第35章 CHAPTER VII MR. KNIGHT AND DUTY(3)

If this had happened, if he had seen her "playing the fool," as she expressed it to herself with that good-looking man in the square, what would he have thought of her? She never paused to remember that he had no right to think anything. Somehow from childhood she acknowledged in her heart that he had every right, though when she said this to herself, she did not in the least understand all that the admission conveyed. Although she bullied and maltreated him at times, yet to herself she always confessed him to be her lord and master. He was the one male creature for whom she cared in the whole world, indeed, putting her mother out of the question, she cared for no other man or woman, and would never learn to do so.

For hers was a singular and very rare instance of almost undivided affection centred on a single object. So far as his sex was concerned Godfrey was her all, a position of which any man might well be proud in the case of any woman, and especially of one who had many opportunities of devoting herself to others. In her example, however, she was not to be thanked, for the reason that she only followed her nature, or perhaps the dictates of that fate which inspires and rules very great love, whether it be between man and woman, between parent and child, between brother and brother, or between friend and friend.

Such feelings do not arise, or grow. They simply /are/; the blossoms of a plant that has its secret roots far away in the soil of Circumstance beyond our ken, and that, mayhap, has pushed its branches through existences without number, and in the climates of many worlds.

So at least it was with Isobel, and so it had always been since she kissed the sleeping child in the old refectory of the Abbey. She was his, and in a way, however much she might doubt or mistrust, her inner sense and instinct told her that he was always hers, that so he had always been and so always would remain. With the advent of womanhood these truths came home to her with an increased force because she knew --again by instinct--that this fact of womanhood multiplied the chances of attainment to the unity which she desired, however partial that might still prove to be.

Yet she knew also that this great mutual attraction did not depend on sex, though by the influence of sex it might be quickened and accentuated. It was something much more deep and wide, something which she did not and perhaps never would understand. The sex element was accidental, so much so that the passage of a few earthly years would rob it of its power to attract and make it as though it had never been, but the perfect friendship between their souls was permanent and without shadow of change. She knew, oh!, she knew, although no word of it had ever been spoken between them, that theirs was the Love Eternal. The quick perception of her woman's mind told her these things, of which Godfrey's in its slower growth was not yet aware.

Animated by this new idea that she had really seen Godfrey, and what was much worse, that Godfrey had really seen her upon an occasion when she would have much preferred to remain invisible to him, she was filled with remorse, and determined to write him a letter. Like that of the young man himself to his father, its composition took her a good deal of time.

Here it is as copied from her third and final draft:--

"My dear old Godfrey,--I have an idea that you were in the Square on the night of the fancy ball when I came out, and wore that horrid Plantagenet dress which, after all, did not fit. (I sent it to a jumble-sale where no one would buy it, so I gave it to Mrs. Smilie, who has nine children, to cut into frocks for her little girls.) If you /were/ there, instead of resting before your long journey as you ought to have done, and saw me with a man in armour and a rose--and the rest, of course you will have understood that this was all part of the game. You see, we had to pretend that we were knights and ladies who, when they were not cutting throats or being carried off with their hair down, seem to have wasted their time in giving each other favours, and all that sort of bosh. (We did not know what a favour was, so we used a rose.) The truth is that the young man and his armour, especially his spurs which tore my dress, and everything about him bored me, the more so because all the while I was thinking of--well, other things--how you would get through your journey, and like those French people and the rest. So now, if you /were/ there, you won't be cross, and if you were /not/, and don't understand what I am saying, it isn't worth bothering about. In any case, you had no right to--I mean, be cross. It is I who should be cross with you for poking about in a London square so late and not coming forward to say how do you do and be introduced to the knight. That is all I have to say about the business, so don't write and ask me any questions.

"There is no news here--there never is--except that I haven't been into that church since you left, and don't mean to, which makes your father look at me as sourly as though he had eaten a whole hatful of crab-apples. He hates me, you know, and I rather like him for showing it, as it saves me the trouble of trying to keep up appearances. Do tell me, when you write, how to explain his ever having been /your/ father. If he still wants you to go into the Church I advise you to study the Thirty-nine Articles. I read them all through yesterday, and how anybody can swear to them in this year of grace I'm sure I don't know. They must shut their eyes and open their mouths, like we used to do when we took powders. By the way, did you ever read anything about Buddhism?

I've got a book on it which I think rather fine. At any rate, it is a great idea, though I think I should find it difficult to follow 'the Way.'