Her capacity for silent meditation, during which she would sit before her fire, gazing far, smiling at her thoughts, into the glowing coals, had never left her. But there was a slight difference to be noted. She could not think of Ingram—the past, the present, or any future Ingram—without contraction of the brows. Smooth-browed she thought of Morosine.
He interested her greatly; she was conscious of anxiety to learn his opinion, of a wave of warm feeling when she awaited it. She credited him with insight, had a notion, for instance, that she could discuss her own affairs without any preliminary apology. He took so much for granted—surely he would take her youth into full account. She had never said to him a word of herself as yet; but there had been times when she had felt near it—had seen herself rowing a boat, as it were, within range of a weir, been conscious of effort to keep a straight course, and of the fruitlessness of effort. There had been moments when she had been tempted to throw down her oars with a sigh—by no means of despair. Morosine seemed to her so extraordinarily reasonable, so ready, with well-known laws, to account for unheard of vagaries, that it would have been real luxury to her to find herself and her escapade the mere creatures of some such law. To be discovered normal: what a relief from strain!
Lady Maria, it seems, charged him with Oriental aptitudes. Sanchia gave that judgment careful attention, studied her friend in the light of it, weighed every word of his to her, watched him closely in company when he could not be aware of it. She decided against the opinion. His manners with women were his manners with men, those of urbane indifference to sex. To sex! To much more than that. He was, in fact, outwardly polite to the point of formality; but his attitude of mind towards the person he happened to be with seemed to her—when she examined it closely—to be sublimely insulting. No created thing, with the passions and affections common to his kind, ought to take up such a position with his fellow-creature—that which says, “I infer your existence from my sensations: apart from them, I cannot bring myself to believe in it.” She was aware that he must needs regard her from this stand-point, and the knowledge piqued her. If she did not exist for him, why did he seek her out? If she did, why did he pretend she did not? Or was Lady Maria right? Were his sensations awake, and had they fired his imagination, to carry her to Cythera, and keep her hidden there? These questions amused her, and she made no attempt to answer them. Amusement might cease that way: she indulged herself and left her questions open. One thing may be added. Morosine no longer reminded her of Senhouse. Quite otherwise—for of Senhouse just now she dared not think.
Her friend Bill Chevenix gave her no warnings. Even when she sounded for them, he gave none. “I like Alexis,” he said once. “He's not so original as he makes out, but there's enough to give him a relish. A handy chap, too, in a dozen ways—he'll model you in wax, or draw you in pastels, or sing about you on the guitar, or whistle you off on the piano; but he's not strong, isn't Alexis. The one thing he can do—no, there are two. He can ride anything, and he can use a revolver. I saw him empty the ten of hearts once: very pretty. I dare say, if he was put to it, he could use an iron to some purpose; but we don't stick each other here, so he'd be out of practice. I rather wish we did, you know. It's far more gentlemanly than laying for a chap outside his club with a hunting-crop, and getting summoned for assault at Vine Street. Not a bit more vicious, barring the Ten Commandments.”
“Prince Morosine doesn't believe in them,” Sanchia said. “He's vowed to abolish them.”
“So he may tell you, my dear. Don't you believe it. So long as they are good form they will be Alexis' form. He'd sooner die than covet his neighbour's wife.” She reserved this for consideration. Meantime, she saw more of Morosine than of any other man, and got through January very well by his help.
She particularly liked his company in galleries, because, though he never allowed himself raptures—of which she, too, was incapable—he was always seeking the roots of rapture. Sanchia had a fund of enthusiasm for art all the richer, perhaps, for being denied expression. It was comfortable to have that securely based.
“Do you ever consider,” he asked her once, when they stood before the great group of the Pediment, “why it is that these things are so beautiful; why, although they are bare of colour and all that stands for life to us in art, they are more than life? It's because they point to a state of being exquisitely conform to the laws of being. Such a perfect conformity soothes us into believing that while we witness it we are of it—ourselves conforming. These splendid creatures here, so superbly static—idle, you might say (only they wouldn't understand you), indulging their strength—are strong and able precisely because they have submitted themselves—-”
“Unlike the Poles?” She reminded him of their first conversation, and saw that he remembered it. He bowed to her.
“Let me finish. These existences, emanations, essences, what you will, are submiss, not to man, but to Nature. They are as passive as Earth herself, and as immune. They derive their strength from her. That's our only reasonable service.” Whether he intended it or not, the effect of this kind of talk was to make her view submission to the world's voice as a reasonable service.