Celibates

by George Moore

Then he wondered at the fate that had led him from his calm student life…. He had come to Thornby Place with the intention of founding a monastery; instead, he had fallen in love (the word shocked him), and he asked himself if he had ever thought of her more as a wife than as a sister; if he could have been her husband? He feared that he had adventured perilously near to a life of which he could nowise sustain or fulfil, to a life for which he knew he was nowise suited, and which might have lost him his soul.

He never could have married her—no, not when it came to the point. He thought of the wedding-breakfast, the cake, the speeches, the congratulations, and of the woman with whom he would have gone away, of the honeymoon, of the bridal chamber! He knew now that he could not have fulfilled the life of marriage. If those things had happened he would have had to tell her—ah! when it was too late—that he was mistaken, that he could not, in any real sense of the word, be her husband. They could not have lived together. They would have had to part. His life and hers would have been irretrievably ruined, and then? John remembered the story of Abelard and Heloise. A new Abelard —a new Heloise!

The romance of the idea interested him. Then returning suddenly to reality, he asked himself what had happened to Kitty—what was the cause of her madness? Something had occurred. Once again, as he remembered the blithe innocence of her smiling eyes when they parted on the hill, and he recalled with terror the trembling, forlorn, half- crazy girl that had sat opposite him in the drawing-room next day. He remembered the twitch of her lips, the averted eyes, and the look of mad fear that had crept over her face, her flight from him, her cries for help, and her desperate escape through the window. His thoughts paused, and then, like a bolt from the blue, a thought fell into his mind. 'No,' he cried, 'not that.' He tried to shake himself free from the thought; it was not to be shaken off. That was the explanation. It could only be that—ah! it was that, that, and nothing but that.

And as he viewed the delicate, elusive externality of the southern town, he remembered that he had kissed her—he had kissed her by force! 'My God! then the difference between us is only one of degree, and the vilest humanity claims kinship of instinct with me!' He clasped his hands across his eyes, and feeling himself on the brink of madness, he cried out to God to save him; and he longed to speak the words that would take him from the world. Life was not for him. He had learnt his lesson. Thornby Place should soon be Thornby Abbey, and in the divine consolation of religion John Norton hoped to find escape from the ignominy of life.

AGNES LAHENS.

I.

A grey, winter morning filtered through lace curtains into drawing- rooms typical of a fashionable London neighbourhood and a moderate income. There was neither excess of porcelain, nor of small tables, nor of screens. Two large vases hinted at some vulgarity of taste; a grand piano in the back room suggested a love of music, and Mrs. Lahens had but to sing a few notes to leave no doubt that she had bestowed much care on the cultivation of her voice. But method only disguised its cracks and thinness as powder and rouge did the fading and withering of her skin. She was like her voice.

Lord Chadwick stood behind her, following the music bar by bar, and with an interest and a pleasure that did not concord with his appearance. For there was nothing in his appearance to indicate that his intelligence was on a higher plane than that of the mess-room. His appearance seemed to fluctuate between the mess-room and the company promoter's office. He was a good-looking solicitor, he was a good- looking officer; the eyes were attractive; the nose was too large, but it was well-shaped; a heavy military moustache curled over his cheeks, and, as he stood nodding his head, delighted with the music, the seeming commonness of his appearance wore away.

Her song finished, Mrs. Lahens got up from the piano. She was tall and well-made; perhaps too full in the bosom, perhaps too wide in the hips, and perhaps the smallness of the waist was owing to her stays. Her figure suggested these questions. She wore a fashionable lilac blue silk, pleated over the bosom; and round her waist a chatelaine to which was attached a number of trinkets, a purse of gold net, a pencil case, some rings, a looking-glass, and small gold boxes jewelled— probably containing powder. Her hair was elaborately arranged, as if by the hairdresser, and she exhaled a faint odour of heliotrope as she crossed the room. She was still a handsome woman; she once had been beautiful, but too obviously beautiful to be really beautiful; there was nothing personal or distinguished in her face; it was made of too well-known shapes—the long, ordinary, clear-cut nose, and the eyes, forehead, cheeks, and chin proportioned according to the formula of the casts in vestibules. That she was slightly declassee was clear in the first glance. And she represented all that the word could be made to mean—liaisons, familiarity with fashionable restaurants, and the latest French literature.

Lord Chadwick saw that she was out of temper, and wondered what was the cause. He had not yet spoken to her; she was singing when he came into the room. So laying his hand on her shoulder, he said: