her saleable charms to the outside public by means of her monogram worked into the lace of all her window-blinds, thinking it no doubt good for trade! I am not quite so bad as that! You have paid dearly for me I know;—but remember I as yet wear no jewels but yours, and crave no gifts beyond those you are generous enough to bestow,—and my dutiful desire is to give you as much full value as I can for your money.”

“Sibyl, you kill me!” I cried, tortured beyond endurance, “Do you think me so base——”

I broke off with almost a sob of despair.

“You cannot help being base,” she said, steadily regarding me,—“because you are a man. I am base because I am a woman. If we believed in a God, either of us, we might discover some different way of life and love—who knows?—but neither you nor I have any remnant of faith in a Being whose existence all the scientists of the day are ever at work to disprove. We are persistently taught that we are animals and nothing more,—let us therefore not be ashamed of animalism. Animalism and atheism are approved by the scientists and applauded by the press,—and the clergy are powerless to enforce the faith they preach. Come Geoffrey, don’t stay mooning like a stricken Parsifal under those [p 311] pines,—throw away that thing which troubles you, your conscience,—throw it away as you have thrown the book I was lately reading, and consider this,—that most men of your type take pride and rejoice in being the prey of a bad woman!—so you should really congratulate yourself on having one for a wife!—one who is so broad-minded too, that she will always let you have your own way in everything you do, provided you let her have hers! It is the way all marriages are arranged nowadays,—at any rate in our set,—otherwise the tie would be impossible of endurance. Come!”

“We cannot live together on such an understanding, Sibyl!” I said hoarsely, as I walked slowly by her side towards the villa.

“Oh yes, we can!” she averred, a little malign smile playing round her lips—“We can do as others do,—there is no necessity for us to stand out from the rest like quixotic fools, and pose as models to other married people,—we should only be detested for our pains. It is surely better to be popular than virtuous,—virtue never pays! See, there is our interesting German waiter coming to inform us that dinner is ready; please don’t look so utterly miserable, for we have not quarrelled, and it would be foolish to let the servants think we have.”

I made no answer. We entered the house, and dined,—Sibyl keeping up a perfect fire of conversation, to which I replied in mere monosyllables,—and after dinner we went as usual to sit in the illuminated gardens of the adjacent hotel, and hear the band. Sibyl was known, and universally admired and flattered by many of the people staying there,——and, as she moved about among her acquaintances, chatting first with one group and then with another, I sat in moody silence, watching her with increasing wonderment and horror. Her beauty seemed to me like the beauty of the poison-flower, which, brilliant in colour and perfect in shape, exhales death to those who pluck it from its stem. And that night, when I held her in my arms, and felt her heart beating against my [p 312] own in the darkness, an awful dread arose in me,—a dread as to whether I might not at some time or other be tempted to strangle her as she lay on my breast——strangle her as one would strangle a vampire that sucked one’s blood and strength away!

[p 313]
XXVII

We concluded our wedding-tour rather sooner than we had at first intended, and returned to England and Willowsmere Court, about the middle of August. I had a vague notion stirring in me that gave me a sort of dim indefinable consolation, and it was this,—I meant to bring my wife and Mavis Clare together, believing that the gentle influence of the gracious and happy creature, who, like a contented bird in its nest, dwelt serene in the little domain so near my own, might have a softening and wholesome effect upon Sibyl’s pitiless love of analysis and scorn of all noble ideals. The heat in Warwickshire was at this time intense,—the roses were out in their full beauty, and the thick foliage of the branching oaks and elms in my grounds afforded grateful shade and repose to the tired body, while the tranquil loveliness of the woodland and meadow scenery, comforted and soothed the equally tired mind. After all, there is no country in the world so fair as England,—none so richly endowed with verdant forests and fragrant flowers,—none that can boast of sweeter nooks for seclusion and romance. In Italy, that land so over-praised by hysterical poseurs who foolishly deem it admirable to glorify any country save their own, the fields are arid and brown, and parched by the too fervent sun,—there are no shady lanes such as England can boast of in all her shires,—and the mania among Italians for ruthlessly cutting down their finest trees, has not only actually injured the climate, but has so spoilt the landscape that it is [p 314] difficult to believe at all in its once renowned, and still erroneously reported charm. Such a bower of beauty as Lily Cottage was in that sultry August, could never have been discovered in all the length and breadth of Italy. Mavis superintended the care of her gardens herself,—she had two gardeners, who under her directions, kept the grass and trees continually watered,—and nothing could be imagined more lovely than the picturesque old-fashioned house, covered with roses and tufts of jessamine that seemed to tie up the roof in festal knots and garlands, while around the building spread long reaches of deep emerald lawn, and bosky