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Page 19
After tea he went by himself to nurse these wretched thoughts, and
although the sight of Ida had suggested them, he went on to think of
himself, and soon became so absorbed in his own misery that he quite
forgot about her, and, failing to rejoin the girls that evening, Ida had
to go home alone, which was a great disappointment to her. But it was,
perhaps, quite as well, on the whole, for both of them that he was not
thrown with her again that evening.
It is never fair to take for granted that the greatness of a sorrow or a
loss is a just measure of the fault of the one who causes it. Madeline
was not willingly cruel. She felt sorry in a way for Henry whenever his
set lips and haggard face came under her view, but sorry in a dim and
distant way, as one going on a far and joyous journey is sorry for the
former associates he leaves behind, associates whose faces already, ere
he goes, begin to grow faded and indistinct. At the wooing of Cordis her
heart had awaked, and in the high, new joy of loving, she scorned the
tame delight of being loved, which, until then, had been her only idea of
the passion.
Henry presently discovered that, to stay in the village a looker-on while
the love affair of Madeline and Cordis progressed to its consummation,
was going to be too much for him. Instead of his getting used to the
situation, it seemed to grow daily more insufferable. Every evening the
thought that they were together made him feverish and restless till
toward midnight, when, with the reflection that Cordis had surely by that
time left her, came a possibility of sleep.
And yet, all this time he was not conscious of any special hate toward
that young man.. If he had been in his power he would probably have left
him unharmed. He could not, indeed, have raised his hand against anything
which Madeline cared for. However great his animosity had been, that fact
would have made his rival taboo to him. That Madeline had turned away
from him was the great matter. Whither she was turned was of subordinate
importance. His trouble was that she loved Cordis, not that Cordis loved
her. It is only low and narrow natures which can find vent for their love
disappointments in rage against their successors. In the strictest,
truest sense, indeed, although it is certainly a hard saying, there is no
room in a clear mind for such a feeling of jealousy. For the way in which
every two hearts approach each other is necessarily a peculiar
combination of individualities, never before and never after exactly
duplicated in human experience. So that, if we can conceive of a woman
truly loving several lovers, whether successively or simultaneously, they
would not be rivals, for the manner of her love for each, and the manner
of each one's love for her, is peculiar and single, even as if they two
were alone in the world. The higher the mental grade of the persons
concerned, the wider their sympathies, and the more delicate their
perceptions, the more true is this.
Henry had been recently offered a very good position in an arms
manufactory in Boston, and, having made up his mind to leave the village,
he wrote to accept it, and promptly followed his letter, having first
pledged his sole Newville correspondent, Laura, to make no references to
Madeline in her letters.
"If they should be married," he was particular to say, "don't tell me
about it till some time afterward."
Perhaps he worked the better in his new place because he was unhappy. The
foe of good work is too easy self-complacency, too ready self-satisfaction,
and the tendency to a pleased and relaxed contemplation of life and one's
surroundings, growing out of a well-to-do state. Such a smarting sense of
defeat, of endless aching loss as filled his mind at this time, was a
most exacting background for his daily achievements in business and
money-making to show up against. He had lost that power of enjoying rest
which is at once the reward and limitation of human endeavour. Work was
his nepenthe, and the difference between poor, superficial work and the
best, most absorbing, was simply that between a weaker and a stronger
opiate. He prospered in his affairs, was promoted to a position of
responsibility with a good salary, and, moreover, was able to dispose of
a patent in gun-barrels at a handsome price.
With the hope of distracting his mind from morbid brooding over what was
past helping, he went into society, and endeavoured to interest himself
in young ladies. But in these efforts his success was indifferent.
Whenever he began to flatter himself that he was gaining a philosophical
calm, the glimpse of some face on the street that reminded him of
Madeline's, an accent of a voice that recalled hers, the sight of her in
a dream, brought back in a moment the old thrall and the old bitterness
with undiminished strength.
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