'The Way of Pleasure and the Way of Wealth. I remember—you told me long ago—they draw the young man by ropes. But not the girl. Why not the girl? I have never felt this strange yearning for riot and excess. In all the poetry, the novels, the pictures, and the plays the young men are always being dragged by ropes to the Way of Pleasure. Are men so different from women? What does it mean—this yearning? I cannot understand it. What is your Way of Pleasure that it should attract you so? Your poetry and your novels cannot explain it. I see feasting in the Way of Pleasure, drinking, singing, dancing, gambling, sitting up all night, and love-making. As for work, there is none. Why should the young man want to feast? It is like a City Alderman to be always thinking of banquets. Why should you want to drink wine perpetually? I suppose you do not actually get tipsy. If you can sing and like singing, you can sing over your work, I suppose. As for love-making'—she paused. The subject, where a young man and a maiden discuss it, has to be treated delicately.
'I have always supposed'—she added, with hesitation, for experience was lacking—'that two people fall in love when they are fitted for each other. But in this, your wonderful Way of Pleasure, the poets write as if every man was always wanting to make love to every woman if she is pleasant to look at, and without troubling whether she is good or bad, wise or silly. Oh! every woman! any woman! there is neither dignity of manhood nor self-respect nor respect to woman in this folly.'
'You cannot understand any of it, Armorel,' said Roland. 'We ought all of us to be flogged from Newgate to Tyburn.'
'That would not make me understand. Flora, Chloe, Daphne, Amaryllis—they are all the same to the poet. A pretty girl seems all that he cares for. Can that be love?'
'—And back again,' said Roland.
'Still I should not understand. In the poetry I think that love-making comes first, and eating and drinking afterwards. As for love-making,' she spoke philosophically, as one in search of truth, 'as for love-making, I believe I could wait contentedly without it until I found exactly the one man I could love. But that I should take a delight in writing or singing songs about making love to every man who was a handsome fellow—any man—every man—oh! can one conceive such a thing? There is but one Way of Pleasure to such as you, Roland. If I could paint so good a picture as this is going to be, it would be a life-long joy. I should never, never, never tire of it. I should want no other pleasure—nothing better—than to work day after day, to work and study, to watch and observe, to feel the mastery of hand and eye. Oh! Roland—with this before you—with this'—she pointed to the picture—'you sold your soul—you—you—you!—for feasting and drinking and—and—perhaps——'
'No, Armorel: no. Everything else if you like, but not love-making.'
CHAPTER XIII
THE DRAMATIST
If Mrs. Elstree was Armorel's official and authorised companion, her private unpaid companion was Effie Wilmot. The official companion was resident in the chambers, and was seen with her charge at the theatres and concerts. The private unpaid companion went about with her all day long, sat with her in her own room, knew what she thought, and talked with her of the things she loved to discuss. So that, though the representative of Order and Propriety had less to do, the unpaid attachée had a much more lively time. Fortunately, the official companion was best pleased when there was nothing to do. In those days, when London was as yet an unknown land to both of them, the girls went together to see things. Nobody knows what a great quantity of things there are to see in London when you once set yourself seriously to explore this great unknown continent. Captain Magalhaens himself, crossing the Pacific Ocean for the first time, did not experience a more interesting and exciting time than these two girls in their walks in and about the great town, new to both. They were as ravenous as American tourists beginning their European round. And, like them, they consulted their Baedeker, their Hare, and their Peter Cunningham. Pictures there are, all in the West-End; museums, with every kind of treasure; historic houses—alas! not many; libraries; art galleries of all kinds; cathedrals, churches, ancient and modern; old streets, whose paving-stones are inscribed in the closest print with the most wonderful recollections; old sites, broken fragments, even. Every morning the two girls wandered forth, sometimes not coming home until late in the afternoon. Then Effie went back to her lodging, and spent the evening working at her verses; while Armorel practised her violin, or read and dreamed away the time opposite her companion, who sat for the most part in silence, gazing into the firelight, lying back in her easy-chair beside the fire.