Joyce of the North Woods | Page 9

into the plain common days when a sense of self would control him, tempt him, lure, and perhaps, betray him. What then?
The realization of Joyce Birkdale's womanhood a time back had shaken him almost as much as it had the girl herself.
It had all been so peaceful, so elemental and satisfying before: that companionship with the little lonely, aspiring, neglected child. She was so responsive and joyous; so eager to learn, so childishly interested in the fairy tales of another sort of existence that he kept from decay by repeating to her. And then that sudden, upleaping flame in the purple-black eyes. The fierce rush of hot, live blood to the pale face. The grip of those small work-stained hands as they sought dumbly to stay the trembling until he had taken them into his firm control.
Well, confronted by the blinding flash, he had acted the man. That was good. He had not acted thoughtlessly, either. He had sent the quivering little thing away quietly, and with no sense of bitterness, until he had threshed the matter out. And then in the Long Meadow, he had set the girlish feet upon the trail he had blazed out for them during the nights of temptation and days of lonely self-abnegation.
It was a hard, stumbling way he had fixed upon. His heart yearned over the girl even as he urged her on. But Joyce was demanding her woman's rights. Demanding them none the less insistently, because she was unconscious of their nature. He knew, and he must go before her; but there was small choice of way.
When he had held her in his arms out there in the open, he had bidden her farewell with much the same feeling that one has who kisses the unconscious lips of a child, and leaves him to the doubtful issue of a necessary surgical operation.
But the victory over self was his, and Joyce was on Life's table. There was a sort of feverish comfort now in contemplating what might have been. Many a man--and he knew this only too well--would have put up a strong plea for the opposite course.
What was he resigning her to at the best? There was no conceit in the thought that, had he beckoned, Joyce would have leaped into the circle of his love and protection. Not in any low or self-seeking sense would the girl have responded--of that, too, he was aware; but as a lovely blossom caressed by favouring sun and light, forgetting the slime and darkness of its origin, she might have burst into a bloom of beauty.
Yes, beauty! Gaston fiercely thought. Instead--there was honour! His honour and hers, and the benediction of Society--if Society ever penetrated to the North Solitude.
Joyce would forget her soul vision, she would marry Jock Filmer--no; it was Jude Lauzoon who, for some unknown, girlish reason, she had preferred when she had been cast out from the circle of his, Gaston's protection.
Yes, she would marry Jude--and Jock might have made her laugh occasionally--Jude, never! She would live in cramped quarters, and have a family of children to drag her from her individual superiority to their everlasting demands upon her. Perhaps Jude would treat her, eventually, as other St. Ang�� husbands treated their wives. At that thought Gaston's throat contracted, but a memory of the girl's strange, uplifted dignity gave him heart to hope.
Again the reverse of the picture was turned toward him. He saw her flitting about his home--who was there to hold her back, or care that she had sought dishonour instead of honour?
He might have trained and guided that keen mind, and cultivated the delicate, innate taste. Yes; he might have created a rare personality, and brightened his own life at the same time--and the years and years would have stretched on, and nothing would have interrupted the pure passage of their lives until death had taken one or both. Gaston sat upright, and flung the pipe away. Suppose he should choose to--go back? Well, in that case it would have gone hard with Joyce. The soul he had awakened and glorified would have to be flung back into the hell from which its ignorance shielded it.
That was it. In giving the girl the best--yes, the best, in one sense--he must forego his own soul's good; forego the hope that he might some day choose to go back--and in that hope, lay Joyce's damnation.
Through dishonour--as men might have classified it--he might have lifted Joyce up, but to save her soul alive from the hope he reserved for himself--his open door--he must drive her back to squalor and even worse.
He had chosen for her and for himself. He had his hope; Joyce was to have her honour; and now, what next?
His renunciation had strengthened him. His good resolutions steadied him; in