Perfection. The word started her off on another train of thought. How was this perfection of strength, character, mind, and poise to be attained? To stand alone without aid from man or woman was neither a means nor an end. She had none of the common need of religion. It could play little or no part in her development. Nor could happiness be found merely in perfecting self toward a standard which must inevitably deteriorate into self-righteousness. To stand alone is the most magnificent ideal of the human character, but that strength must be used toward some end beyond self. She groped along and began to see clearly. She must work for the race. She must regard herself as a chosen instrument of usefulness, as, indeed, all exceptionally gifted people were. And for this she was peculiarly equipped, not only by nature, but by life. Had she not married at all, or at the most, casually, her woman’s nature would have protested against any such program, demanded its rights first; but these sources of disturbances were choked with hideous weeds, and Julia was unable to conceive that the weeds might rot in time and the waters rise refreshed. She felt that she was fortunately accoutred, and she longed for her opportunities.
What they might be she had no inkling as yet, nor was she conscious of love for her kind, and a desire to be useful to it on general principles. Her ambition, if ambition it could be called, was centred in her brain. If she had been chosen for a work, she would perform it. What else, in fact, was there for her to do? It had not needed Bridgit and Ishbel to teach her contempt for the morbid type of female that exaggerates sex until it becomes a disease, the women that play with their nerves until they have become mere neurotic systems without either sex or brains, and that exhibit egos either in private or public whose swollen deformities cause a momentary thrill and a prolonged disgust. Abnormal without individuality. It was an ideal carefully avoided by all the sane strong women Julia had met.
For the present, she could only wait and endure. She could not even go out and study the great problems of life, those problems she had chosen to ignore. But there is hardly any greater test of strength than passive endurance; and the time of her liberation could not be far off. The day Ishbel married Lord Dark she should leave France and look for work in London.
Nigel’s fate was settled before the rising of the sun. Far away on what to Europeans seem the confines of civilization, in other words, San Francisco, a youth was growing to masterful manhood, who, in due course, would avenge him, and, incidentally, much else. But of that poor Nigel could know nothing, nor would he have felt consoled had he foreseen; when he received Julia’s letter, whose finality was as convincing as a black midnight without stars, he wished that he had left his wretched heart and bones in South Africa, retired to the country with his broken father, and began another book. There was still the Nöbel Peace Prize to work for, and he felt peculiarly fitted to win it. It may be stated here that he did, and all England (of his class, and one or two strata just below) was astonished that an Englishman should have competed for a prize that involved a damnifying of war. It deeply disapproved.
XI
The hunting season closed. France still rode for several hours every day, but it was patent that his restlessness was increasing. When he was not riding, he was walking, and he walked more than half the night about the house and grounds. Oddly enough, however, the serenity of his mien was unruffled, and Julia came upon him several times standing before a long mirror in one of the halls, his head so high that the muscles of his neck creaked, his eyes flashing with a pride and triumph no harassed king ever felt on his coronation morn. As a rule, he left the table the moment the meal was over, preferring to take his coffee alone out of doors or in the library, but one day Julia, who was beginning to take a certain scientific interest in his developments, arrested his attention as he was about to rise.
“Didn’t you tell me once that Kingsborough and the little chap were delicate? I heard the other day that both are remarkably fit. The little boy always has been, and the duke gets stronger every day.”
She looked at him ingenuously as she spoke, quite prepared for an outburst of rage, but he only bestowed upon her a smile of withering contempt.
“They are merely indulging in what the Americans call ‘bluff.’ I happen to know that they are both full of disease and cannot last the year out. I shall be Duke of Kingsborough before Christmas.”
“How nice. That is the reason, I suppose, you don’t mind all these duns. We may be sold out any day, you know. Summonses are becoming as thick as rain, and I am told that not a man in the stables or kennels has been paid —”