PAGE 4
A Case Of Conscience
by
II
‘I am sorry you don’t see it,’ continued Tregellan, after a pause, ‘to me it seems impossible; considering your history it takes me by surprise.’
The other frowned slightly; finding this persistence perhaps a trifle crude, he remarked good-humouredly enough:
‘Will you be good enough to explain your opposition? Do you object to the girl? You have been back a week now, during which you have seen almost as much of her as I.’
‘She is a child, to begin with; there is five-and-twenty years’ disparity between you. But it’s the relation I object to, not the girl. Do you intend to live in Ploumariel?’
Sebastian smiled, with a suggestion of irony.
‘Not precisely; I think it would interfere a little with my career; why do you ask?’
‘I imagined not; you will go back to London with your little Breton wife, who is as charming here as the apple-blossom in her own garden. You will introduce her to your circle, who will receive her with open arms; all the clever bores, who write, and talk, and paint, and are talked about between Bloomsbury and Kensington. Everybody who is emancipated will know her, and everybody who has a “fad”; and they will come in a body and emancipate her, and teach her their “fads.”‘
‘That is a caricature of my circle, as you call it, Tregellan! though I may remind you it is also yours. I think she is being starved in this corner, spiritually. She has a beautiful soul, and it has had no chance. I propose to give it one, and I am not afraid of the result.’
Tregellan threw away the stump of his cigar into the darkling street, with a little gesture of discouragement, of lassitude.
‘She has had the chance to become what she is, a perfect thing.’
‘My dear fellow,’ exclaimed his friend, ‘I could not have said more myself.’
The other continued, ignoring his interruption.
‘She has had great luck. She has been brought up by an old eccentric, on the English system of growing up as she liked. And no harm has come of it, at least until it gave you the occasion of making love to her.’
‘You are candid, Tregellan!’
‘Let her go, Sebastian, let her go,’ he continued, with increasing gravity. ‘Consider what a transplantation; from this world of Ploumariel where everything is fixed for her by that venerable old Cure, where life is so easy, so ordered, to yours, ours; a world without definitions, where everything is an open question.’
‘Exactly,’ said the artist, ‘why should she be so limited? I would give her scope, ideas. I can’t see that I am wrong.’
‘She will not accept them, your ideas. They will trouble her, terrify her; in the end, divide you. It is not an elastic nature. I have watched it.’
‘At least, allow me to know her,’ put in the artist, a little grimly.
Tregellan shook his head.
‘The Breton blood; her English mother: passionate Catholicism! a touch of Puritan! Have you quite made up your mind, Sebastian?’
‘I made it up long ago, Tregellan!’
The other looked at him, curiously, compassionately; with a touch of resentment at what he found his lack of subtilty. Then he said at last:
‘I called it impossible; you force me to be very explicit, even cruel. I must remind you, that you are, of all my friends, the one I value most, could least afford to lose.’
‘You must be going to say something extremely disagreeable! something horrible,’ said the artist, slowly.
‘I am,’ said Tregellan, ‘but I must say it. Have you explained to Mademoiselle, or her uncle, your–your peculiar position?’
Sebastian was silent for a moment, frowning: the lines about his mouth grew a little sterner; at last he said coldly:
‘If I were to answer, Yes?’
‘Then I should understand that there was no further question of your marriage.’
Presently the other commenced in a hard, leaden voice.
‘No, I have not told Marie-Yvonne that. I shall not tell her. I have suffered enough for a youthful folly; an act of mad generosity. I refuse to allow an infamous woman to wreck my future life as she has disgraced my past. Legally, she has passed out of it; morally, legally, she is not my wife. For all I know she may be actually dead.’