by J. M. Barrie
CHAPTER XVII
HOW TOMMY SAVED THE FLAG
He loved at last, but had no time to exult just now, for he could notrejoice with Tommy while his dear one drooped in shame. Ah, so well heunderstood that she believed she had done the unpardonable thing inwoman, and that while she thought so she must remain a broken column.It was a great task he saw before him--nothing less than to make herthink that what she had done was not shameful, but exquisite; that shehad not tarnished the flag of love, but glorified it. Artfulness, youwill see, was needed; but, remember, he was now using all his arts inbehalf of the woman he loved.
"You were so long in coming back to me, Grizel. The agony of it!""Did it seem long?" She spoke in a trembling voice, hiding her face inhim. She listened like one anxious to seize his answer as it left hisheart.
"So long," he answered, "that it seemed to me we must be old when wemet again. I saw a future without you stretching before me to thegrave, and I turned and ran from it."
"That is how I felt," she whispered.
"You!" Tommy cried, in excellent amazement.
"What else could have made me come?"
"I thought it was pity that had brought you--pity for me, Grizel. Ithought you had perhaps come back to be angry with me--"
"How could I be!" she cried.
"How could you help it, rather?" said he. "I was cruel, Grizel; Ispoke like a fool as well as like a dastard. But it was only anxietyfor Elspeth that made me do it. Dear one, be angry with me as often asyou choose, and whether I deserve it or not; but don't go away fromme; never send me from you again. Anything but that."
It was how she had felt again, and her hold on him tightened withsudden joy. So well he knew what that grip meant! He did not tell herthat he had not loved her fully until now. He would have liked to tellher how true love had been born in him as he saw her stealing back tohim, but it was surely best for her not to know that anytransformation had been needed. "I don't say that I love you more nowthan ever before," he said carefully, "but one thing I do know: that Inever admired you quite so much."
She looked up in surprise.
"I mean your character," he said determinedly. "I have always knownhow strong and noble it was, but I never quite thought you could doanything so beautiful as this."
"Beautiful!" She could only echo the word.
"Many women, even of the best," he told her, "would have resorted tolittle feminine ways of humbling such a blunderer as I have been: theywould have spurned him for weeks; made him come to them on his knees;perhaps have thought that his brutality of a moment outweighed all hislove. When I saw you coming to meet me half-way--oh, Grizel, tell methat you were doing that?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" she answered eagerly, so that she might not detainhim a moment.
"When I saw you I realized that you were willing to forgive me; thatyou were coming to say so; that no thought of lowering me first was inyour mind; that yours was a love above the littleness of ordinarypeople: and the adorableness of it filled me with a glorious joy; Isaw in that moment what woman in her highest development is capableof, and that the noblest is the most womanly."
She said "Womanly?" with a little cry. It had always been such a sweetword to her, and she thought it could never be hers again!
"It is by watching you," he replied, "that I know the meaning of theword. I thought I knew long ago, but every day you give it a noblermeaning."
If she could have believed it! For a second or two she tried tobelieve it, and then she shook her head.
"How dear of you to think that of me!" she answered. She looked up athim with exquisite approval in her eyes. She had always felt that menshould have high ideas about women.
"But it was not to save you pain that I came back," she said bravely.There was something pathetic in the way the truth had always to comeout of her. "I did not think you wanted me to come back. I neverexpected you to be looking for me, and when I saw you doing it, myheart nearly stopped for gladness. I thought you were wearied of me,and would be annoyed when you saw me coming back. I said to myself,'If I go back I shall be a disgrace to womanhood,' But I came; and nowdo you know what my heart is saying, and always will be saying? It isthat pride and honour and self-respect are gone. And the terriblething is that I don't seem to care; I, who used to value them somuch, am willing to let them go if you don't send me away from you.Oh, if you can't love me any longer, let me still love you! That iswhat I came back to say."
"Grizel, Grizel!" he cried. It was she who was wielding the knife now.
"But it is true," she said.
"We could so easily pretend that it isn't." That was not what he said,though it was at his heart. He sat down, saying:
"This is a terrible blow, but better you should tell it to me thanleave me to find it out." He was determined to save the flag forGrizel, though he had to try all the Tommy ways, one by one.
"Have I hurt you?" she asked anxiously. She could not bear to hurt himfor a moment. "What did I say?"
"It amounts to this," he replied huskily: "you love me, but you wishyou did not; that is what it means."
He expected her to be appalled by this; but she stood still, thinkingit over. There was something pitiful in a Grizel grown undecided.
"Do I wish I did not?" she said helplessly. "I don't know. Perhapsthat is what I do wish. Ah, but what are wishes! I know now that theydon't matter at all."
"Yes, they matter," he assured her, in the voice of one looking upondeath. "If you no longer want to love me, you will cease to do itsoon enough." His manner changed to bitterness. "So don't be castdown, Grizel, for the day of your deliverance is at hand."
But again she disappointed him, and as the flag must be saved atwhatever cost, he said.
"It has come already. I see you no longer love me as you did." Herarms rose in anguish; but he went on ruthlessly: "You will neverpersuade me that you do; I shall never believe it again."
I suppose it was a pitiable thing about Grizel--it was something hehad discovered weeks ago and marvelled over--that nothing distressedher so much as the implication that she could love him less. She knewshe could not; but that he should think it possible was the strangestwoe to her. It seemed to her to be love's only tragedy. We have seenhow difficult it was for Grizel to cry. When she said "How could youhurt your Grizel so!" she had not cried, nor when she knew that if shewent back to him her self-respect must remain behind. But a painfultear came to her eyes when he said that she loved him less. It almostunmanned him, but he proceeded, for her good:
"I daresay you still care for me a little, as the rank and file ofpeople love. What right had I, of all people, to expect a love so rareand beautiful as yours to last? It had to burn out, like a great fire,as such love always does. The experience of the world has proved it."
"Oh!" she cried, and her body was rocking. If he did not stop, shewould weep herself to death.
"Yes, it seems sad," Tommy continued; "but if ever man knew that itserved him right, I know it. And they maintain, the wiseacres who haveanalyzed love, that there is much to be said in favour of a calmaffection. The glory has gone, but the material comforts are greater,and in the end--"
She sank upon the ground. He was bleeding for her, was Tommy. He wenton his knees beside her, and it was terrible to him to feel that everypart of her was alive with anguish. He called her many sweet names,and she listened for them between her sobs; but still she sobbed. Hecould bear it no longer; he cried, and called upon God to smite him.She did not look up, but her poor hands pulled him back. "You said Ido not love you the same!" she moaned.
"Grizel!" he answered, as if in sad reproof; "it was not I who saidthat--it was you. I put into words only what you have been telling mefor the last ten minutes."
"No, no," she cried. "Oh, how could I!"
He flung up his arms in despair. "Is this only pity for me, Grizel,"he implored, looking into her face as if to learn his fate, "or is itlove indeed?"
"You know it is love--you know!"
"But what kin
d of love?" he demanded fiercely. "Is it the same lovethat it was? Quick, tell me. I can't have less. If it is but a littleless, you will kill me."
The first gleam of sunshine swept across her face (and oh, how he waslooking for it!). "Do you want it to be the same--do you really wantit? Oh, it is, it is!"
"And you would not cease to love me if you could?"
"No, no, no!" She would have come closer to him, but he held her back.
"One moment, Grizel," he said in a hard voice that filled her withapprehension. "There must be no second mistake. In saying that love,and love alone, brought you back, you are admitting, are you not, thatyou were talking wildly about loss of pride and honour? You did theloveliest thing you have ever done when you came back. If I were you,my character would be ruined from this hour--I should feel so proud ofmyself."
She smiled at that, and fondled his hand. "If you think so," she said,"all is well."
But he would not leave it thus. "You must think so also," he insisted;and when she still shook her head, "Then I am proud of your love nolonger," said he, doggedly. "How proud of it I have been! A mancannot love a woman without reverencing her, without being touched tothe quick a score of times a day by the revelations she gives ofherself--revelations of such beauty and purity that he is abashed inher presence. The unspoken prayers he offers up to God at those timeshe gives to her to carry. And when such a one returns his love, he isproud indeed. To me you are the embodiment of all that is fair inwoman, and it is love that has made you so, that has taken away yourlittle imperfections--love for me. Ah, Grizel, I was so proud to thinkthat somehow I had done it; but even now, in the moment when your lovehas manifested itself most splendidly, you are ashamed of it, and whatI respect and reverence you for most are changes that have come aboutagainst your will. If your love makes you sorrowful, how can I beproud of it? Henceforth it will be my greatest curse."
She started up, wringing her hands. It was something to have got herto her feet.
"Surely," he said, like one puzzled as well as pained by herobtuseness, "you see clearly that it must be so. True love, as Iconceive it, must be something passing all knowledge, irresistible;something not to be resented for its power, but worshipped for it;something not to fight against, but to glory in. And such is yourlove; but you give the proof of it with shame, because your ideal oflove is a humdrum sort of affection. That is all you would like tofeel, Grizel, and because you feel something deeper and nobler you sayyou have lost your self-respect. I am the man who has taken it fromyou. Can I ever be proud of your love again?"
He paused, overcome with emotion. "What it has been to me!" he cried."I walked among my fellows as if I were a colossus. It inspired me atmy work. I felt that there was nothing great I was not capable of, andall because Grizel loved me."
She stood trembling with delight at what he said, and withapprehension at what he seemed to threaten. His head being bent, hecould not see her, and amid his grief he wondered a little what shewas doing now.
"But you spoke"--she said it timidly, as if to refer to the matter atall was cruel of her--"you spoke as if I was disgracing you because Icould not conceal my love. You said it was hard on you." She pressedher hands together. "Yes, that is what you said."
This was awkward for Tommy. "She believes I meant that," he criedhoarsely. "Grizel believes that of me! I have behaved since then as ifthat was what I meant, have I? I meant only that it would be hard onme if Elspeth learned of our love at the very moment when this man istreating her basely. I look as if I had meant something worse, do I? Iknow myself at last! Grizel has shown me what I am."
He covered his face with his hands. Strong man as he was, he could notconceal his agony.
"Don't!" she cried. "If I was wrong--"
"If you were wrong!"
"I was wrong! I know I was wrong. Somehow it was a mistake. I don'tknow how it arose. But you love me and you want me to love you still.That is all I know. I thought you did not, but you do. If you wantedme to come back----"
"If I wanted it!"
"I know you wanted it now, and I am no longer ashamed to have come. Iam glad I came, and if you can still be proud of my love and respectme----"
"Oh, Grizel, if!"
"Then I have got back my pride and my self-respect again. I cannotreason about it, but they have come back again."
It was she who was trying to comfort him by this time, caressing hishair and his hands. But he would not be appeased at once; it was goodfor her to have something to do.
"You are sure you are happy again, Grizel? You are not pretending inorder to please me?"
"So happy!"
"But your eyes are still wet."
"That is because I have hurt you so. Oh, how happy I should be if Icould see you smile again!"
"How I would smile if I saw you looking happy!"
"Then smile at once, sir," she could say presently, "for see how happyI am looking." And as she beamed on him once more he smiled as well ashe was able to. Grizel loved him so much that she actually knew whenthat face of his was smiling, and soon she was saying gaily to hiseyes: "Oh, silly eyes that won't sparkle, what is the use of you?" andshe pressed her own upon them; and to his mouth she said: "Mouth thatdoes not know how to laugh--poor, tragic mouth!" He let her do nearlyall the talking. She sat there crooning over him as if he were herchild.
And so the flag was saved. He begged her to let him tell their littleworld of his love for her, and especially was he eager to go straightwith it to the doctor. But she would not have this. "David and Elspethshall know in good time," she said, very nobly. "I am sure they arefond of each other, and they shall know of our happiness on the daywhen they tell us of their own." And until that great day came she wasnot to look upon herself as engaged to Tommy, and he must never kissher again until they were engaged. I think it was a pleasure to her toinsist on this. It was her punishment to herself for ever havingdoubted Tommy.
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PART II
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