Bella Donna. Robert Hichens

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СКАЧАТЬ what were you thinking about?" Armine continued, earnestly. "I noticed how preoccupied you were even when you came into the room."

      "Did you? I was thinking about a conversation I had this afternoon. Oddly enough"—she turned slowly towards Meyer Isaacson—"it was with a doctor."

      "Indeed?" he said, looking her full in the face.

      "Yes."

      She turned away, and once more spoke to Armine.

      "I went this afternoon to a doctor, Mr. Armine, to consult him about a friend of mine who is ill and obstinate, and we had a most extraordinary talk about the soul and the body. A sort of fight it was. He thought me a typical silly woman. I'm sure of that."

      "Why?"

      "Because I suppose I took a sentimental view of our subject. We women always instinctively take the sentimental view, you know. My doctor was severely scientific and frightfully sceptical. He thought me an absurd visionary."

      "And what did you think him?"

      "I'm afraid I thought him a crass materialist. He had doctored the body until he was able to believe only in the body. He referred everything back to the body. Every emotion, according to him, was only caused by the terminal of a nerve vibrating in a cell contained in the grey matter of the brain. I dare say he thinks the most passionate love could be operated for. And as to any one having an immortal soul—well, I did dare, being naturally fearless, just to mention the possibility of my possessing such a thing. But I was really sorry afterwards."

      "Tell us why."

      "Because it brought upon me such an avalanche of scorn and arguments. I didn't much mind the scorn, but the arguments bored me."

      "Did they convince you?"

      "Mr. Armine! Now, did you ever know a woman convinced of anything by argument?"

      He laughed.

      "Then you still believe that you have an immortal soul?"

      "More, far more, than ever."

      She was laughing, too. But, quite suddenly, the laughter died out of her, and she said, with an earnest face:

      "I wouldn't let any one—any one—take some of my beliefs from me."

      The tone of her voice was almost fierce in its abrupt doggedness.

      "I must have some coffee," she added, with a complete change of tone. "I sleep horribly badly, and that's why I take coffee. Mere perversity! Three black coffees, waiter."

      "Not for me!" said Meyer Isaacson.

      "You must, for once. I hate doing things alone. There is no pleasure in anything unless some one shares it. At least"—she looked at Armine—"that is what every woman thinks."

      "Then how unhappy lots of women must be," he said.

      "The lonely women. Ah! no man will ever know how unhappy."

      There was a moment of silence. Something in the sound of Mrs. Chepstow's voice as she said the last words almost compelled a silence.

      For the first time since he had been with her that night Meyer Isaacson felt that perhaps he had caught a glimpse of her true self, had drawn near to the essential woman.

      The waiter brought their coffee, and Mrs. Chepstow added, with a little laugh:

      "Even a meal eaten alone is no pleasure to a woman. To-night, till you came to take pity upon me, I should have been far happier with 'something on a tray' in my own room. But now I feel quite convivial. Isn't the coffee here good?"

      Suddenly she looked cheerful, almost gay. Happiness seemed to blossom within her.

      "Never mind if you lie awake for once, Doctor Isaacson," she continued, looking across at him. "You will have done a good action; you will have cheered up a human being who had been feeling down on her luck. That talk I had with a doctor had depressed me most horribly, although I told myself that I didn't believe a word he said."

      Meyer Isaacson sipped his coffee and said nothing.

      "I think one of the wickedest things one can do in the world is to try to take any comforting and genuine belief away from the believer," said Armine, with energy.

      "Would you leave people even in their errors?" said the Doctor. "Suppose, for instance, you saw some one—some friend—believing in a person whom you knew to be unworthy, would you make no effort to enlighten him?"

      He spoke very quietly—almost carelessly. Mrs. Chepstow fixed her big blue eyes on him and for a moment forgot her coffee.

      "Perhaps I should. But you know my theory."

      "Oh—to be sure!"

      Meyer Isaacson smiled. Mrs. Chepstow looked from one man to the other quickly.

      "What theory? Don't make me feel an outsider," she said.

      "Mr. Armine thinks—may I, Armine?"

      "Of course."

      "Thinks that belief in the goodness, the genuineness of people helps them to become good, genuine, so that the unworthy might be made eventually worthy by a trust at first misplaced."

      "Mr. Armine is—" She checked herself. "It is a pity the world isn't full of Mr. Armines," she said, softly.

      Armine flushed, almost boyishly.

      "I wish my doctor knew you, Mr. Armine. If you create by believing, I'm sure he destroys by disbelieving."

      As she said the last words, her eyes met Meyer Isaacson's, and he saw in them, or thought he saw, a defiance that was threatening.

      The lights winked. Mrs. Chepstow got up.

      "They're going to turn us out. Let us anticipate them—by going. It's so dreadful to be turned out. It makes me feel like Eve at the critical moment of her career."

      She led the way from the big room. As she passed among the tables, every man, and almost every woman, turned to stare at her as children stare at a show. She seemed quite unconscious of the attention she attracted. But when she bade good night to the two friends in the hall, she said:

      "Aren't people horrible sometimes? They seem to think one is—" She checked herself. "I'm a fool!" she said. "Good night. Thank you both for coming. It has done me good."

      "Don't mind those brutes!" Armine almost whispered to her, as he held her hand for a moment. "Don't think of them. Think of—the others."

      She looked at him in silence, nodded, and went quietly away.

      Directly she had gone Meyer Isaacson said to his friend:

      "Well, good night, Armine. I am glad you're back. Let us see something of each other."

      "Don't go yet. Come to my sitting-room and have a smoke."

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