She was standing beside him, and in her voice there was, just for a moment, the sound that sometimes comes into a mother’s voice when she speaks to her little child in the dark.
At the moment when he knew he did not love the white angel she stood beside him.
And she thought that she was only a wretched woman.
CHAPTER XX
ROBIN had gone. He had gone, still protesting that Lady Holme was deceiving herself, protesting desperately, with the mistaken chivalry of one who was not only a gentleman to his finger-tips but who was also an almost fanatical lover of his own romance. After recovering from the first shock of his disillusion, and her strange reception of it, so different from anything he could have imagined possible in her, or indeed in any woman who had lived as she had, he had said everything that was passionate, everything that fitted in with his old protestations when she was beautiful. He had spoken, perhaps, even more to recall himself than to convince her, but he had not succeeded in either effort, and a strange, mingled sense of tragic sadness and immense relief invaded him as the width of waterway grew steadily larger between his boat and Casa Felice. He could have wept for her and for himself. He could even have wept for humanity. Yet he felt the comfort of one from whom an almost intolerable strain has just been removed. To a man of his calibre, sensitive, almost feminine in his subtlety, the situation had been exquisitely painful. He had felt what Viola was feeling as well as what he was feeling. He had struggled like a creature taken in a net. And how useless it had all been! He found himself horribly inferior to her. Her behaviour at this critical moment had proved to him that in his almost fantastic conception of her he had shown real insight. Then why had his heart betrayed his intellect? Why had his imagination proved true metal, his affection false? He asked himself these questions. He searched his own nature, as many a man has done in moments when he has found himself unworthy. And he was met by mystery, by the “It was impossible for me!” which stings the soul that would be strong. He remembered Carey’s words that night in Half Moon Street when Sir Donald had accompanied him home after the dinner in Cadogan Square. Sir Donald had gone. He and Carey were alone, and he had said that if one loves, one loves the kernel not the shell. And Carey had said, “I think if the shell is a beautiful shell, and becomes suddenly broken, it makes a devil of a lot of difference in what most people think of the kernel.” And when he—Robin—had replied, “It wouldn’t to me,” Carey had abruptly exclaimed, “I think it would.” After Carey had gone Robin remembered very well saying to himself that it was strange no man will believe you if you hint at the truth of your true self. That night he had not known his true self and Carey had known it. But then, had he loved the shell only? He could not believe it. He felt bewildered. Even now, as the boat crept onward through the falling darkness, he felt that he loved Viola, but as someone who had disappeared or who was dead. This woman whom he had just left was not Viola. And yet she was. When he was not looking at her and she spoke to him, the past seemed to take the form of the present. When she had worn the veil and had touched him all his pulses had leaped. But when she had touched him with those same hands after the veil had fallen, there had been frost in his veins. Nothing in his body had responded. The independence of the flesh appalled him. It had a mind of its own then. It chose and acted quite apart from the spirit which dwelt in it. It even defied that spirit. And the eyes? They had become almost a terror to him. He thought of them as a slave thinks of a cruel master. Were they to coerce his soul? Were they to force his heart from its allegiance? He had always been accustomed to think that the spirit was essentially the governing thing in man, that indestructible, fierce, beautiful flame which surely outlives death and time. But now he found himself thinking of the flesh, the corruptible part of man that mingles its dust with the earth, as dominant over the spirit. For the first time, and because of his impotence to force his body to feel as his spirit wished it to feel, he doubted if there were a future for the soul, if there were such a condition as immortality. He reached Villa d’Este in a condition of profound depression, almost bordering on despair.
Meanwhile Viola, standing by the garden wall, had watched the boat that carried Robin disappear on the water. Till it was only a speck she watched. It vanished. Evening came on. Still she stood there. She did not feel very sad. The strange, dreamlike sensation of the preceding day had returned to her, but with a larger vagueness that robbed it of some of its former poignancy. It seemed to her that she felt as a spirit might feel—detached. She remembered once seeing a man, who called himself an “illusionist,” displaying a woman’s figure suspended apparently in mid-air. He took a wand and passed it over, under, around the woman to show that she was unattached to anything, that she did not rest upon anything. Viola thought that she was like that woman. She was not embittered. She was not even crushed. Her impulse of pity, when she understood what Robin was feeling, had been absolutely genuine. It had rushed upon her. It remained with her. But now it was far less definite, and embraced not only Robin but surely other men whom she had never known or even seen. They could not help themselves. It was not their fault. They were made in a certain way. They were governed. It seemed to her that she looked out vaguely over a world of slaves, the serfs of God who have never been emancipated. She had no hope. But just then she had no fear. The past did not ebb from her, nor did the future steal towards her. The tides were stilled. The pulses of life were stopped. Everything was wrapped in a cold, grey calm. She had never been a very thoughtful woman. She had not had much time for thought. That is what she herself would probably have said. Seldom had she puzzled her head over the mysteries of existence. Even now, when she confronted the great mystery of her own, she did not think very definitely. Before Robin came her mind had been in a fever. Now that he was gone the fever had gone with him. Would it ever return? She did not ask or wonder.
The night fell and the servant came to summon her to dinner. She shook her head.
“The signora will not eat anything?”
“No, thank you.”