"Nothing in the life of either became them so well as the leaving it," said Mr. FitzJesse. "The crowning touch of poetry in Iseult's death redeems her errors. You remember how she was led half senseless to Tristan's death-chamber—lors l'embrasse de ses bras, tant comme elle peut, et gette ung souspir, et se pasme sur le corps, et le cueur lui part, et l'âme s'en va."
"If every woman who loses her lover could die like that," said Jessie, with a curious glance at Christabel, who sat listening smilingly to the conversation, with the Baron prostrate at her feet.
"Instead of making good her loss at the earliest opportunity, what a dreary place this world would be," murmured little Monty. "I think somebody in the poetic line has observed that nothing in Nature is constant, so it would be hard lines upon women if they were to be fettered for life by some early attachment that came to a bad end."
"Look at Juliet's constancy," said Miss St. Aubyn.
"Juliet was never put to the test," answered FitzJesse. "The whole course of her love affair was something less than a week. If that potion of hers had failed, and she had awakened safe and sound in her own bedchamber next morning, who knows that she would not have submitted to the force of circumstances, married County Paris, and lived happily with him ever after. There is only one perfect example of constancy in the whole realm of poetry, and that is the love of Paolo and Francesca, the love which even the pains of hell could not dissever."
"They weren't married, don't you know," lisped Monty. "They hadn't had the opportunity of getting tired of each other. And then, in the underworld, a lady would be glad to take up with somebody she had known on earth: just as in Australia one is delighted to fall in with a fellow one wouldn't care twopence for in Bond Street."
"I believe you are right," said Mr. FitzJesse, "and that constancy is only another name for convenience. Married people are constant to each other, as a rule, because there is such an infernal row when they fall out."
Lightly flew the moments in the balmy air, freshened by the salt sea, warmed by the glory of a meridian sun—lightly and happily for that wise majority of the revellers, whose philosophy is to get the most out of to-day's fair summer-time, and to leave future winters and possible calamities to Jove's discretion. Jessie watched the girl who had grown up by her side, whose every thought she had once known, and wondered if this beautiful artificial impersonation of society tones and society graces could be verily the same flesh and blood. What had made this wondrous transformation? Had Christabel's very soul undergone a change during that dismal period of apathy last winter? She had awakened from that catalepsy of despair a new woman—eager for frivolous pleasures—courting admiration—studious of effect: the very opposite of that high-souled and pure-minded girl whom Jessie had known and loved.
"It is the most awful moral wreck that was ever seen," thought Jessie; "but if my love can save her from deeper degradation she shall be saved."
Could she care for that showy impostor posed at her feet, gazing up at her with passionate eyes—hanging on her accents—openly worshipping her? She seemed to accept his idolatry, to sanction his insolence; and all her friends looked on, half scornful, half amused.