“But wait,” she went on, sitting down, “let us be practical; you needn't go back to-night, I'll tell some one to fetch your things. And will you let me try and help you? I don't know whether I can; but may I try? Won't you stay a bit here with me? You would then have time to think over your plans; it would do no harm, at any rate. Or, if you would prefer living alone, would you let me help you? Sometimes it's easier to be indebted to strangers. Don't answer now, you know my offer is sincere, coming at this time; you can think it over.”
She left her place and met the servant at the door, to give her the order for the fetching of Janet's things. She came back and stood with her hands behind her, facing Janet, who looked up to her from her stool, adoring her as if she were a goddess.
“There's only one thing to do in life, to try and help those whom we can help; but it's very difficult to help you young people,” she said, drying her eyes; “you generally want something we cannot give you.”
“You comforted me more than I can say. I never dreamed of the possibility of such comfort as you're giving me.”
Still standing facing Janet, she suddenly began: “I knew a girl a long time ago; she was the most exquisite creature I've ever seen. She was lovely as only a Jewess can be lovely: by her side English beauties looked ridiculous, as if their features had been thrown together by mistake a few days ago; this girl's beauty was eternal, I don't know how else to describe her superiority. There was a harmony about her figure—not as we have pretty figures—but every movement seemed to be the expression of a magnificent nature. She had that strange look in her face which some Jews have, a something half humorous half pitiful about the eyebrows; it was so remarkable in a young girl, as if an endless experience of the world had been born in her—not that she was tired or blasé; she wasn't at all one of those young people who have seen the vanity of everything, she was full of enthusiasm, fascinatingly fresh; she was so capable and sensitive that nothing could be foreign or incomprehensible to her. I never saw anyone so unerring; I would have wagered the world that she could never be wrong in feeling. I never saw her misunderstand any one, except on purpose.”
Janet was rapt in attention, loving to hear this beauty's praises in the mouth of Lady Beamish. She kept her gaze fixed on the face, which now was turned towards her, now towards the fire.
"At the time I remember some man was writing in the paper about the inferiority of women, and as a proof he said quite truly that there were no women artists except actresses. He happened to mention one or two well-known living artists whom I knew personally; they weren't to be compared with this girl, and they would have been the first to say so themselves. She had no need to write her novels and symphonies; she lived them. One would have said a person most wonderfully fitted for life. Oh, I could go on praising her for ever; except once, I never fell so completely in love as I did with her. To see her dance and romp—I hadn't realised before how a great nature can show itself in everything a person does. It is a joy to think of her.
“One day she came to me, it was twenty years ago, I was a little over forty, she was just nineteen. She had fallen in love with a boy of her own age, and was in terrible difficulties with herself. I suppose it would have been more fitting if I'd given her advice; but I was so full of pity at the sight of this exquisite nature in torments that I could only try and comfort her and tell her above all things she mustn't be oppressed by any sense of her own wickedness; we all had difficulties of the same kind, and we couldn't expect to do more than just get along somehow as well as we could. I was angry with Fate that such a harmonious being had been made to jar with so heavy a strain. She had been free, and now she was to be confounded and brought to doubt. I don't think I can express it in words; but I feel as if I really understood why she killed herself a few days later. She had come among us, a wonder, ignoring the littlenesses of life, or else making them worthy by the spirit in which she treated them, and the first strain of this dragging ordinary affliction bewildered her. Whether a little more experience would have saved her, or whether it was a superior flash of insight which prompted her to end her life—at any rate it wasn't merely unreturned love which oppressed her.”
“And what was the man like?”
“He was quite a boy, and never knew she was in love with him; in fact I can't tell how far she did love him. The older I grow the more certain I feel that this actual love wasn't deep; but it was the sudden revelation of a whole mystery, a new set of difficulties, which confounded an understanding so far-reaching and superior. I remember her room distinctly; she was unlike most women in this respect, she had no desire to furnish her own room and be surrounded by pretty things of her own choice. She left the room just as it was when the family took the furnished house, with its very common ugly furniture, vile pictures on the walls, and things under glasses. She carried so much beauty with her, she didn't think her room worth troubling about. I always imagine that her room has never been entered or changed since her death: nothing stirs there, except in the summer a band of small flies dance their mazy quadrille at the centre of the ceiling. I remember how she used to lie on the sofa and wonder at them with her half-laughing, half-pathetic eyes.”