The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne | Page 8

hence--out of my sphere. I could commit an immortal folly for no
woman who ever made this planet more lustrous to its Bruderspharen.
I don't understand Judith. It doesn't very greatly matter. Many things I
don't understand, the spiritual attitude towards himself, for example, of
the intelligent juggler who expends his life's energies in balancing a cue
and three billiard-balls on the tip of his nose. But I know that Judith
understands me, and therein lies the advantage I gain from our intimacy.
She gauges, to an absurdly subtle degree, the depth of my affection.
She is really an incomparable woman. So many insist upon predilection
masquerading as consuming passion. There is nothing theatrical about
Judith.
Yet to-day she appeared a little touchy, moody, unsettled. She broke
another pleasant spell of fireside silence, that followed expiation of my
offence, by suddenly calling my name.
"Yes?" said I, inquiringly.
"I want to tell you something. Please promise me you won't be vexed."
"My dear Judith," said I, "my great and imperial namesake, in whose
meditations I have always found ineffable comfort, tells me this: 'If
anything external vexes you, take notice that it is not the thing which
disturbs you, but your notion about it, which notion you may dismiss at
once, if you please!' So I promise to dismiss all my notions of your
disturbing communication and not to be vexed."
"If there is one platitudinist I dislike more than another, it is Marcus
Aurelius," said Judith.

I laughed. It was very comfortable to sit before the fire, which protested,
in a fire's cheery, human way, against the depression of the murky
world outside, and to banter Judith.
"I can quite understand it," I said. "A man sucks in the consolations of
philosophy; a woman solaces herself with religion."
"I can do neither," she replied, changing her attitude with an
exaggerated shaking down of skirts. "If I could, I shouldn't want to go
away."
"Go away?" I echud.
"Yes. You mustn't be vexed with me. I haven't got a cook--"
"No one would have thought it, from the luncheon you gave me, my
dear."
The alcoholized domestic, by the way, was sent out, bag and baggage,
last evening, when she was sober enough to walk.
"And so it is a convenient opportunity," Judith continued, ignoring my
compliment--and rightly so; for as soon as it had been uttered, I was
struck by an uneasy conviction that she had herself disturbed the
French caterers in the Tottenham Court Road from their Sabbath repose
in order to provide me with food.
"I can shut up the flat without any fuss. I am never happy at the
beginning of a London season. I know I'm silly," she went on, hurriedly.
"If I could stand your dreadful Marcus Aurelius I might be wiser--I
don't mind the rest of the year; but in the season everybody is in
town--people I used to know and mix with --I meet them in the streets
and they cut me and it--hurts--and so I want to get away somewhere by
myself. When I get sick of solitude I'll come back."
One of her quick, graceful movements brought her to her knees by my
side. She caught my hand.

"For pity's sake, Marcus, say that you understand why it is."
I said, "I have been a blatant egoist all the afternoon, Judith. I didn't
guess. Of course I understand."
"If you didn't, it would be impossible for us."
"Have no doubt," said I, softly, and I kissed her hand.
I came into her life when she counted it as over and done with --at eight
and twenty--and was patiently undergoing premature interment in a
small pension in Rome. How long her patience would have lasted I
cannot say. If circumstances had been different, what would have
happened? is the most futile of speculations. What did happen was the
drifting together of us two bits of flotsam and our keeping together for
the simple reason that there were no forces urging us apart. She was
past all care for social sanctions, her sacred cap of good repute having
been flung over the windmills long before; and I, friendless unit in a
world of shadows, why should I have rejected the one warm hand that
was held out to me? As I said to her this afternoon, Why should the bon
Dieu disapprove? I pay him the compliment of presuming that he is a
broad-minded deity.
When my fortune came, she remarked, "I am glad I am not free. If I
were, you would want to marry me, and that would be fatal."
The divine, sound sense of the dear woman! Honour would compel the
offer. Its acceptance would bring disaster.
Marriage has two aspects. The one, a social contract, a quid of
protection, maintenance,