The Conflict [96]
drawn to me in the same way. Isn't that so?''
``You--fascinated me,'' confessed he. ``You--or your clothes--or your perfume.''
``Explain it as you like,'' said she. ``The fact remains that we were drawn together. Well--Victor, _I_ am not afraid to face the future, as fate maps it out for us. Are you?''
He did not answer.
``You--AFRAID,'' she went on. ``No--you couldn't be afraid.''
A long silence. Then he said abruptly: ``IF we loved each other. But I know that we don't. I know that you would hate me when you realized that you couldn't move me. And I know that I should soon get over the infatuation for you. As soon as it became a question of sympathies--common tastes--congeniality--I'd find you hopelessly lacking.''
She felt that he was contrasting her with some one else--with a certain some one. And she veiled her eyes to hide their blazing jealousy. A movement on his part made her raise them in sudden alarm. He had risen. His expression told her that the battle was lost--for the day. Never had she loved him as at that moment, and never had longing to possess him so dominated her willful, self-indulgent, spoiled nature. Yet she hated him, too; she longed to crush him, to make him suffer--to repay him with interest for the suffering he was inflicting upon her--the humiliation. But she dared not show her feelings. It would be idle to try upon this man any of the coquetries indicated for such cases--to dismiss him coldly, or to make an appeal through an exhibition of weakness or reckless passion.
``You will see the truth, for yourself, as you think things over,'' said he.
She rose, stood before him with downcast eyes, with mouth sad and sweet. ``No,'' she said, ``It's you who are hiding the truth from yourself. I hope--for both our sakes--that you'll see it before long. Good-by-- dear.'' She stretched out her hand.
Hesitatingly he took it. As their hands met, her pulse beating against his, she lifted her eyes. And once more he was holding her close, was kissing her. And she was lying in his arms unresisting, with two large tears shining in the long lashes of her closed eyes.
``Oh, Jane--forgive me!'' he cried, releasing her. ``I must keep away from you. I will--I WILL!'' And he was rushing down the steep slope--direct, swift, relentless. But she, looking after him with a tender, dreamy smile, murmured: ``He loves me. He will come again. If not--I'll go and get him!''
To Jane Victor Dorn's analysis of his feeling toward her and of the reasons against yielding to it seemed of no importance whatever. Side by side with Selma's
``One may not trifle with love'' she would have put ``In matters of love one does not reason,'' as equally axiomatic. Victor was simply talking; love would conquer him as it had conquered every man and every woman it had ever entered. Love--blind, unreasoning, irresistible-- would have its will and its way.
And about most men she would have been right-- about any man practically, of the preceding generation. But Victor represented a new type of human being-- the type into whose life reason enters not merely as a theoretical force, to be consulted and disregarded, but as an authority, a powerful influence, dominant in all crucial matters. Only in our own time has science begun to make a notable impression upon the fog which formerly lay over the whole human mind, thicker here, thinner there, a mere haze yonder, but present everywhere. This fog made clear vision impossible, usually made seeing of any kind difficult; there was no such thing as finding a distinct line between truth and error as to any subject. And reason seemed almost as faulty a guide as feeling--was by many regarded as more faulty, not without justification.
But nowadays for some of us there are clear or almost clear horizons, and such fog banks as there are conceal from them nothing that is of importance in shaping a rational course of life. Victor Dorn was one of these emancipated few. All successful men form their lives upon a system of some kind. Even
``You--fascinated me,'' confessed he. ``You--or your clothes--or your perfume.''
``Explain it as you like,'' said she. ``The fact remains that we were drawn together. Well--Victor, _I_ am not afraid to face the future, as fate maps it out for us. Are you?''
He did not answer.
``You--AFRAID,'' she went on. ``No--you couldn't be afraid.''
A long silence. Then he said abruptly: ``IF we loved each other. But I know that we don't. I know that you would hate me when you realized that you couldn't move me. And I know that I should soon get over the infatuation for you. As soon as it became a question of sympathies--common tastes--congeniality--I'd find you hopelessly lacking.''
She felt that he was contrasting her with some one else--with a certain some one. And she veiled her eyes to hide their blazing jealousy. A movement on his part made her raise them in sudden alarm. He had risen. His expression told her that the battle was lost--for the day. Never had she loved him as at that moment, and never had longing to possess him so dominated her willful, self-indulgent, spoiled nature. Yet she hated him, too; she longed to crush him, to make him suffer--to repay him with interest for the suffering he was inflicting upon her--the humiliation. But she dared not show her feelings. It would be idle to try upon this man any of the coquetries indicated for such cases--to dismiss him coldly, or to make an appeal through an exhibition of weakness or reckless passion.
``You will see the truth, for yourself, as you think things over,'' said he.
She rose, stood before him with downcast eyes, with mouth sad and sweet. ``No,'' she said, ``It's you who are hiding the truth from yourself. I hope--for both our sakes--that you'll see it before long. Good-by-- dear.'' She stretched out her hand.
Hesitatingly he took it. As their hands met, her pulse beating against his, she lifted her eyes. And once more he was holding her close, was kissing her. And she was lying in his arms unresisting, with two large tears shining in the long lashes of her closed eyes.
``Oh, Jane--forgive me!'' he cried, releasing her. ``I must keep away from you. I will--I WILL!'' And he was rushing down the steep slope--direct, swift, relentless. But she, looking after him with a tender, dreamy smile, murmured: ``He loves me. He will come again. If not--I'll go and get him!''
To Jane Victor Dorn's analysis of his feeling toward her and of the reasons against yielding to it seemed of no importance whatever. Side by side with Selma's
``One may not trifle with love'' she would have put ``In matters of love one does not reason,'' as equally axiomatic. Victor was simply talking; love would conquer him as it had conquered every man and every woman it had ever entered. Love--blind, unreasoning, irresistible-- would have its will and its way.
And about most men she would have been right-- about any man practically, of the preceding generation. But Victor represented a new type of human being-- the type into whose life reason enters not merely as a theoretical force, to be consulted and disregarded, but as an authority, a powerful influence, dominant in all crucial matters. Only in our own time has science begun to make a notable impression upon the fog which formerly lay over the whole human mind, thicker here, thinner there, a mere haze yonder, but present everywhere. This fog made clear vision impossible, usually made seeing of any kind difficult; there was no such thing as finding a distinct line between truth and error as to any subject. And reason seemed almost as faulty a guide as feeling--was by many regarded as more faulty, not without justification.
But nowadays for some of us there are clear or almost clear horizons, and such fog banks as there are conceal from them nothing that is of importance in shaping a rational course of life. Victor Dorn was one of these emancipated few. All successful men form their lives upon a system of some kind. Even