"Stephen!"
"Yes."
"I'm tired of you. Go and bathe in the sea."
"All right."
And the whole thing was settled. She liked no fuss, and so did he. He sat down on the step to tighten his bootlaces. Then he would be ready. Mrs. Failing laid two or three sovereigns on the step above him. Agnes tried to make conversation, and said, with averted eyes, that the sea was a long way off.
"The sea's downhill. That's all I know about it." He swept up the money with a word of pleasure: he was kept like a baby in such things. Then he started off, but slowly, for he meant to walk till the morning.
"He will be gone days," said Mrs. Failing. "The comedy is finished. Let us come in."
She went to her room. The storm that she had raised had shattered her. Yet, because it was stilled for a moment, she resumed her old emancipated manner, and spoke of it as a comedy.
As for Miss Pembroke, she pretended to be emancipated no longer. People like "Stephen Wonham" were social thunderbolts, to be shunned at all costs, or at almost all costs. Her joy was now unfeigned, and she hurried upstairs to impart it to Rickie.
"I don't think we are rewarded if we do right, but we are punished if we lie. It's the fashion to laugh at poetic justice, but I do believe in half of it. Cast bitter bread upon the waters, and after many days it really will come back to you." These were the words of Mr. Failing. They were also the opinions of Stewart Ansell, another unpractical person. Rickie was trying to write to him when she entered with the good news.
"Dear, we're saved! He doesn't know, and he never is to know. I can't tell you how glad I am. All the time we saw them standing together up there, she wasn't telling him at all. She was keeping him out of the way, in case you let it out. Oh, I like her! She may be unwise, but she is nice, really. She said, 'I've been a fool but I haven't been a fool twice.' You must forgive her, Rickie. I've forgiven her, and she me; for at first I was so angry with her. Oh, my darling boy, I am so glad!"
He was shivering all over, and could not reply. At last he said, "Why hasn't she told him?"
"Because she has come to her senses."
"But she can't behave to people like that. She must tell him."
"Because he must be told such a real thing."
"Such a real thing?" the girl echoed, screwing up her forehead. "But—but you don't mean you're glad about it?"
His head bowed over the letter. "My God—no! But it's a real thing. She must tell him. I nearly told him myself—up there—when he made me look at the ground, but you happened to prevent me."
How Providence had watched over them!
"She won't tell him. I know that much."
"Then, Agnes, darling"—he drew her to the table "we must talk together a little. If she won't, then we ought to."
"WE tell him?" cried the girl, white with horror. "Tell him now, when everything has been comfortably arranged?"
"You see, darling"—he took hold of her hand—"what one must do is to think the thing out and settle what's right, I'm still all trembling and stupid. I see it mixed up with other things. I want you to help me. It seems to me that here and there in life we meet with a person or incident that is symbolical. It's nothing in itself, yet for the moment it stands for some eternal principle. We accept it, at whatever costs, and we have accepted life. But if we are frightened and reject it, the moment, so to speak, passes; the symbol is never offered again. Is this nonsense? Once before a symbol was offered to me—I shall not tell you how; but I did accept it, and cherished it through much anxiety and repulsion, and in the end I am rewarded. There will be no reward this time. I think, from such a man—the son of such a man. But I want to do what is right."
"Because doing right is its own reward," said Agnes anxiously.
"I do not think that. I have seen few examples of it. Doing right is simply doing right."
"I think that all you say is wonderfully clever; but since you ask me, it IS nonsense, dear Rickie, absolutely."
"Thank you," he said humbly, and began to stroke her hand. "But all my disgust; my indignation with my father, my love for—" He broke off; he could not bear to mention the name of his mother. "I was trying to say, I oughtn't to follow these impulses too much. There are others things. Truth. Our duty to acknowledge each man accurately, however vile he is. And apart from ideals" (here she had won the battle), "and leaving ideals aside, I couldn't meet him and keep silent. It isn't in me. I should blurt it out."
"But you won't meet him!" she cried. "It's all been arranged. We've sent him to the sea. Isn't it splendid? He's gone. My own boy won't be fantastic, will he?" Then she fought the fantasy on its own ground. "And, bye the bye, what you call the 'symbolic moment' is over. You had it up by the Rings. You tried to tell him, I interrupted you. It's not your fault. You did all you could."
She thought this excellent logic, and was surprised that he looked so gloomy. "So he's gone to the sea. For the present that does settle it. Has Aunt Emily talked about him yet?"
"No. Ask her tomorrow if you wish to know. Ask her kindly. It would be so dreadful if you did not part friends, and—"
"What's that?"
It was Stephen calling up from the drive. He had come back. Agnes threw out her hand in despair.
"Elliot!" the voice called.
They were facing each other, silent and motionless. Then Rickie advanced to the window. The girl darted in front of him. He thought he had never seen her so beautiful. She was stopping his advance quite frankly, with widespread arms.
"Elliot!"
He moved forward—into what? He pretended to himself he would rather see his brother before he answered; that it was easier to acknowledge him thus. But at the back of his soul he knew that the woman had conquered, and that he was moving forward to acknowledge her. "If he calls me again—" he thought.
"Elliot!"
"Well, if he calls me once again, I will answer him, vile as he is."
He did not call again.
Stephen had really come back for some tobacco, but as he passed under the windows he thought of the poor fellow who had been "nipped" (nothing serious, said Mrs. Failing), and determined to shout good-bye to him. And once or twice, as he followed the river into the darkness, he wondered what it was like to be so weak,—not to ride, not to swim, not to care for anything but books and a girl.
They embraced passionately. The danger had brought them very near to each other. They both needed a home to confront the menacing tumultuous world. And what weary years of work, of waiting, lay between them and that home! Still holding her fast, he said, "I was writing to Ansell when you came in."
"Do you owe him a letter?"
"No." He paused. "I was writing to tell him about this. He would help us. He always picks out the important point."
"Darling, I don't like to say anything, and I know that Mr. Ansell would keep a secret, but haven't we picked out the important point for ourselves?"
He released her and tore the letter up.
XV
The sense of purity is a puzzling and at times a fearful thing. It seems so noble, and it starts as one with morality. But it is a dangerous guide, and can lead us away not only from what is gracious, but also from what is good. Agnes, in this tangle, had followed it blindly, partly because she was a woman, and it meant more to her than it can ever mean to a man; partly because, though dangerous, it is also obvious, and makes no demand upon the intellect. She could not feel that Stephen had full human rights. He was illicit, abnormal, worse than a man diseased. And Rickie remembering whose son he was, gradually adopted her opinion. He, too, came to be glad that his brother had passed from him untried, that the symbolic moment had been rejected. Stephen was the fruit of sin; therefore he was sinful, He, too, became a sexual snob.