“Does it seem to you as though what I have done has brought us any nearer together, you and me?”
“Nearer? Perhaps. I do not quite see how you mean.” The blush had disappeared, and she looked puzzled.
“I mean because I have begun — only begun — to make something like a position for myself. If I succeed I hope we shall seem nearer yet — nearer and nearer, till there shall be no parting at all.”
“I think you mistake a letter in the word — you talk as though you meant dearer, more than nearer — do you not?” Constance laughed, and blushed again.
“If I said that you were making love to me — to-day, as you said a year ago — would you answer that you meant it — as I did?”
“What impertinence!” exclaimed Constance still laughing lightly.
“No — but would you?”
“I cannot tell what I should do, if you said anything so outrageous!”
“I love you. Is that outrageous and impertinent?”
“N — o. You say it very nicely — almost too nicely. I am afraid you have said it before.”
“Often, though I cannot expect you to remember the exact number of repetitions. How would you say it — if you were obliged to say it? I have a good ear for a tune. I could learn your music.”
“Could you?” Constance hesitated while they paused in their walk and George looked into her eyes.
She saw something there that had not been present when he had first spoken, a year ago. He had seemed cold then, even to her inexperience. Now there was both passion and tenderness in his look, and there was sadness in his face.
“You do love me now,” she said softly. “I can see it.”
“And you, dear — will you not say the little words?”
Again she hesitated. Then she put out her hand and touched his very gently. “I hate you, sir,” she said. But she pronounced the syllables with infinite softness and delicacy, and the music of her voice could not have been more sweet if she had said “I love you, dear.” Then she laughed again.
“I could hear you say that very often, without being hurt,” said George tenderly.
“I only wanted to show you how I should say those other words — if I would,” she answered.
“Is that all? Well — if there is a just proportion between your hatred and your love and your way of expressing them, your love must be — —” he stopped.
“Must be what?”
“As great as mine. I cannot find anything stronger than that to say — nor could you, if you knew.”
“So you love me, then. I wonder how long it will last? When did it begin?”
“The second time I saw you.”
“Love at second sight! How romantic — so much more original than at first sight, and so much more natural. No — you must not take my hand — there are people over there — and besides, there is no reason why you should. I told you I hated you. There — walk like a sensible being and talk about your work!”
“You are a strange creature, Constance.”
“Am I? Why do you call me Constance? I do not call you George — indeed I do not like the name at all.”
“Nor I, if you do not — you can call me Constantine if you like. That name would be more like yours.”
“I do not like my own. It makes me think of the odiously good little girls in story books. Besides, what is it? Why am I called Constance? Is it for the town in Switzerland? I was never there. Is it for the virtue I least possess?”
“As your sister is called Grace,” suggested George.
“Hush! Grace is a very graceful girl. Take it in that way, and leave her alone. Am I the English for Constantia? Come, give me an explanation! Talk! Say something! You are leaving the burden of the conversation to me, and then you are not even listening!”
“I was thinking of you — I always am. What shall I talk about? You are the only subject on which I could be at all eloquent.”
“You might talk about yourself, for a change,” suggested Constance.
“But you say you hate me, so that you would not find an account of me agreeable, would you?”
“I think my hatred could be made very accommodating, if you would talk pleasantly — even about yourself.”
“I would rather make love to you than talk.”
“I have no doubt you would, but that is just what I do not want you to do. Besides, you have done it before — without any result.”
“That is no reason for not trying again, is it?”
“Why try it at all?”
“Love is its own reason,” said George, “and it is the reason for most other things as well. I love you and I am not in search of reasons. I love you very, very much, with all my heart — so much that I do not know how to say it. My life is full of you. You are everywhere. You are always with me. In everything I have done since I have known you I have thought of you. I have asked myself whether this would please you, whether that would bring a smile to your dear face, whether these words or those would speak to your heart and be sweet to you. You are everything the world holds for me, the sun that shines, the air I breathe. Without the thought of you I could neither think nor work. If a man can grow great by the thought of woman’s love, you can make me one of the greatest — if men die of broken hearts you can kill me — you are everything to me — life, breath and happiness.”
Constance was silent. He spoke passionately, and there was an accent of truth in his low, vibrating voice, that went to her heart. For one moment she almost felt that she loved him in return, as she had often dreamed of loving. That he was even now more to her than any living being, she knew already.
“You like me,” he said presently. “You like me, you are fond of me, you have often told me that I am your best friend, the one of whom you think most. You let me come when I will, you let me say all that is in my heart to say, you let me tell you that I love you — —”
“It is very sweet to hear,” said Constance softly.
“And it is sweet to say as well — dearest. Ah, Constance, say it once, say that it is more than friendship, more than liking, more than fondness that you feel. What can it cost you to say it?”
“Would it make you very happy?”
“It would make this world heaven.”
Constance stopped in her walk, drew back a little from his side, and looked at him.
“I will say it,” she said quietly. “I love you — yes, I do. No — do not start — it is not much to hear, you must not be too hopeful. I will tell you the truth — so, as we stand — no nearer. It is not friendship nor fondness, nor mere liking. It is love, but it is not what it should be. Do you know why I tell you? Because I care too much for your respect to let you think I am a miserable flirt, to let you think that I am encouraging you and drawing you on, without having the least heart in the matter. You must think me very conscientious. Perhaps I am. Yes, I have encouraged you, I have drawn you on, because I like to hear you say what you so often say of late, that you love me. It is very sweet to hear, as I told you just now. And, do you know? I wish I could say the same things to you, and feel them. But I do not love you enough, I am not sure of my love, it is greater to-day and less to-morrow, and I will not give you little where you give me so much. You know my secret now. You may hope, if you will. I am not deceiving you. I may love you more and more, and the day when I feel that it is all strong and true and whole and sound and unchangeable I will marry you. But I will not promise. I will not run the risk so long as I feel that my love may turn again into friendship next week — or next year. Do you see? Have you understood me? Is it all clear now?”
“I understand your words, dear, but not your heart. I thank you — —”
“No. Do not thank me. Come, let us walk on, slowly. Do you know that it has been the same with you, though you will not admit it? You did not love me a year ago, as you do now, did you?”
“No. That was impossible. I love you more and more every day, every week, every month.”
“A year ago it would have been quite possible for you to have forgotten me and loved some other woman. You did not look at me as you do now. Your voice had not the same ring in it.”
“I daresay not — I have changed. I can feel it.”
“Yes, and it is because I have watched you changing in one way, that I am afraid I may change in the other.”
George was very much surprised and at the same time was made very happy by what she had told him. He had indeed suspected the truth, and it was not enough to have heard her say the words “I love you” in the calm and reasoning tone she had used. But on the other hand, there was something brilliantly honest about her confession, that filled him with hope and delight. If a woman so true once loved with all her heart, she would love longer and better and more truly than other women can. So at least thought George Wood, as he walked by her side beneath the trees in Washington Square, and glanced from time to time at her lovely blushing face.
“I thank you, dear, with all my heart,” he said after a long pause.
“There is little enough to thank me for. It seems to me that I could not have done less. Would it have been honest and right to let things go on as they were going without an explanation?”
“Perhaps not. But most women would have done nothing. I understand you better now, I think — if a man can ever understand a woman at all.”
“I do not understand myself,” Constance answered thoughtfully. “Promise me one thing,” she added, looking up quickly into his face.
“Anything in the world,” he said.
“Anything? Then promise me that what I have said to-day shall make no difference in the way we meet, and that you will behave just as you did before.”
“Indeed I will. What difference could it make? I do not see.”
“Well, it might. Remember that we are not engaged to be married — —”
“Oh, that? Of course not. I am engaged to you, but you are not engaged to me. Is that it?”
“Better not think of any engagement at all. It can do no good. Love me if you will, but do not consider yourself bound.”
“If you will tell me how I can love you without feeling bound to you, perhaps I will try and obey your commands. It must be a very complicated thing.” George laughed happily.
“Well, do as you will,” said Constance. “Only be honest with me, as I have been with you. If a time comes when you feel that you love me less, tell me so frankly, and let there be an end. Will you?”
“Yes. I am not afraid. The day will never come.”
“Never is thought to be an old-fashioned word, I believe — like always. Will you do something else to please me — something to pay me for my honesty?”
“Anything — everything.”
“Write a book, then. It is time you did it.”
George did not answer at once. There was nothing which he really wished more to accomplish than what Constance asked of him, and yet, in spite of years of literary work and endless preparation, there was nothing for which he really felt himself less fitted. He was conscious that fragments of novels were constantly floating through his brain and that scenes formed themselves and conversations arranged themselves spontaneously in his mind when he least expected it; but everything was vague and unsettled, he had neither plot nor plan, neither the persons of the drama nor the scene of their action, neither beginning nor continuation, nor end. To promise to write a book now, this very year, seemed like madness. And yet he was beginning to fear lest he should put off the task until it should be too late. He was in his twenty-seventh year, and in his own estimation was approaching perilously near to thirty.
“Why do you ask me to do it now?” he inquired.
“Because it is time, and because if you go on much longer with these short things you will never do anything else.”
“I only do it as a preparation, as a step. Honestly, I do not feel that I know enough to write a good book, and I should be sorry to write a bad one.”
“Never mind. Make a beginning. It can do no harm to try. You have written a great deal lately and you can leave the magazines alone for a while. Shall I tell you what I would like?”
“Yes — what?”
“I would like you to write your book and bring the chapters as you write them, and read them to me one by one.”
“Would you really like that?”
“Indeed I would.”
“Then I will do it. I mean that I will try, for I am sure I cannot succeed. But — you did not think of that — where can we read without being interrupted? I do not propose to give your sister the benefit — —”
“In Central Park — on fine days. There are quiet places there.”
“Will you go there with me alone?” George asked in some surprise.
“Yes. Why not? Have I not told you that I love you — a little?”
“I bless you for it, dear,” said George.
And so they parted.
CHAPTER IX.
GEORGE FELT LIKE a man who has committed himself to take part in some public competition although not properly prepared for the contest, and during the night that succeeded his last meeting with Constance he slept little. He had promised to write a book. That was bad enough, considering that he felt so little fitted for the task. But, at least, if he had undertaken to finish the work, revise it and polish it and eliminate all the errors he could discover before bringing it to Miss Fearing in its final shape, he could have comforted himself with the thought that the first follies he committed would be known only to himself. He had promised, however, to read the chapters to Constance as he wrote them, one by one, and the thought filled him with dismay. The charming prospect of numberless meetings with her was marred by the fear of being ridiculous in her eyes. It was for her alone that the book was to be written. It would be a failure and he would not even attempt to publish it, but the certainty that the public would not witness his discomfiture brought no consolation with it. Better a thousand times to be laughed at by the critics than to see a pained look of disappointment in Constance’s eyes. Nevertheless he considered his promise sacred, and, after all, it was Constance who had driven him to make it. He had protested his incapacity as well as he could. She would see that he had been right and would acknowledge the wisdom of waiting a little longer before making the great attempt.
At first, he felt as though he were in a nightmare, in a dim labyrinth from which he had pledged himself to find an escape in a given time. His nerves, for the first time in his life, played him false. He grew suddenly hot, and then as suddenly cold again. Attempting to fix his imagination, monstrous faces presented themselves before his eyes in the dark, and he heard fragments of conversation in which there were long sentences that meant nothing. He lit a candle and sat up in bed, clasping his forehead with his long, smooth fingers, and beginning to feel that he knew what despair really meant.
This then was the result of years of preparation, of patient practice with the pen, of thoughtful reading and careful study. He had always felt that he lacked the imagination necessary for producing a novel, and now he felt sure of it. Johnson had told him that he was no critic, and he had believed Johnson, because Johnson was himself the best critic he knew. What then was he? A writer of short papers and articles. Yes, he could do that. How easily now, at this very moment, could he think of half a dozen subjects for such work, and how neatly he could put them into shape, develop them in a certain number of pages and polish them to the proper degree of brilliancy!
The morning dawned and found him still searching and beating his brain for a subject. As the light increased he felt more and more nervous. It was not in his nature to put off the beginning upon which he had determined, and he knew that on that day he must write the first words of his first book, or forfeit his self-respect for ever. There was an eminently comic side to the situation, but he could not see it. His dread of being ridiculous in the eyes of the woman he loved was great enough to keep him from contemplating the absurdity of his case. His sensa
tions became intolerable; he felt like a doomed man awaiting his execution, whose only chance of a reprieve lay in inventing a plot for a novel. He could bear it no longer, and he got out of bed and opened his window. The fresh air of the May morning rushed in and suddenly filled the room with sweetness and his excited brain with a new sense of possibilities. He sat down at his table without thinking of dressing himself, and took up his pen. A sheet of paper lay ready before him, and the habit of writing was strong in itself — too strong to be resisted. In a few minutes that white sheet would be covered with words that would mean something, and those words would be the beginning of his book, of the novel he was about to write but of the contents of which he had not the remotest conception. This was not the way he had anticipated the commencement of the work that was to lay the first stone of his reputation. He had fancied himself sitting down to that first page, calm and collected, armed with a plot already thoroughly elaborated, charmed beforehand with the characters of his own invention, carried away from the first by the spirit of the action, cheered at every page by the certainty of success, because failure was to have been excluded by the multiplicity of his precautions. And here he was, without an idea in his brain or the least subject for an excuse, beginning a romance which was to be judged step by step by the person of all others most dear to him.
George dipped his pen into the ink a second time and then glanced at the calendar. It was the fifth of May.
“Well,” he said aloud, “there is luck in odd numbers. Here goes my first novel!”
And thereupon, to his own great surprise, he began writing rapidly. He did not know what was coming, he hardly knew whether his hero had black hair or brown, and as for the heroine, he had not thought of her at all. But the hero was himself and was passing a night of great anxiety and distress in a small room, in a small house, in the city of New York. The reason of his anxiety and distress was a profound secret as yet, because George had not invented it, but there was no difficulty in depicting his state of mind. The writer had just spent that very night himself, and was describing it while the sun was yet scarcely risen. He chuckled viciously as he drove his pen along the lines and wrote out the ready phrases that rushed into his brain. It was inexpressibly comic to be giving all the details of his hero’s suffering without having the smallest idea of what caused it; but, as he went on, he found that his silence upon this important point was lending an uncanny air of mystery to his first chapter, and his own interest was unexpectedly aroused.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 501