In this house Marian Willis lived. He sat and recollected all his intercourse with her, from the first pleasant dawn of friendly regard and sympathy, growing up to something brighter and closer, yet scarcely defined, to its sudden extinguishment. [pg 628] His acquaintance with her had been like a day that breaks in silent and cloudless light, and is shut in by a cold and smothering fog before its noon. What had been expressed to her of all that sweetness he found in her society? What to him of the pleasure she seemed to feel in his? Nothing that had other utterance than silent looks and actions. What had separated them? A mist, a fog, an impalpable yet irresistible power. Some tiny wedge had been inserted that gave a chance for pride to rush in and thrust their lives apart. There had been a slight reserve that grew to coldness and thence to alienation. Who does not know how those many littles make a mickle? Possibly a certain gallant officer, just home from the wars, with his arm in a sling, and a sabre-scar across his temple, had had something to do with the trouble. Certainly the last mental picture Mr. Bently had carried away from his last visit at Mr. Willis' was of this same officer walking in the garden with Marian Willis leaning on his sound arm, and listening to the tale of his adventures as women always do and always will listen to soldiers who bring their wounds to illustrate their stories.
On that occasion, Mr. Bently had returned to his cousin's house and behaved in what he considered a very reasonable manner. He locked himself into his chamber, let in all the light possible, placed himself before the mirror, and critically examined the reflection he saw there. There was no glorious sabre-wound across his temple, showing where he had once wrestled with death, and come off conqueror; but, instead, there were long, faint, horizontal lines beginning to show on his forehead—mementoes of the silent combat with time, and of anxious quest in search of hidden truth. There were no crisp, fair curls shining over his head; the brown hair was straight and short, and here and there a white hair rewarded the search for it. The soldier's large violet eyes flashed like jewels; but these eyes in the mirror were no brighter than wintry skies, a calm, steady blue that a planet might look through, perhaps, but that were not used to lightning. The soldier was clad in a trim uniform that set off well a form of manly grace, the stripe that glimmered down the leg, the band, like a lady's bracelet, that bound the sleeve, the golden eagle outspread on either shoulder, all helping to make a gallant picture; the raiment reflected with pitiless fidelity by the mirror before him was decidedly neutral. No one could call it picturesque nor even elegant of its kind. It was simply calculated to escape censure.
Having made a full survey and, as he thought, a fair comparison, this self-elected judge then pronounced sentence on the person whose reflection he gazed at.
“You are a fool!” he said, with a conviction too deep for bitterness. “What is there in you that a fair and charming woman could prefer? Bah! She prizes you as she does those vellum Platos and Homers that she admires because others do, but cannot read a word of. When she sinks into her arm-chair for that hour of rest before dressing for dinner, does she take with her a book of Greek or of logic? No; she reads the poet or the novelist. You have nothing to do with her more intimate life.”
Thus had the scholar decided, gazing at his own reflection in the mirror, seeing there only the shell of the man, and that not at its best, at its worst rather. The kindling of intelligence, the scintillating of sharp intellectual pursuit, the soft radiance which dawning love gave him when [pg 629] he was shone upon by the beloved object—those he saw not. He saw only a fool.
So far, so good. But he had not finished the work. A fool may be miserable, may be ruined by his folly, even while owning it. He must not only prove the vanity of hoping, but the vanity of loving. He must remove the halo from his idol's brow, not rudely, but with all the coolness and gentleness of reason. What, after all, were beauty and grace, a sweet voice and smile, and gracious speaking? He set himself to analyze them, physiologically, chemically, and morally.
So the botanist analyzes a flower, and when he has destroyed its ravishing perfume, and that exquisite combination which constituted its individuality—a combination man can separate, but which only God can form—he points to the fragments, and says, “That is a rose!”
But suppose that, even while he speaks, those withering atoms should stir and brighten, the anthers should gather again their golden pollen, and hang themselves once more on each slender filament, the petals blush anew, and rustle into fragrant crowding circles, and a most rosy rose should rise triumphantly before him!
Some such experience had Mr. Bently when he had finished his work of demolition. Turning coldly away from the ruins of what had been so fair, he walked to the window to take breath, and saw there before him the living woman complete, her soul welding with immortal fire every characteristic and mood into a being irresistibly lovely, baffling, and—disdainful. She stood in the garden where Mrs. Clay had purposely detained her beneath his window, and she stood there unwillingly. Only a social necessity had brought her to the house, and she had determined that she would not, if it could be helped, meet that gentleman who, from being a daily visitor of her own, had suffered three days to pass during which he had once or twice talked with her uncle over the gate, but had never approached her.
Since that hour when, looking from his window, he had seen her sail past without raising her eyes, Mr. Bently had been haunted at times by two antagonistic visions—the rose dissected, which he viewed with indifference, succeeded by the rose full-blown, triumphant in unassailable sweetness.