Yes, Mamie was infatuated by Field; she had not sinned with a cool head simply to procure a guide up Parnassus. But she had hoped to pick a few laurels there all the same. She found herself in a little flat in the rue Tronchet. They had few visitors, and those who did come were men who talked a language that she did not understand, but who looked things that she understood only too well.
The remorse and humiliation that she felt was not leavened by any consciousness of advancing in her art. Field rather pooh-poohed her art, as the months went by after the decree nisi was pronounced. He still discussed his work with her—perhaps less as if she had been a sybil, but still with interest in her ideas. Her own work, however, bored him now. He had no intention of being cold, but the subject seemed puerile to his mind. If she did write a play that was produced one day, or if she didn't, what earthly consequence was it? She would never write a great one; and these panting aspirations which begot such mediocre results savoured to him of a storm in a teacup—of a furnace lit to boil the kettle.
He was rather sorry that he had run away with her, but he did not regret it particularly. Of course he would marry her as soon as he could—he owed her that; and, since he was not such a blackguard as to contemplate deserting her by-and-by, he might just as well marry her as not. The whole affair had been a folly certainly. He was not rich, and he was extravagant; he would have done better to remain as he was. Still many men envied him. He trusted fervently she would not have children, though! It didn't seem likely; but if she ever did, the error would be doubled. He did not want a son who had cause to be ashamed of his mother when he grew up.
It was curious that she did not refer more often to his legalising their union. Her position pained her, he could see, and made her very frequently a dull companion. That was the worst of these things! One paid for the step dearly enough to expect lively society in return, and yet, if one complained of mournfulness, one would be a brute. He would write a drama some time or other to show that it was really the man who was deserving of sympathy in such an alliance. It would be very original, as he would treat it. The lover should explain his situation to another woman whom he had learnt to love since, and—well, he didn't see how it should end:—with the dilemma repeated? And it didn't matter, after all, for nobody would have the courage to produce it!
He made these reflections in his study. In the salon—furnished in accordance with the tastes of the lady who had sub-let the flat to them for six months—Mamie stood staring down at the street. It was four o'clock, and, saving for half an hour at luncheon, she had not seen him since ten. For distraction she could make her choice among some Tauchnitz novels, her music, and a walk. Excepting that the room was tawdry and ill-ventilated, and that she had lost her reputation, it was not unlike her life in South Kensington.
In her pocket was a letter from her father—the most difficult letter that it had ever fallen to Dick Cheriton's lot to compose. Theoretically he thought social prejudices absurd—as became an artist to whom God had given his soul—and he had often insisted on their ineptitude. In the case of his own daughter, however, he would have preferred to see them treated with respect. There was a likeness to Lucas Field here. Field also dwelt on the hill-top, but he wanted his son, if he ever had one, to boast a stainless mother. Cheriton had not indited curses, like the fathers in melodrama, and the people who have "found religion"; only parents in melodrama, and some "Christians" who go to church twice every Sunday, are infamous enough to curse their children; he had told her that if she found herself forsaken, she was to cable for her passage-money back to Duluth. But that he was ashamed and broken by what she had done, he had not attempted to conceal; and as she stood there, gazing down on the rue Tronchet, Mamie was recalling the confession to which this was an answer. Phrases that she had used came back to her:—"I have done my best, but my love was too strong for me"; "Wicked as it may be to say it, I know that, even in my guilt, I shall always be happy. I met the right man too late, but I am so young—I could not suffer all my life without him. Forgive me if you can." Had she—it was a horrible thought—had she been mistaken? Had she blundered more terribly than when she married? For, unless her prophecies of joy to the brim were fulfilled—unless her measure of thanksgiving overflowed—the blunder was more terrible, infinitely more terrible: she was a gambler who had staked her soul, in her conviction of success.
The question was one that she had asked herself many times before, without daring to hear the answer; but that the answer was in her heart, though she shrank from acknowledging it, might be seen in her expression, in her every pose; it might be seen now, as she drooped by the window. She sighed, and sat down, and shivered. Yes, she knew it—she had thrown away the substance for the shadow; she could deceive herself no longer. Lucas Field was not so poetical a personality as she had imagined; guilt had no glamour; her devotion had been a flash in the pan—a madness that had burned itself out. She had no right to blame her lover for that; only, the prospect of marriage with him filled her with no elation; it inspired misgiving rather. If she had made a blunder, would it improve matters to perpetuate it? He was considerate to her, he spared her all the ignominy that was possible; but instinctively she was aware that, if they parted, he would never miss her as her husband had done. In his life she would never make a hole! She guessed the depth of Heriot's love better now that she had obtained a smaller one as plummet. Between the manner of the man who was not particularly sorry to have run away with her, and his whose pride she had been, the difference was tremendous to a woman whose position was calculated to develop her natural sensitiveness to the point of a disease.
Should she marry Lucas or not? Hitherto she had merely avoided the query; now she trembled before it. Expedience said, "Yes"; something within her said, "No." The decree would be made absolute in two months' time. What was to become of her if they separated? To Duluth she could never go, to be pointed at and despised! She sighed again.
"Bored, dear?" asked Field, in the doorway.
"I was thinking."