An Unsocial Socialist | Page 7

Henrietta, stamping on the carpet. "We had not
a word. I have not lost my temper since we were married, mamma; I
solemnly swear I have not. I will kill myself; there is no other way.
There's a curse on me. I am marked out to be miserable. He--"
"Tut, tut! What has happened, Henrietta? As you have been married
now nearly six weeks, you can hardly be surprised at a little tiff arising.
You are so excitable! You cannot expect the sky to be always cloudless.
Most likely you are to blame; for Sidney is far more reasonable than
you. Stop crying, and behave like a woman of sense, and I will go to
Sidney and make everything right."
"But he's gone, and I can't find out where. Oh, what shall I do?"
"What has happened?"
Henrietta writhed with impatience. Then, forcing herself to tell her
story, she answered:
"We arranged on Monday that I should spend two days with Aunt
Judith instead of going with him to Birmingham to that horrid Trade
Congress. We parted on the best of terms. He couldn't have been more
affectionate. I will kill myself; I don't care about anything or anybody.
And when I came back on Wednesday he was gone, and there was this
letter." She produced a letter, and wept more bitterly than before.
"Let me see it."
Henrietta hesitated, but her mother took the letter from her, sat down
near the window, and composed herself to read without the least regard
to her daughter's vehement distress. The letter ran thus:
"Monday night.
"My Dearest: I am off--surfeited with endearment--to live my own life
and do my own work. I could only have prepared you for this by
coldness or neglect, which are wholly impossible to me when the spell
of your presence is upon me. I find that I must fly if I am to save

myself.
"I am afraid that I cannot give you satisfactory and intelligible reasons
for this step. You are a beautiful and luxurious creature: life is to you
full and complete only when it is a carnival of love. My case is just the
reverse. Before three soft speeches have escaped me I rebuke myself
for folly and insincerity. Before a caress has had time to cool, a
strenuous revulsion seizes me: I long to return to my old lonely ascetic
hermit life; to my dry books; my Socialist propagandism; my voyage of
discovery through the wilderness of thought. I married in an insane fit
of belief that I had a share of the natural affection which carries other
men through lifetimes of matrimony. Already I am undeceived. You
are to me the loveliest woman in the world. Well, for five weeks I have
walked and tallied and dallied with the loveliest woman in the world,
and the upshot is that I am flying from her, and am for a hermit's cave
until I die. Love cannot keep possession of me: all my strongest powers
rise up against it and will not endure it. Forgive me for writing
nonsense that you won't understand, and do not think too hardly of me.
I have been as good to you as my selfish nature allowed. Do not seek to
disturb me in the obscurity which I desire and deserve. My solicitor
will call on your father to arrange business matters, and you shall be as
happy as wealth and liberty can make you. We shall meet again--some
day.
"Adieu, my last love,
"Sidney Trefusis."
"Well?" cried Mrs. Trefusis, observing through her tears that her
mother had read the letter and was contemplating it in a daze.
"Well, certainly!" said Mrs. Jansenius, with emphasis. "Do you think he
is quite sane, Henrietta? Or have you been plaguing him for too much
attention? Men are not willing to give up their whole existence to their
wives, even during the honeymoon."
"He pretended that he was never happy out of my presence," sobbed
Henrietta. "There never was anything so cruel. I often wanted to be by

myself for a change, but I was afraid to hurt his feelings by saying so.
And now he has no feelings. But he must come back to me. Mustn't he,
mamma?"
"He ought to. I suppose he has not gone away with anyone?"
Henrietta sprang up, her cheeks vivid scarlet. "If I thought that I would
pursue him to the end of the earth, and murder her. But no; he is not
like anybody else. He hates me! Everybody hates me! You don't care
whether I am deserted or not, nor papa, nor anyone in this house."
Mrs. Jansenius, still indifferent to her daughter's agitation, considered a
moment, and then said placidly:
"You can do nothing until we hear from the solicitor. In the meantime