The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne. William John Locke

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      “My dear girl,” I cried, “why on earth haven’t you lit the fire?”

      “The last time I lit it you said the room was stuffy.”

      “But then it was beautiful blazing sunshine, you illogical woman,” I exclaimed, searching my pockets for a match-box.

      I struck a match. To apply it to the fire I had to kneel by her chair. She stretched out her hand—she has delicate white hands with slender fingers—and lightly touched my head.

      “How long have we known each other?” she asked.

      “About eight years.”

      “And how long shall we go on?”

      “As long as you like,” said I, intent on the fire.

      Judith withdrew her hand. I knelt on the hearthrug until the merry blaze and crackle of the wood assured me of successful effort.

      “These are capital grates,” I said, cheerfully, drawing a comfortable arm-chair to the front of the fire.

      “Excellent,” she replied, in a tone devoid of interest.

      There was a long silence. To me this is one of the great charms of human intercourse. Is there not a legend that Tennyson and Carlyle spent the most enjoyable evenings of their lives enveloped in impenetrable silence and tobacco-smoke, one on each side of the hob? A sort of Whistlerian nocturne of golden fog!

      I offered Judith a cigarette. She declined it with a shake of the head. I lit one myself and leaning back contentedly in my chair watched her face in half-profile. Most people would call her plain. I can’t make up my mind on the point. She is what is termed a negative blonde—that is to say, one with very fair hair (in marvellous abundance—it is one of her beauties), a sallow complexion and deep violet eyes. Her face is thin, a little worn, that of the woman who has suffered—temperament again! Her mouth, now, as she looks into the new noisy flames, is drawn down at the corners. Her figure is slight but graceful. She has pretty feet. One protruded from her skirt, and a slipper dangled from the tip. At last it fell off. I knew it would. She has a craze for the minimum of material in slippers—about an inch of leather (I suppose it’s leather) from the toe. I picked the vain thing up and balanced it again on her stocking-foot.

      “Will you do that eight years hence?” said Judith.

      “My dear, as I’ve done it eight thousand times the last eight years, I suppose I shall,” I replied, laughing. “I’m a creature of habit.”

      “You may marry, Marcus.”

      “God forbid!” I ejaculated.

      “Some pretty fresh girl.”

      “I abominate pretty fresh girls. I would just as soon talk to a baby in a perambulator.”

      “The women men are crazy to marry are not always those they particularly delight to converse with, my friend,” said Judith.

      I lit another cigarette. “I think the sex feminine has marriage on the brain,” I exclaimed, somewhat heatedly. “My Aunt Jessica was worrying me about it the day before yesterday. As if it were any concern of hers!”

      Judith laughed below her breath and called me a simpleton.

      “Why?” I asked.

      “Because you haven’t got a temperament.”

      This was a foolish answer, having no bearing on the question. I told her so. She replied that she was years older than I, and had learned the eternal relevance of all things. I pointed out that she was years younger.

      “How many heart-beats have you had in your life—real, wild, pulsating heart-beats—eternity in an hour?”

      “That’s Blake,” I murmured.

      “I’m aware of it. Answer my question.”

      “It’s a silly question.”

      “It isn’t. The next time you see a female baby in a perambulator, take off your hat respectfully.”

      I am afraid I am clumsy at repartee.

      “And the next time you engage a cook, my dear Judith,” said I, “send for a mere man.”

      She coloured up. I dissolved myself in apologies. Her wounded susceptibilities required careful healing. The situation was somewhat odd. She had not scrupled to attack the innermost weaknesses of my character, and yet when I retaliated by a hit at externals, she was deeply hurt, and made me feel a ruffianly blackguard. I really think if Lisette had pinned up that curtain I should have learned something more about female human nature. But Judith is the only woman I have known intimately all my life long, and sometimes I wonder whether I shall ever know her. I told her so once. She answered: “If you loved me you would know me.” Very likely she was right. Honestly speaking, I don’t love Judith. I am accustomed to her. She is a lady, born and bred. She is an educated woman and takes quite an intelligent interest in the Renaissance. Indeed she has a subtler appreciation of the Venetian School of Painting than I have. She first opened my eyes, in Italy, to the beauties, as a gorgeous colourist, of Palma Vecchio in his second or Giorgionesque manner. She is in every way a sympathetic and entertaining companion. Going deeper, to the roots of human instinct, I find she represents to me—so chance has willed it—the ewige weibliche which must complement masculinity in order to produce normal existence. But as for the “zieht uns hinan”—no. It would not attract me hence—out of my sphere. I could commit an immortal folly for no woman who ever made this planet more lustrous to its Bruderspharen.

      I don’t understand Judith. It doesn’t very greatly matter. Many things I don’t understand, the spiritual attitude towards himself, for example, of the intelligent juggler who expends his life’s energies in balancing a cue and three billiard-balls on the tip of his nose. But I know that Judith understands me, and therein lies the advantage I gain from our intimacy. She gauges, to an absurdly subtle degree, the depth of my affection. She is really an incomparable woman. So many insist upon predilection masquerading as consuming passion. There is nothing theatrical about Judith.

      Yet to-day she appeared a little touchy, moody, unsettled. She broke another pleasant spell of fireside silence, that followed expiation of my offence, by suddenly calling my name.

      “Yes?” said I, inquiringly.

      “I want to tell you something. Please promise me you won’t be vexed.”

      “My dear Judith,” said I, “my great and imperial namesake, in whose meditations I have always found ineffable comfort, tells me this: ‘If anything external vexes you, take notice that it is not the thing which disturbs you, but your notion about it, which notion you may dismiss at once, if you please!’ So I promise to dismiss all my notions of your disturbing communication and not to be vexed.”

      “If there is one platitudinist I dislike more than another, it is Marcus Aurelius,” said Judith.

      I laughed. It was very comfortable to sit before the fire, which protested, in a fire’s cheery, human way, against the depression of the murky world outside, СКАЧАТЬ