an unseen woman had ensued; but then, Mephistopheles was not enamoured of the loveliness he used as a bait to catch his victim, whereas Caliphronas was. However, it was too late now to alter the matter, for the Greek could see that Maurice had almost made up his mind to go in search of this new Helen of Troy, and if he succeeded in gaining her heart, circumstances might arise with which it would be difficult to grapple.
After all, when Caliphronas compared the Englishman’s every-day comeliness with his own glorious beauty, he felt that no woman would refuse him for such a commonplace individual as his possible rival. But, again, Caliphronas was aware that Helena valued the inward more than the outward man, in which case he suspected he had but little chance in coming off best. Pose as he might to the world, Caliphronas knew the degradation of his own soul, and when this was contrasted with the honest, proud, straightforward nature of Maurice Roylands, it could be easily seen which of them the woman would choose as best calculated to insure her happiness. Besides, the love which had been newly born in Maurice’s heart was a highly spiritual passion, with no touch of grossness, whereas the desires of Caliphronas were purely animal ones for physical beauty. In point of outward semblance, he would have been a fitter husband for the exquisite beauty of this woman, but as to a marriage of souls, which after all is the only true marriage, the one was as different from the other as is day from night.
Maurice said nothing to Crispin about the portrait, and though the latter guessed from his abstraction that Caliphronas had played his last card with that hidden loveliness, he made no remark, for the time was not yet ripe to unfold the past. If, however, Maurice went to Melnos, Crispin, as he had told Caliphronas, determined to accompany him, as much on his own account as on that of his friend. Truly this poet was a riddle, and so also was the Greek; but it is questionable if Maurice, with his open and above-board English life, was not a greater riddle than either of these mysterious men, seeing that his perplexity was a thing of the soul, vague and intangible, the solving of which meant the settling of his whole spiritual life; whereas the lighting of the darkness with which Caliphronas and Crispin chose to enshroud themselves was simply a question of material existence. The Parcæ held the three tangled skeins in their hands: Clotho now grasped the intricate threads; Lachesis was spinning the actions which were to lead to the unravelling of these riddles of spiritual and material things; and Atropos was waiting grimly with her fatal scissors to clip the life-thread of one of the three. But the question was, which? Ah, that was yet to be seen! for the middle Destiny was yet weaving woof and warp of words, actions, and desires, the outcome of which would determine the judgment of the Destroying Fate.
Of all this intrigue, in which he was soon to be involved, Roylands was quite ignorant, as he already had his plan of action sketched out. He would go to Melnos with Constantine Caliphronas, he would see this dream-woman in the flesh, and if she came up to his ideal, he would marry her, at whatever cost. Alas for the schemes of clever Mrs. Dengelton! they were all at an end, simply because a man had seen a pretty face, which he elevated into the regions of romance, and made attractive with strange mysteries of fanciful attributes. But Mrs. Dengelton did not know this, and, ignorance being bliss, still hinted to Maurice of matrimony, still threw him into the company of Eunice; while, as a checkmate to her plans, and to aid Crispin, Maurice still puzzled the good lady with hints of marriage one day, and neglect of Eunice the next. Eunice herself saw through it all, and was duly grateful to Maurice; so the only blind person was Mrs. Dengelton, who but perceived the delightful future which might be, not the disturbing present that was; if she had, her lamentations would have surpassed those of Jeremiah in bitterness and violence.
On such an important matter as going to the East in search of a mistress for Roylands Grange, Maurice felt naturally anxious to consult his old tutor, and accordingly one morning walked over to the Rectory, where he found Mr. Carriston as usual pottering about among his rose-trees. The hot sun of July blazed down on that garden of loveliness, and the sweet-smelling roses burned like constellations of red stars amid the cool green of their surrounding leaves.