The next afternoon Cryder came again. Hermia received him this time in the hall which, with its Gothic roof, its pictured windows, its walls ribbed and dark, and its organ, looked like a cathedral. As she came down the broad staircase, in a gown that made her look as if she had stepped from some old French canvas, Cryder stood gazing at her for a moment, then without a word sat down before the organ and began to play. The organ needs only a skillful hand; its own rich, sonorous tones pour soul through cold, calm fingers. Cryder played Tristan’s Death Song, and Hermia sank into a chair and felt that naught existed but glory of color and surge of sound.
Cryder played but a short time—he never did anything too long—then went over and sat beside her. He made her talk about herself, and managed to extract much of her past. He learned nothing, however, of her former lack of beauty. Then he entertained her brilliantly for an hour with accounts of celebrated people he had met.
After he had gone she felt a vague sense of disappointment; he had not touched upon co-personal topics for a moment. The sense of disappointment grew and deepened, and then she gave a sudden start and smiled. She could not feel disappointment were she not deeply interested. Was this the suffering, the restlessness, which were said to be a part of love? Surely! She was pained that he could talk lightly upon indifferent subjects, and apparently quite forget the sympathy which existed between them. The pain and the chagrin might not be very acute, but they were forewarnings of intenser suffering to come. Of course she wanted to suffer. All women do until the suffering comes. After that they do not go out of their way to look for it.
She went up-stairs and sat down before the fire in her boudoir. It was very delightful to fall in love with a man as mentally agreeable as Cryder. He would always entertain her. She would never be bored! The intervals between love-making would never drag; she had heard that they were sometimes trying. And then the pictures between those framing intervals—when the fierce, hot tide of passion within her would leap like a tidal wave, lashed into might by the convulsion at its heart. And Cryder! To see the tiger in the man fling off its shackles and look through the calm brown of his eyes! (Like all girls, Hermia believed that every man had a tiger chained up inside him, no matter how cold he might be exteriorly.) What a triumph to break down that cool self-control!
Her maid brought her a cup of tea and she drank it; then, resting her elbows on her knees leaned her chin on her locked fingers. There were some things she did not like about Cryder. He lacked literary conscience, and she doubted if he had much of any sort. Her high ideals still clung to her; but perhaps this was her mission in life—to remold Cryder. A man is always much under the influence of the woman who gives him his happiness; she would have a grand opportunity to make him better. When the end came, as of course it would—she was no longer such a fool as to imagine that love lasted forever—he should have much to thank her for.
When a woman thinks she loves a man, she dreams of making him better. When she really loves him, she would have him share his virtues with the saints. She loves his faults and encourages them; she glories in the thought that his personality is strong enough to make her indifferent to defects. This lesson, however, Hermia had yet to learn; but she was pleased with the idea of putting the spirituality of which Cryder had accused her to some practical use. She had not a very clear idea what spirituality meant, but she thought she was learning.
CHAPTER XVI.
A LITERARY DINNER.
A few weeks later Hermia gave a dinner to Cryder. The other guests were Mr. Overton, Mr. Simms, Alan Emmet, a young author who combined the literary and the sensational in a manner which gave him much notoriety, Mr. Langley, Cryder’s publisher, and Ralph Embury, a noted young journalist. Helen Simms was there to chatter serious thought to ambush, and Miss Starbruck, primly alert, and waiting to be shocked.