III.
_Thursday Night, December 5th_.
That lie awoke in me suspicion of the child I had married. I began todoubt her, yet never ceased to love her. She had all my heart, and musthave it till the end. But the calm of love was to be succeeded by love'stumult and agony. A strangeness was creeping over Margot. It was as ifshe took a thin veil in her hands, and drew it over and all around her,till the outlines I had known were slightly blurred. Her disposition,which had been so clear cut, so sharply, beautifully defined, standingout in its innocent glory for all men to see, seemed to withdraw itself,as if a dawning necessity for secrecy had arisen. A thin crust ofreserve began to subtly overspread her every act and expression. Shethought now before she spoke; she thought before she looked. It seemedto me that she was becoming a slightly different person.
The change I mean to imply is very difficult to describe. It was notabrupt enough to startle, but I could feel it, slight though it was.Have you seen the first flat film of waveless water, sent by theincoming tides of the sea, crawling silently up over the wrinkled brownsand, and filling the tiny ruts, till diminutive hills and valleys areall one smooth surface? So it was with Margot. A tide flowed over hercharacter, a waveless tide of reserve. The hills and valleys which Iloved disappeared from my ken. Behind the old sweet smile, the old frankexpression, my wife was shrinking down to hide herself, as one escapingfrom pursuit hides behind a barrier. When one human being knows anothervery intimately, and all the barricades that divide soul from soul havebeen broken down, it is difficult to set them up again without noise anddust, and the sound of thrust-in bolts, and the tap of the hammer thatdrives in the nails. It is difficult, but not impossible. Barricadescan be raised noiselessly, soundless bolts--that keep out the soul--bepushed home. The black gauze veil that blots out the scene drops, andwhen it is raised--if ever--the scene is changed.
The real Margot was receding from me. I felt it with an impotence ofdespair that was benumbing. Yet I could not speak of it, for at first Icould hardly tell if she knew of what was taking place. Indeed, at thismoment, in thinking it over, I do not believe that for some time she hadany definite cognisance of the fact that she was growing to love meless passionately than of old. In acts she was not changed. That was thestrange part of the matter. Her kisses were warm, but I believed thempremeditated. She clasped my hand in hers, but now there was moremechanism than magic in that act of tenderness. Impulse failed withinher; and she had been all impulse? Did she know it? At that time Iwondered. Believing that she did not know she was changing, I was at thegreatest pains to guard my conduct, lest I should implant the suspicionthat might hasten what I feared. I remained, desperately, the same asever, and so, of course, was not the same, for a deed done defiantlybears little resemblance to a deed done naturally. I was alwaysconsidering what I should say, how I should act, even how I shouldlook. To live now was sedulous instead of easy. Effort took the placeof simplicity. My wife and I were gazing furtively at each other throughthe eye-holes of masks. I knew it. Did she?
At that time I never ceased to wonder. Of one thing I was certain,however--that Margot began to devise excuses for being left alone. Whenwe first came home she could hardly endure me out of her sight. Now shegrew to appreciate solitude. This was a terrible danger signal, and Icould not fail to so regard it.
Yet something within me held me back from speaking out. I made nocomment on the change that deepened day by day, but I watched my wifefurtively, with a concentration of attention that sometimes left mephysically exhausted. I felt, too, at length, that I was growing morbid,that suspicion coloured my mind and caused me, perhaps, to put a wronginterpretation on many of her actions, to exaggerate and misconstruethe most simple things she did. I began to believe her every lookpremeditated. Even if she kissed me, I thought she did it with apurpose; if she smiled up at me as of old, I fancied the smile to beonly a concealment of its opposite. By degrees we became shy of eachother. We were like uncongenial intimates, forced to occupy the samehouse, forced into a fearful knowledge of each other's personal habits,while we knew nothing of the thoughts that make up the true lives ofindividuals.
And then another incident occurred, a pendant to the incident ofMargot's strange denied visit to the room she affected to fear. It wasone night, one deep dark night of the autumn--a season to affect even acheerful mind and incline it towards melancholy. Margot and I were nowoften silent when we were together. That evening, towards nine, a dullsteady rain set in. I remember I heard it on the window-panes as we satin the drawing-room after dinner, and remarked on it, saying to her thatif it continued for two or three days she might chance to see the floodsout, and that fishermen would descend upon us by the score.
I did not obtain much response from her. The dreariness of the weatherseemed to affect her spirits. She took up a book presently, and appearedto read; but, once in glancing up suddenly from my newspaper, I thoughtI caught her gaze fixed fearfully upon me. It seemed to me that she waslooking furtively at me with an absolute terror. I was so much affectedthat I made some excuse for leaving the room, went down to my den, lita cigar, and walked uneasily up and down, listening to the rain on thewindow. At ten Margot came in to tell me she was going to bed. I wishedher good-night tenderly, but as I held her slim body a moment in my armsI felt that she began to tremble. I let her go, and she slipped fromthe room with the soft, cushioned step that was habitual with her. And,strangely enough, my thoughts recurred to the day, long ago, when Ifirst held the great white cat on my knees, and felt its body shrinkfrom my touch with a nameless horror. The uneasy movement of the womanrecalled to me so strongly and so strangely the uneasy movement of theanimal.
I lit a second cigar. It was near midnight when it was smoked out, and Iturned down the lamp and went softly up to bed. I undressed in the roomadjoining my wife's, and then stole into hers. She was sleeping in thewide white bed rather uneasily, and as I leaned over her, shading thecandle flame with my outspread hand, she muttered some broken words thatI could not catch. I had never heard her talk in her dreams before. Ilay down gently at her side and extinguished the candle.
But sleep did not come to me. The dull, dead silence weighed uponinstead of soothing me. My mind was terribly alive, in a ferment;and the contrast between my own excitement and the hushed peace of myenvironment was painful, was almost unbearable. I wished that a windfrom the mountains were beating against the window-panes, and therain lashing the house in fury. The black calm around was horrible,unnatural. The drizzling rain was now so small that I could not evenhear its patter when I strained my ears. Margot had ceased to mutter,and lay perfectly still. How I longed to be able to read the soul hiddenin her sleeping body, to unravel the mystery of the mind which I hadonce understood so perfectly! It is so horrible that we can never openthe human envelope, take out the letter, and seize with our eyes uponits every word. Margot slept with all her secrets safeguarded, althoughshe was unconscious, no longer watchful, on the alert. She was sosilent, even her quiet breathing not reaching my ear, that I feltimpelled to stretch out my hand beneath the coverlet and touch hers everso softly. I did so.
Her hand was instantly and silently withdrawn. She was awake, then.
"Margot," I said, "did I disturb you?"
There was no answer.
The movement, followed by the silence, affected me very disagreeably.
I lit the candle and looked at her. She was lying on the extreme edgeof the bed, with her blue eyes closed. Her lips were slightly parted. Icould hear her steady breathing. Yet was she really sleeping?
I bent lower over her, and as I did so a slight, involuntary movement,akin to what we call a shudder, ran through her body. I recoiled fromthe bed. An impotent anger seized me. Could it be that my presence wasbecoming so hateful to my wife that even in sleep her body trembled whenI drew near it? Or was this slumber feigned? I could not tell, but Ifelt it impossible at that moment to remain in the room. I returned tomy own, dressed, and descended the stairs to the door opening on to theterra
ce. I felt a longing to be out in the air. The atmosphere of thehouse was stifling.
Was it coming to this, then? Did I, a man, shrink with a fantasticcowardice from a woman I loved? The latent cruelty began to stir withinme, the tyrant spirit which a strong love sometimes evokes. I had beenMargot's slave almost. My affection had brought me to her feet, hadkept me there. So long as she loved me I was content to be her captive,knowing she was mine. But a change in her attitude toward me might rousethe master. In my nature there was a certain brutality, a savagery,which I had never wholly slain, although Margot had softened mewonderfully by her softness, had brought me to gentleness by hertenderness. The boy of years ago had developed toward better things, buthe was not dead in me. I felt that as I walked up and down the terracethrough the night in a wild meditation. If my love could not holdMargot, my strength should.
I drew in a long breath of the wet night air, and I opened my shouldersas if shaking off an oppression. My
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