CHAPTER XXIII
It was, perhaps, some cosmic humour in the silent, beautiful starswhich planned that Nayan's visit should follow upon the very heels ofLady Gleeson's call. Those vast Intelligences who note the fall ofeven a feather, watching and guarding the Race so closely that theymay be said in human terms to love it, arranged the details possibly,enjoying the result with their careless, sunny laughter. At any rate,Dr. Fillery quickly sent her word, and she came. To lust "N. H." hadnot reacted. How would it be with love?
The beautiful girl entered the room slowly, shyly, as though, certainof herself, she was not quite certain what she was about to meet.Fillery had told her she could help, that she was needed; therefore shecame. There was no thought of self in her. Her first visit to JulianLeVallon after his behaviour in the Studio had no selfish motive init. Her self-confidence, however, went only to a certain point; inthe interview with Fillery she had easily controlled herself; she wasnot so sure that her self-control would be adequate now. Though calmoutwardly, an inexpressible turmoil surged within.
She remembered his strength, virility and admiration--as a woman; hisingenuous, childlike innocence, an odd appealing helplessness in itsomewhere, touched the mother in her. That she divined this latter was,perhaps, the secret of her power over men. Independent of all they hadto offer, she touched the highest in them by making them feel they hadneed of the highest in herself. She obtained thus, without desiringit, the influence that Lady Gleeson, her antithesis, lacked. Theycalled her Nayan the Impersonal. The impersonal in her, nevertheless,that which had withstood the cunning onslaught of every type of malesuccessfully, had received a fundamental shock. Both her modesty anddignity had been assailed, and in public. Others, women among them, hadwitnessed her apparent yielding to LeVallon's violence and seen hercarried in his arms; they had noted her obvious willingness, had heardher sympathetic cry. She knew quite well what the women thought--LadyGleeson had written a little note of sympathy--the men as well, and yetshe came at Fillery's call to visit, perhaps to help, the offender whohad caused it all.
As she opened the door every nerve she possessed was tingling. Themother in her yearned, but the woman in her sent the blood rushing fromher heart in pride, in resentment, in something of anger as well. Howhad he dared to seize her in that awful way? The outrage and the loveboth tore at her. Yet Nayan was not the kind to shirk self-revelationwhen it came. She brought some hidden secret with her, although as yetherself uncertain what that secret was.
Fillery met her on the threshold with his sweet tact and sympathyas usual. He had an authoritative and paternal air that helped andcomforted her, and, as she took his hand at once, the look she gave himwas more kind and tender than she knew. The last trace of self, at anyrate, went out of her as she felt his touch.
"Here I am," she said; "you sent for me. I promised you."
He replied in a low tone: "There's no need to refer to anything, ofcourse. Assume--I suggest--that he has forgotten all that happened, andyou--have forgotten too."
He was aware of nothing but her eyes. The softness, the delicateperfume, the perfect voice, even the fur and flowers--all were summedup in her eyes alone. In those eyes he could have lost himself perhapsfor ever.
He led her into the room, a certain abruptness in his manner.
"I shall leave you alone," he whispered, using his professional voice."It is best that he should see you quite alone. I shall not be faraway, but you will find him perfectly quiet. He understands that youare"--his tone changed upon the adjective--"sacred."
"Sacred," she murmured to herself, repeating the word, "sacred."
They smiled. And the door closed behind her. Across the room rose thetall figure of the man she had come to see, dressed in dark blue, a lowwhite shirt open at the neck, a blue tie that matched the strong, cleareyes, the wondrous hair crowning the whole like a flame. The slant ofwintry sunlight by chance just caught the great figure as it rose,lightly, easily, as though it floated up out of the floor before her.
And, as by magic, the last uncertainty in her disappeared; sheknew herself akin to this radiant shape of blue and gold; knewalso--mysteriously--in a way entirely beyond her to explain--knew whyEdward Fillery was dear to her. Was it that something in the three ofthem pertained to a common origin? The conviction, half thought, halffeeling, rose in her as she looked into the blue eyes facing her andtook the outstretched hand.
"You strange lost being! No one will understand you--here...."
The words flashed through her mind of their own accord, instantly,spontaneously, yet were almost forgotten the same second in the surgeof more commonplace feeling that rose after. Only the "here" provedtheir origin not entirely forgotten. It was the selfless, motheringinstinct that now dominated, but the division in her being had, nonethe less, been indicated as by a white piercing light that searched herinmost nature. That added "here" laid bare, she felt, some part of herwhich, with all other men, was clothed and covered away.
Realized though dimly, this troubled her clear mind, as she took thechair he offered, the conviction that she must tend and care for,even love this strange youth, as though he were in exile and none butherself could understand him. She heard the deep resonant voice in theair in front of her:
"I am not lost now," he said, with his radiant smile, and as if heperceived her thought from the expression in her face. "I wished totake you away--to take you back. I wish it still."
He stood gazing down at her. The deep tones, the shining eyes,the towering stature with its quiet strength--these, added to thedirectness of the language, confused her for a moment. The words wereso entirely unexpected. Fillery had led her to suppose otherwise. Yetbefore the blazing innocence in his face and manner, her composure atonce returned. She found no words at first. She smiled up into hiseyes, then pointed to a chair. Seated he would be more manageable, shefelt. His upright stature was so overpowering.
"You had forgotten----" he went on, obeying her wish and sitting down,"but I could not know that you had forgotten. I apologize"--the wordsounded oddly on his lips, as though learned recently--"for making yousuffer."
"Forgotten!"
A swift intuition, due to some as yet undecipherable kinship, toldher that the word bore no reference to the Studio scene. Some largermeaning, scaled to an immenser map, came with it. An unrealized emotionstirred faintly in her as she heard. Her first sight of him as a figureof light returned.
"But that is all forgiven now," she replied calmly in her firm, gentlevoice. "We need not speak of it. You understand now"--she endedlamely--"that it is not possible----"
He listened intently, gravely, as though with a certain effort, hishead bent forward to catch every syllable. And as he bent, peering,listening, he might have been some other-worldly being staring downthrough a window in the sky into the small confusions of earth'saffairs.
"Yes," he said, the moment she stopped speaking, "I understand now. Ishall never make you suffer again. Only--I could not know that you hadforgotten--so completely."
"Forgotten?" she again repeated in spite of herself, for the way heuttered the word again stirred that nameless, deep emotion in her.Their attitudes respectively were changing. She no longer felt that shecould "mother" this great figure before her.
"Where we belong," he answered in his great quiet voice. "_There_," headded, in a way that made it the counterpart of her own spontaneous andintuitive "here." "It is so easy. I had forgotten too. But Fillery,dear Fillery, helps me to remember, and the stars and flowers andwind, these help me too. And then you--when I saw _you_ I suddenlyremembered more. I was so happy. I remembered what I had left to comeamong men and women. I knew that Fillery and you belonged 'there' withme. You, both, had come down for a little time, come down 'here,' buthad remained too long. You had become almost as men and women are. Iremembered everything when I saw your eyes. I was so happy in a moment,as I looked at you, that I felt I must go back, go home. The centralfire called me, called us all three. I wanted to escape and takeyou with me. I
knew by your eyes that you were ready. You called toFillery. We were off."
He paused a moment, while she listened in breathless silence.
"Then, suddenly, you refused. You resisted. Something prevented. TheMessengers were there when suddenly"--an expression of yearning painclouded his great eyes a moment--"you forgot again. I forgot too,forgot everything. The darkness came. It was cold. My enemy, the water,caught me."
He stopped, and passed his hands across his forehead, sighing, his eyesfixed upon vacancy as with an intense effort to recover something. "AndI still forget," he went on, the yearning now transferred from theeyes to the lowered voice. "I can remember nothing again. All, all isgone from me." The light in his face actually grew dimmer as he slowlyuttered the words. He leaned back in his big arm-chair. Again, itoccurred to her, it was as if he drew back from that window in the sky.
A curious hollow, empty of life, seemed to drop into the room betweenthem as his voice ceased.
While he had been speaking, the girl watched and listened with intenseinterest and curiosity. She remembered he was a "patient," yet no touchof uneasiness or nervousness was in her. His strange words, meaninglessas they might seem, woke deep echoes of some dim buried recognition inher. It amazed and troubled her. This young man, this sinner againstthe conventions whom she had come to comfort and forgive, held thereins already. What had happened, what was happening, and how did hecontrive it? She was aware of a clear, divining knowledge in him, apower, a directness she could not fathom. He seemed to read her insideout. It was more than uncanny; it was spiritual. It mastered her.
During his speech he remained very still, without gesture, withoutchange of expression in his face; he made no movement; only his voicedeepened and grew rhythmical. And a power emanated from him she hardlydared resist, much less deny. His voice, his words, reached depths inher she scarcely knew herself. He was so strong, so humble, so simple,yet so strangely peaceful. And--suddenly she realized it--so farbeyond her, yet akin. She became aware that the figure seated in thechair, watching her, talking, was but a fraction of his whole self. Hewas--the word occurred to her--immense. Was she, too, immense?
More than troubled, she was profoundly stimulated. The motheringinstinct in her for the first time seemed to fail a little. The womanin her trembled, not quite sure of itself. But, besides these two,there was another part of her that listened and felt joy--a white,radiant joy which, if she allowed, must become ecstasy. Whence camethis hint of unearthly rapture? Again there rose before her the twosignificant words: "There" and "Here."
"I do not quite understand," she replied, after a moment's pause,looking into his eyes steadily, her voice firm, her young face verysweet; "I do not fully understand, perhaps. But I sympathize." Then sheadded suddenly, with a little smile: "But, at any rate, I did not cometo make you apologize--Julian. Please be sure of that. I came to see ifI might be of any use--if there was anything I might do to make----"
His quick interruption transfixed her.
"You came," he said in a distinct, low tone, "because you love me andwish me to love you. But we do love already, you, dear Fillery, andI--only our love is in that great Service where we all three belong. Itis not of this--it is not _here_----" making an impatient gesture withhis hand to indicate his general surroundings.
He broke off instantly, noticing the expression in her face.
She had realized suddenly, as he spoke, the blind fury of reproductionthat sweeps helpless men and women everywhere into union, then flingsthem aside exhausted, useless, its purpose accomplished. Though herselfnever yet caught by it, the vivid realization made her turn from lifewith pity and revulsion. Yet--were these thoughts her own? Whence didthey come, if not? And what was this new blind thing straining inher mind for utterance, bursting upwards like a flame, threateningto split it asunder even in its efforts to escape? "What are thesewords we use?" darted across her. "What do they mean? What is it we'retalking about _really_? I don't know quite. Yet it's real, yes, realand true. Only it's beyond our words. It's something I know, but haveforgotten...." That was _his_ word again: "Forgotten"! While they usedwords together, something in her went stumbling, groping, thrustingtowards a great shining revelation for which no words existed. And astrange, deep anguish seized her suddenly.
"Oh!" he cried, "I make you suffer again. The fire leaves you. Youare white. I--I will apologize"--he slipped on to his knees beforeher--"but you do not understand. It was not your sacredness I spokeof." Already on his knees before her, but level with her face owingto his great stature, gazing into her eyes with an expression of deeptenderness, humility, almost suffering, he added: "It was our otherlove, I meant, our great happy service, the thing we have forgotten.You came, I thought, to help me to remember _that_. The way home--I sawyou knew." The light streamed back into his face and eyes.
The tumult and confusion in the girl were natural enough. Herresourcefulness, however, did not fail her at this curious and awkwardmoment. His words, his conduct were more than she could fathom, yetbehind both she divined a source of remote inspiration she had neverknown before in any "man." The beauty and innocence on the facearrested her faculties for a second. That nameless emotion stirredagain. A glimmer of some faint, distant light, whose origin she couldnot guess, passed flickering across her inner tumult. Some faculty shecould not name, at any rate, blew suddenly to white heat in her. Thisyouth on his knees before her had spoken truth. Without knowing it evenherself, she had given him her love, a virgin love, a woman's lovehitherto unawakened in her by any other man, but a love not of thisearth quite--because of him who summoned it into sudden flower.
Yet at the same time he denied the need of it! He spoke of somemarvellous great shining Service that was different from the love ofman and woman.
This too, as some forgotten, lost ideal, she knew was also true.
Her mind, her heart, her experience, her deepest womanly nature, these,she realized in a glowing instant of extraordinary divination, were atvariance in her. She trembled; she knew not what to do or say or think.And again, it came to her, that the visible shape before her was butthe insignificant fraction of a being whose true life spread activelyand unconfined through infinite space.
She then did something that was prompted, though she did not know itthus, by her singleness of heart, her purity of soul and body, herunique and natural instinct to be of use, of service, to others--theaccumulated practice and effort of her entire life provided the actionalong a natural line of least resistance: she bent down and put her armand hand round his great shoulder. She lowered her face. She kissed himmost tenderly, with a mother's love, a woman's secret passion perhaps,but yet with something else as well she could not name--an unearthlyyearning for a greater Ideal than anything she had yet known on earthamong humanity.... It was the invisible she kissed.
And LeVallon, she realized with immense relief, justified her action,for he did not return the kiss. At the same time she had known quitewell it would be thus. That kiss trembled, echoed, in her own greaterunrealized self as well.
"What is it," she whispered, a mysterious passion surging up in her asshe raised him to his feet, "that you remember and wish to recover--forus all? Can you tell me? What is this great, happy, deathless servicethat we have forgotten?" Her voice trembled a little. An immense senseof joy, of liberty, shook out its sunlit wings.
His expression, as he rose, was something between that of a child and afaithful yearning animal, but of a "divine animal," though she did notknow the phrase. Its purity, its sweetness, its power--it was the powershe noticed chiefly--were superb.
"I cannot tell, I cannot remember," his voice said softly, for all itsresonant, virile depth. "It is some state we all have come from--intothis. We are strangers here. This brain and intellect, this coarse,thick feeling, this selfishness, this want of harmony and workingtogether--all this is new and strange to us. It is of blind andclumsy children. This love of one single person for one other singleperson--it is so pitiful. We three have come into this for a
time, alittle time. It is pain and misery. It is prison. Each one works onlyfor himself. There is no joy. They know nothing of our great Service.We cannot show them. Let us go back----"
Another pause fell between them, another of those singular hollows shehad felt before. But this time the hollow was not empty. It was brimmedwith surging life. The gulf between her earthly state and another thatwas nameless, a gulf usually unbridgeable, the fixed gulf, as an oldbook has it, which may not be crossed without danger to the Race, forwhose protection it exists--this childhood simile occurred to her. Anda sense of awe stirred in her being. It was the realization that thisgulf or hollow now brimmed with life, that it could be crossed, thatshe might step over into another place--the sense of awe rose thence,yet came certainly neither from the woman nor the mother in her.
"I am of another place," LeVallon went on, plucking the thought nakedfrom her inmost being. "For I am come here recently, and the purposeof my coming is hidden from me, and memory is dark. But it is notentirely dark. Sometimes I half remember. Stars, flowers, fire, wind,women--here and there--bring light into the darkness. Oh," he criedsuddenly, "how wonderful they are--how wonderful you are--on thataccount to me!"
The voice held a strange, evoking power perhaps. A thousand yearningsshe had all her life suppressed because they interfered with herduty--as she conceived it--here and now, fluttered like rising flameswithin her as she listened. His voice now increased in volume andrhythm, though still quiet and low-pitched; it was as if a great windpoured behind it with tremendous vibrations, through it, lifting herout of a limited, cramped, everyday self. A delicious warmth of happycomfort, of acceptance, of enthusiasm glowed in her. And LeVallon'sface, she saw, had become radiant, almost as though it emanated light.This light entered her being and brought joy again.
"Joy!" he said, reading her thought and feeling. "Joy!"
"Joy! Another place!" she heard herself repeating, her eyes now fixedupon his own.
She felt lighter, caught up and away a little, lifted above the solidearth; as if it was heat that lightened, and wind that bore herupwards. Everything in her became intensified.
"Another state, another place"--her voice seemed to borrow something ofthe rhythm in his own, though she did not notice it--"but not away fromearth, this beautiful earth?" With a happy smile she added, "I love thedear kind earth, I love it."
The light on his face increased:
"The earth we love and serve," he said, "is beautiful, but here"--helooked about him round the room, at the trees waving through thewindow, at the misty sky above draping the pale light of the sun--"hereI am on the surface only. There is confusion and struggle. Everythingquarrels against everything else. It is discord and disorder. There isno harmony. Here, on the surface, everything is separate. There is noworking together. It is all pain, each little part fighting for itself.Here--I am outside--there is no joy."
It was the phrase "I am outside" that flashed something more of hismeaning into her. His full meaning lay beyond actual words perhaps;but this phrase fell like a shock into that inmost self which she haddeliberately put away.
"_You are from inside_, yes," she exclaimed, marvelling afterwards thatshe had said it; "within--nearer to the centre----!"
And he took the abrupt interruption as though they both understood andspoke of the same one thing together, having found a language born ofsimilar great yearnings and of forgotten knowledge, times, states,conditions, places.
"I come," he said, his voice, his bright smile alive with the pressureof untold desire, "from another place that is--yes--inside, nearer tothe centre. I have forgotten almost everything. I remember only thatthere was harmony, love, work and happiness all combined in the perfectliberty of our great service. We served the earth. We helped the lifeupon it. There was no end, no broken fragments, no failure." The voicetouched chanting. "There was no death."
He rose suddenly and came over to her side, and instinctively the girlstood up. What she felt and thought as she heard the strange languagehe used, she hardly knew herself. She only knew in that moment animmense desire to help her kind, an intensification of that great idealof impersonal service which had always been the keynote of her life.This became vividly stimulated in her. It rose like a dominating,overmastering passion. The sense of ineffectual impotence, of inabilityto accomplish anything of value against the stolid odds life setagainst her, the uselessness of her efforts with the majority, in aword, seemed brushed away, as though greater powers of limitless extentwere now at last within her reach. This blazed in her like fire. Itshone in her big dark eyes that looked straight into his as they stoodfacing one another.
"And that service," he went on in his deep vibrating, half-singingtone, "I see in dear Fillery and in you. I know my own kind. We three,at least, belong. I know my own." The voice seemed to shake her like awind.
At the last two words her soul leaped within her. It seemed quitenatural that his great arm should take her breast and shoulder and thathis lips should touch her cheek and hair. For there was worship in bothgestures.
"Our greater service," she whispered, trembling, "tell me of that. Whatis it?" His touch against her was like the breath of fire.
Her womanly instincts, so-called, her maternal love, her feminineimpulses deserted her. She was aware solely at that moment of theproximity of a being who called her to a higher, to, at any rate, adifferent state, to something beyond the impoverished conditions ofhumanity as she had hitherto experienced it, to something she had everyearned and longed for without knowing what it was. An extraordinarysense of enormous liberty swept over her again.
His voice broke and the rhythm failed.
"I cannot tell you," he replied mournfully, the light fading a littlefrom his eyes and face. "I have forgotten. That other place is hiddenfrom me. I am in exile," he added slowly, "but with you and--Fillery."His blue eyes filled with moisture; the expression of troubledloneliness was one she had never seen before on any human face. "Isuffer," he added gently. "We all suffer."
And, at the sight of it, the yearning to help, to comfort, to fulfilher role as mother, returned confusingly, and rose in her like a tide.He was so big and strong and splendid. He was so helpless. It was,perhaps, the innocence in the great blue eyes that conquered her--forthe first time in her life.
But behind, beside the mother in her, stirred also the natural woman.And beyond this again, rose the accumulated power of the entire Race.The instinct of all the women of the planet since the world began droveat her. Not easily may an individual escape the deep slavery of theherd.
The young girl wavered and hesitated. Caught by so many emotions thatwhirled her as in a vortex, the direction of the resultant impetus hungdoubtful for some time. During the half hour's talk, she had entereddeeper water than she had ever dared or known before. Life hitherto,so far as men were concerned, had been a simple and an easy thing thatshe had mastered without difficulty. Her real self lay still unscarredwithin her. Freely she had given the mothering care and sympathy thatwere so strong in her, the more freely because the men who asked of herwere children, one and all, children who needed her, but from whom sheasked nothing in return. If they fell in love, as they usually did, sheknew exactly how to lift their emotion in a way that saved them painwhile it left herself untouched. None reached her real being, whichthus remained unscathed, for none offered the lifting glory that shecraved.
Here, for the first time facing her, stood a being of another type; andthat unscathed self in her went trembling at the knowledge. Here wasa power she could not play with, could not dominate, but a power thatcould play with her as easily as the hurricane with the flying leaf. Itwas not his words, his strange beauty, his great strength that masteredher, though these brought their contribution doubtless. The power shefelt emanated unconsciously from him, and was used unconsciously. Itwas all about him. She realized herself a child before him, and thisrealization sweetened, though it confused her being. He so easilytouched depths in her she had hardly recognized herself. He could s
oeasily lift her to terrific heights.... Various sides of her becamedominant in turn....
The inmost tumult of a good woman's heart is not given to men to read,perhaps, but the final impetus resulting from the whirlpool tossed herat length in a very definite direction. She found her feet again. Thedetermining factor that decided the issue of the struggle was a smalland very human one. He appealed to the woman in her, yet what stirredthe woman was the vital and afflicting factor that--he did not need her.
He wished to help, to lift her towards some impersonal ideal thatremained his secret. He wished to _give_--he could give--while she, forher part, had nothing that he needed. Indeed, he asked for nothing. Hewas as independent of her as she was independent of these other men.
And the woman, now faced for the first time with this entirely newsituation, decided automatically--that he should learn to need her. Hemust. Though she had nothing that he wanted from her, she must on thatvery account give all. The sacrifice which stands ready for the firein every true feminine heart was lighted there and then. She had foundher master and her god. Half measures were not possible to her. Shestood naked at the altar. But in her sacrifice he, too, the priest, thedeity, the master, he also should find love.
Such is the woman's power, however, to conceal from herself the truth,that she did not recognize at first what this decision was. Shedisguised it from her own heart, yet quite honestly. She loved him andgave him all she had to give for ever and ever: even though he didnot ask nor need her love. This she grasped. Her role must be one ofselfless sacrifice. But the deliberate purpose behind her real decisionshe disguised from herself with complete success. It lay there none theless, strong, vital, very simple. She would teach him love.
Alone of all men, Edward Fillery could have drawn up this motive fromits inmost hiding place in her deep subconscious being, and have madeit clear to her. Dr. Fillery, had he been present, would have discernedit in her, as, indeed, he did discern it later. He had, for thatmatter, already felt its prophecy with a sinking heart when he plannedbringing them together: Iraida might suffer at LeVallon's hands.
But Fillery, apparently, was not present, and Nayan Khilkoff remainedunaware of self-deception. LeVallon "needs your care and sympathy; youcan help him," she remembered. This she believed, and Love did the rest.
So intricate, so complex were the emotions in her that she realizedone thing only--she must give all without thought of self. "Whenhalf gods go the gods arrive" sang in her heart. She was a woman,one of a mighty and innumerable multitude, and collective instincturged her irresistibly. But it hid at the same time with lovelycare the imperishable desire and intention that the arriving godshould--_must_--love her in return.
The youth stood facing her while this tumult surged within her heartand mind. Outwardly calm, she still gazed into the clear blue eyes thatshone with moisture as he repeated, half to himself and half to her:
"We are in exile here; we suffer. We have forgotten."
His hands were stretched towards her, and she took them in her own andheld them a moment.
"But you and I," he went on, "you and I and Fillery--shall rememberagain--soon. We shall know why we are here. We shall do our happy worktogether here. We shall then return--escape."
His deep tones filled the air. At the sound of the other name a breathof sadness, of disappointment, touched her coldly. The familiar namehad faded. It was, as always, dear. But its potency had dimmed....
The sun was down and a soft dusk covered all. A faint wind rustled inthe garden trees through the open window.
"Fillery," she murmured, "Edward Fillery!---- He loved me. He has lovedme always."
The little words--they sounded little for the first time--she utteredalmost in a whisper that went lost against the figure of LeVallontowering above her through the twilight.
"We are together," his great voice caught her whisper in the immensevibration, drowning it. "The love of our happy impersonal servicebrings us all together. We have forgotten, but we shall remember soon."
It seemed to her that he shone now in the dusky air. Light came abouthis face and shoulders. An immense vitality poured into her through hishands. The sense of strange kinship was overpowering. She felt, thoughnot in terms of size or physical strength, a pigmy before him, whileyet another thing rose in gigantic and limitless glory as from someinner heart he quickened in her. This sense of exaltation, of deliriousjoy that tempted sweetly, came upon her. He _must_ love her, need herin the end....
"Julian," she murmured softly, drawn irresistibly closer. "The godshave brought you to me." Her feet went nearer of their own accord, butthere was no movement, no answering pressure, in the hands she held."You shall never know loneliness again, never while I am here. Thegods--your gods--have brought us together."
"_Our_ gods," she heard his answer, "are the same." The wordstrembled against her actual breast, so close she was now leaningagainst him. "Even if lost, it is they who sent us here. I know theirmessengers----"
He broke off, standing back from her, dropping her hands, or, rather,drawing his own away.
"Hark!" he cried. The voice deep and full, yet without loudness,thrilled her. She watched him with terror and amazement, as he turnedto the open window, throwing his arms out suddenly to the darkeningsky against which the trees loomed still and shapeless. His figure waswrapped in a faint radiance as of silvery moonlight. She was aware ofheat about her, a comforting, inspiring warmth that pervaded her wholebeing, as from within. The same moment the bulk of the big tree shookand trembled, and a steady wind came pouring into the room. It seemedto her the wind, the heat, poured through that tree.
And the inner heart in her grew clear an instant. This wind, this heat,increased her being marvellously. The exaltation in her swept out andfree. She saw him, dropped from alien skies upon the little teemingearth. The sense of his remoteness from the life about them, of her ownremoteness too, flashed over her like wind and fire. An immense idealblazed, then vanished. It flamed beyond her grasp. It beckoned withimperishable loveliness, then faded instantly. Wind caught it up oncemore. With the fire an overpowering joy rose in her.
"Julian!" she cried aloud. "Son of Wind and Fire!"
At the words, which had come to her instinctively, he turned witha sudden gesture she could not quite interpret, while there brokeupon his face a smile, strange and lovely, that caught up the effectof light about him and seemed to focus in his brilliant eyes. Hishappiness was beyond all question, his admiration, wonder too; yet thequality she chiefly looked and expected--was _not_ there.
She chilled. The joy, she was acutely conscious, was not a personal joy.
"You," he said gently, happily, emphasizing the word, "you are notpitiful," and the rustle of the shaking trees outside the window mergedtheir voice in his and carried it outward into space. It was as if thewind itself had spoken. Across the garden dusk there shot a suddeneffect of light, as though a flame had flickered somewhere in the sky,then passed back into the growing night. There was a scent of flowersin the air. "You," he cried, with an exultation that carried her againbeyond herself. "You are not pitiful."
"Julian----!" she stammered, longing for his arms. She half drew away.The blood flowed down and back in her. "Not pitiful!" she repeatedfaintly.
For it was to her suddenly as if that sighing wind that entered theroom from the outer sky had borne him away from her. That wind was amessenger. It came from that distant state, that other region wherehe belonged, a state, a region compared to which the beings of earthwere trumpery and tinsel-dressed. It came to remind him of his homeand origin. The little earth, the myriad confused figures strugglingtogether on its surface, he saw as "pitiful." From that window in thesky whence he looked down he watched them...!
She knew the feeling in him, knew it, because some part of her, thoughfaint and deeply hidden, was akin. Yet she was not wholly "pitiful."He had discerned in her this faint, hidden strain of vaster life, hadstirred and strengthened it by his words, his presence. Yet it was notvital enou
gh in her to stand alone. When wind and fire, his elements,breathed forth from it, she was afraid.
"You are not pitiful," he had said, yet pitiful, for all that, sheknew herself to be. On that breath of sighing wind he swept away fromher, far, far away where, as yet, she could not follow. And her dreamof personal love swept with it. Some ineffable hint of a divine,impersonal glory she had known went with him from her heart. Thepersonal was too strong in her. It was human love she desired both togive and ask.
Unspoken words flared through her heart and being: "Julian, you haveno soul, no human soul. But I will give you one, for I will teach youlove----"
He turned upon her like a hurricane of windy fire.
"Soul!" he cried, catching the word out of her naked heart. "Oh, be notcaught with that pitiful delusion. It is this idea of soul that bindsyou hopelessly to selfish ends and broken purposes. This thing you callsoul is but the dream of human vanity and egoism. It is worse thanlove. Both bind you endlessly to limited desires and blind ambitions.They are of children."
He rose, like some pillar of whirling flame and wind, beside her.
"Come out with me," he cried, "come back! You teach me to remember!Our elemental home calls sweetly to us, our elemental service waits.We belong to those vast Powers. They are eternal. They know no bindingand they have no death. Their only law is service, that mighty servicewhich builds up the universe. The stars are with us, the nebulae andthe central fires are their throne and altar. The soul you dream of inyour little circle is but an idle dream of the Race that ties your feetlest you should fly and soar. The personal has bandaged all your eyes.Nayan, come back with me. You once worked with me there--you, I andFillery together."
His voice, though low, had that which was terrific in it. The volume ofits sound appalled her. Its low vibrations shook her heart.
"Soul," she said very softly, courage sure in her, but tears close inher burning eyes, "is my only hope. I live for it. I am ready to diefor it. It is my life!"
He gazed at her a moment with a tenderness and sympathy she hardlyunderstood, for their origin lay hidden beyond her comprehension. Sheknew one thing only--that he looked adorable and glorious, a beingbrought by the wise powers of life, whatever these might be, into thekeeping of her love and care. The mother and the woman merged in her.His redemption lay within her gentle hands, if it lay at the same timeupon an altar that was her awful sacrifice.
"Son of wind and fire!" she cried, though emotion made her voicedwindle to a breathless whisper. "You called to my love, yet my love ispersonal. I have nothing else to give you. Julian, come back! O staywith me. Your wind and fire frighten, for they take you away. ServiceI know, but your service--O what is it? For it leaves the bed, thehearthstone cold----"
She stopped abruptly, wondering suddenly at her own words. What wasthis rhythm that had caught her mind and heart into an unknown, adaring form of speech?
But the wind ran again through the open window fluttering the curtainsand the skirts about her feet. It sighed and whispered. It was noearthly wind. She saw him once again go from her on its quiet wings.He left her side, he left her heart. And an icy realization of _his_loneliness, his exile, stirred in her.... For a moment, as she lookedup into his shining face silhouetted in the dusk against the window,there rose tumultuously in her that maternal feeling which had held allmen safely at a distance hitherto. Like a wave, it mastered her. Shelonged to take him in her arms, to shield him from a world that was nothis, to bless and comfort him with all she had to give, to have theright to brush that wondrous hair, to open those lids at dawn and closethem with a kiss at night. This ancient passion rose in her, bringing,though she did not recognize it, the great woman in its train. Shewalked up to him with both hands outstretched:
"All my nights," she said, with no reddening of the cheek, "are as ourwedding night!"
He heard, he saw, but the words held no meaning for him.
"Julian! Stay with me--stay here!" She put her arms about him.
"And forget----!" he cried, an inexpressible longing in his voice. Hebent, none the less, beneath the pressure of her clinging arms; helowered his face to hers.
"I will teach you love," she murmured, her cheek against his own. "Youdo not know how sweet, how wonderful it is. All your strange wisdomyou shall show me, and I will learn willingly, if only I may teachyou--love."
"You would teach me to forget," he said in a voice of curious pain,"just as you--are forgetting now."
He gently unclasped her hands from about his neck, and went over to theopen window, while she sank into a chair, watching him. She again heardthe wind, but again no common, earthly wind, go singing past the walls.
"But _I_ will teach you to remember," he said, his great figure halfturning towards her again, his voice sounding as though it were in thatsighing breath of wind that passed and died away into the silence ofthe sky.
The strange difficulty, the immensity, of her self-appointed task, grewsuddenly crystal clear in her mind. Amid the whirling, aching painand yearning that she felt it stood forth sharp and definite. It wasimperious. She loved, and she must teach _him_ love. This was the onething needful in his case. Her own deep, selfless heart would guide her.
There was pain in her, but there was no fear. Above the conventions shefelt herself, naked and unashamed. The sense of a new immense libertyhe had brought lifted her into a region where she could be naturalwithout offence. He had flung wide the gates of life, setting freethose strange, ultimate powers which had lain hidden and unrealizedhitherto, and with them was quickened, too, that mysterious and awfulhint which, beckoning ever towards some vaster life, had made the worldas she found it unsatisfactory, pale, of meagre value.
As the strange drift of wind passed off into the sky, she moved acrossthe room and stood beside him, its dying chant still humming in herears. That song of the wind, she understood, was symbolic of what shehad to fight, for his being, though linked to a divine service shecould not understand, lay in Nature and apart from human things:
"Think, Julian," she murmured, her face against his shoulder sothat the sweet perfume as of flowers he exhaled came over herintoxicatingly, "think what we could do together for the world--for allthese little striving ignorant troubled people in it--for everybody!You and I together working, helping, lifting them all up----!"
He made no movement, and she took his great arm and drew it round herneck, placing the hand against her cheek. He looked down at her then,his eyes peering into her face.
"That," he said in a deep, gentle voice that vibrated through herwhole body, "yes, that we will do. It is the service--the service ofour gods. It is why I called you. From the first I saw it in you, andin----"
Before he could speak the name she kissed his lips, pulling his headlower in order to reach them: "Think, Julian," she whispered, his eyesso close to hers that they seemed to burn them, "think what our childmight be!"
The wind came back across the tossing trees with a rush of singing. Herhair fluttered across their two faces, as it entered the room, droveround the inner walls, then, with a cry, flew out again into the emptysky. She felt as if the wind had answered her, for other answer therecame none. Far away in the spaces of that darkening sky the wind rushedsailing, sailing with its impersonal song of power and of triumph....She did not remember any further spoken words. She remembered only, asshe went homewards down the street, that Julian had opened the doorupon some unspoken understanding that she had lost him because shedared not follow recklessly where he led, and that the steady draught,it seemed, had driven forcibly behind her--as though the wind had blownher out.
It was only much later she realized that the figure who had thenovertaken her, supported, comforted with kind ordinary words she hardlyunderstood at the moment and yet vaguely welcomed, finally leaving herat the door of her father's house in Chelsea, was the figure of EdwardFillery.
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