She was even nobler in her confession of weakness than she had been in the strength and rush of her outburst. Again, for no reason that he could have explained, Cosimo felt a brute.... He paw this bright little creature, as the odious Dix had done? He sully a thing so radiant as their relation with—pawing?

Suddenly Cosimo found himself disliking Mr. Hamilton Dix more intensely than he had ever done before.

Amory, for her part—though she did not know whose—rather fancied that she had put a spoke into somebody’s wheel.

V
BOND AND FREE

The truth was, Amory presently began to tell herself, that Cosimo’s life was in danger of becoming rather an aimless sort of thing. Few people knew the perils of aimlessness so well as did Amory Towers. She knew them because for a time she had suffered them in her own thought and work. But that was all past now. She had begun to work again. The foundations of a real picture were being laid at last. This was the famous canvas, “Barrage,” that afterwards made her name. None knew better than Amory herself its shortcomings as mere painting, but she had learned in bitterness that issues greater than those of painting were at stake to-day. To-day or never was the time to do all the things that had never been done. Accordingly, her picture was partly a painting and partly a sociological symbol. It was, as far as it was at present designed, a medley in which, before a series of guarded cave-mouths and dropped portcullises and defended doors, women of the various stages of civilization were grouped with men. Now they were in the attitude of menials at their feet, or hewing their wood, or drawing their water; anon, set on high pedestals, before which men made mock reverences, they stood wreathed with roses from beneath which iron fetters peeped grimly forth; and later, in apotheosis, Womanhood herself walked by man’s side, equal, sworded, flashing and free. If something of a likeness to Amory herself was to be traced in all these figures, every artist who works in a single room knows how frequently, for lack of pence, he must use himself as a model. It was this picture, of which more later, that enabled Amory to see so clearly the peril that beset Cosimo.

Of course Amory recognized that Cosimo was not absolutely aimless as long as he had Amory’s own art to admire; but that was a narrow and selfish way of looking at it. Amory didn’t want Cosimo to admire her art for any personal glory she might get of it. She wanted him, not for herself, but for a Cause. In her picture he posed as the champion who had stricken the bonds from the belted and sworded and flashing and free young woman (who was quite frankly Amory herself), because that was the rôle she wished to see him in; but she knew how easy it would be (Cosimo was so good natured) for any designing and retrogressive young woman to get hold of him and to enlist his support for the forces of conservatism and the night. That (Amory’s pretty lips compressed and her eyes shone with a cold and opal-like fire) must not be. In order that it might not be, Amory had made use of Dorothy’s name; not that she really wanted him to marry Dorothy, but that even to marry Dorothy would be better than to marry somebody more benighted still. It was a mere ruse de guerre, justified by the larger issue. These things have to be done when the fiends of ignorance and the angels of knowledge contend. Amory called these fiends and angels the Anabolic and the Katabolic forces in human progress. It didn’t matter what you called them. Two principles always had contended and always would contend. It was a Law.

Therefore Amory wanted Cosimo on the side of the angels and victory. Ever so much more she wanted him on that side now that he was a man of some substance. For money is the sinews of Anabolic and Katabolic warfare also. Cosimo with his money and Amory with her new art—what might they not accomplish, working together? A whole Promised Land of endeavour lay shining before them. For Amory herself (for example) there were all the possibilities of symbolic painting—a style of painting which (actual draughtsmanship being admittedly her weak point) would suit her genius the more exactly for that very reason. Nobody can dismiss a symbol because it is badly drawn; any old drawing will do for a symbol. For the holy purposes of social regeneration the novelists thought any old writing good enough; and so it was. So it should be for Amory too. She had half a mind to let drawing go altogether. Then, with drawing out of the way, she saw her task. “Barrage” would be followed by a picture (perhaps a newer word than “picture” would be necessary to describe it) that would symbolize Labour Unrest; she was thinking it out in her spare moments already. Then there should be another, a slap in the face for Militarism. After that should come canvases dealing with Education, and Disestablishment, and the Triumph of Sentimental Government and the establishment of the New Matriarchy. Oh yes, Amory saw her task though twenty lifetimes lay before her....

And Cosimo? She could guide Cosimo too. No doubt at his own doors in Shropshire there lay wrongs to be righted—sites for village halls waiting to be built upon, libraries and communal kitchens and wash-houses to be founded, greens for morrice-games (Amory vetoed archery, as coming dangerously near to Militarism and the miniature rifle-range), societies for the study of folk-song, ethical societies, lectures on economics, bands for the exchange of foreign picture postcards (that the spirit of brotherhood among the enlightened of all nations might be fostered), and so on.... Oh, with Amory to direct him, there would be plenty for Cosimo, too, to do. And he had the money with which to do it.

And if Amory shrank from the cost to herself—the cost, namely, of conforming to the outworn institution of marriage—it was but for a moment. What was she, to attempt to stem the River of the Race? She must bear the burden cheerfully. And after all, with a little thought she ought to be able to ensure it that Cosimo as her husband should not be very different from Cosimo as he was now. By keeping his eyes constantly uplifted to the shining peaks of their joint duty, mere personal thoughts of self could be kept in their place. He would hardly want a wife when he possessed the heroine of a Feminist Crusade, she hardly a husband when she had an ally placed by his sex in the fortress that, whether by beleaguering or by assault, must be won. Yes, she would strive to bear even this. The glory of a campaign would supplant the private self-seeking of a courtship. They would mingle, not love-sick sighs, but the aspirations of their souls. No doubt when they were both old, and looked back, it would seem well worth the cost....