“As a photographic plate,” replied the doctor, emphatically.
Armstrong was silent for some moments.
“It is an interesting phase, as you say,” he remarked, at length. “I think I may try the experiment, after all.”
“The chances will be against you; but I imagine you have been pretty well informed of what has happened. Don’t try to think too hard. It will be all the better for you to give your brain a little rest; it has had a hard shaking-up.”
So this was the solution of the mystery for which he had sought so long! Armstrong found himself in a curious position after the doctor took his departure, leaving behind him a new knowledge of affairs which, six hours before, his patient would have considered absolutely preposterous. Helen was right, and had been right from the beginning. His one consolation was removed, and in its place was a complication which seemed past straightening out. To the blame which Armstrong had already taken to himself on Helen’s account, he must now add the responsibility of having inspired this sentiment in Inez’ heart, which meant unhappiness to all. Even though this had been done unconsciously, he told himself, it was no less culpable in that he had not himself discovered the situation and checked it before any serious harm had been done. Helen had seen it, the contessa had seen it, and he wondered how many others. He had been blind in this, criminally blind, and now he must pay the penalty.
But this penalty could not be borne by him alone—he could see that clearly. Helen and Inez were both hopelessly involved. And what a woman his wife had shown herself to be! Knowing of this affection on the part of Inez, she had suffered them to continue together in order that his work might not be disturbed. She had told him just how matters stood—not with recriminations, but with loving solicitude, offering to sacrifice herself, if necessary, to secure his happiness, drinking her cup of sorrow to the dregs, and alone! It was plain enough to him now. He thought of Helen as she was when they first came to Florence, and compared her with the Helen of to-day. He had brought about that change; he alone was responsible for it. She had craved the present, with its sunshine, its birds, its happiness, and instead of all this he had filled it for her with nothing but sorrow and suffering! He merited the scoring Emory gave him, even though the denunciation had gone too far.
As the bandage fell from his eyes, the character which he had assumed during these past months stood out clearly before him, shorn of its academic halo, and pitiful in its unfulfilled ideals. He had sought to join that company of humanists who had awakened the world to the joy and beauty of intellectual attainment. He had believed himself worthy of this honor, in that he believed he had understood and sympathized with their underlying motives. So he had in principle, but how wofully he had failed in his efforts to carry them out! Instead of assimilating the happy youthfulness of the Greek, together with the Grecian harmony of existence, he had developed his morbid self-centering and self-consciousness. His blind, unreasoning devotion to his single interest had resulted in folly and fanaticism. He had overlooked the cardinal element in the humanistic creed that knowledge without love meant death and isolation. Instead of singling out and joining together the beauties for which humanism stood, he had embraced and emphasized its limitations.
“I am an impostor!” Armstrong exclaimed, no longer able to endure his mental lashing in silence—“an arrant impostor! I have set myself up as a modern apostle, I have written platitudes upon intellectual supremacy and the religion of knowledge, when the one single personal attribute to which I can justly lay claim is insufferable academic arrogance. I have seized a half-truth and fortified it with fact; and in accomplishing this stupendous piece of fatuous nonsense I have stultified myself and destroyed the happiness of all!”