life moves in circles. some are larger than the span between infancy and senility, but that is about the only difference we know of. it is a far cry from the primigenous mere female, or even the sabines, to the women that compose the advance guard of their sex to-day, but when man wants to win and wear this highest product of civilization, he would better kidnap her, and pay her the compliment of arguing with her brain later. her impulses are still primitive, but they must be taken by assault. the more he reasons, the more vigorously will she throw up mental defences, and, what is worse, in the utmost good faith with herself.
this, of course, in regard to women that already know something of life, or that have an instinctive love of liberty and independence. the maternal girl, and she is legion, may safely be left in charge of the race, and wooed in the orthodox fashion favored of society. but the women that exert a powerful attraction for men, either exceptionally advanced themselves, or exceptionally weak in character while possessing every charm of mind, women that are approaching closer and closer to that exact balance of masculine and feminine attributes which, when attained, will give them the one perfect happiness, setting them free, as it must, from the present curse of the race, the longing for completion, are already too close to independence to be won by simple methods. it is little, after all, that man can give them. they are conscious of too many resources both within themselves and in life; after a man’s novelty has worn off, they are more likely than not—certainly apt!—to find him their inferior in brain, and almost inevitably in character, full of the little weaknesses and dependencies of childhood. if they make these discoveries after marriage, the man has some small chance of keeping his spouse, particularly if he has won a measure of respect by audacity and brute force plus sympathy, but too much consideration for a woman who is almost half male while he is still but one-fourth female will lose him the game.
nigel, of all the men that julia had met, was the best equipped to appeal to sentimental, romantic, and clever young women, who were at the same time cultivating their wings for the higher flights. as a matter of fact, he had appealed to a good many women of various sorts in his earlier twenties when he was all freshness, frankness, adoration, and honest eager youth. later, when he wore the literary halo with ease and modesty, his charm was not diminished; and it was easy to predict that when the war was really over and london, her mourning laid aside, roused herself to do honor to her heroes, nigel would come in for thrice his share of lionizing. as a matter of fact, he did, and he philosophically accepted it as a compensation for the lack of better things.
when he stepped from the fly on that gloomy wednesday morning and walked across the dripping garden, the dark and romantic wall of woods behind him, he looked as gallant a knight as ever came to the rescue of a damsel in distress; and julia, as dreary as mariana in the moated grange, was in the proper frame of mind to be taken by assault. she was still very young, she was very lonely, she was on the verge of despair; her imagination, always active, had been bred in youth by dreams, and developed later by real castles and titles, purple moors, london society, and great expectations. she hailed from the west indies, one of the most romantic spots to look at on earth, and all the circumstances of her life there had been exceptional. she was still more or less romantically environed, when you consider the old world dinginess, inconvenience, and isolation of white lodge, a presumptive lunatic always threatening developments, and that she was as much cut off from her friends as if she literally were in an underground dungeon with walls instead of trees dropping the constant tear. take all this into consideration, and add the momentous fact that she had never loved, and had arrived at the susceptible age of twenty-five, that she was more attracted to nigel than she ever had been to any man, that underneath her despair and her manufactured stolidity she was full of eager curiosity and the desire to live, and it will readily be seen that if nigel did not win her, it was strictly his own fault.
he should have retained the fly. he should have descended upon her like a whirlwind (having ascertained that france was out of the way,—which, as a matter of fact, he did at stanmore), refused to listen to protests, caused in her bewildered mind what psychologists call an inhibition, swept her out into the fly, up to london, on to an atlantic liner (passage already engaged), turned her over to mrs. herbert (thus eliminating every possible excuse for reproach during the subsequent and less glamorous period of matrimony), joined her at the earliest possible moment in reno (where bridgit and reno would have seen that she was sufficiently amused), and when she walked out of the court-house with her decree, met her with a license. that is the only way to manage them, my masters. try it, or take a back seat, now and forever.
but nigel, alas! in spite of his manly qualities, was the most considerate and tender of men. the very idea of kidnapping a woman would have horrified him. he had all those instincts of the hunter upon which men pride themselves, but he wanted to hunt according to the rules of the game. it would have given him the most exquisite pleasure to woo julia day by day, in reno or out of it, and it never occurred to him that this program might induce a yawn in julia.
she sat up all that night thinking. it was a rosy panorama he had unrolled before her, this charming young man that she might have loved if he had not given her so many opportunities to like him. he was a rich man and would one day be richer. they would live in new york and other wonderful cities of america, play with the kaleidoscopic society american novelists wrote about, hunt in the rockies, steep themselves in the romance of california, vary this exciting program with frequent trips to europe and the orient. england would be closed to them, lest france cause her arrest for bigamy, as one of many offensive actions. on the other hand, he might release her by divorce. then she could marry according to the laws of her country, and all the world would be her oyster.
above all, and nigel had emphasized this point during their afternoon conversation, she would have a strong and devoted husband to protect her, to shield her from all that was harsh and unlovely in life, to study her every wish, and make her a queen among women.
curiously enough it was this last alluring set of promises that lost him the game. nothing he had said to julia had appealed to her so forcibly at the moment. he had never looked so handsome and so manly, so distinguished, so perfect a specimen of his type. his face had flushed until the lines and the sallowness had disappeared, his eyes forgot the things they had looked upon this last year, forgot that their inward gaze saw his heart a tomb crowded with beloved dead; they flashed with hope and passion, with undying love for the one woman that must ever make to him the complete appeal. she had almost put her hands in his then and there. but he had left soon after, and without even kissing her. dear knightly soul! julia never forgot his tender consideration, but on the other hand she never regretted it.
for when she had finished visualizing the united states of america and all their centres of delight, to say nothing of certain states of europe and asia, which she longed unceasingly to visit; when she had dwelt upon the deep relief of turning her back forever upon harold france (france prowling about the halls and breathing heavily against her door materially assisted nigel at this point); when these phases were disposed of, and her imagination, weary, left the brain free to face the particular ego of julia france, in some ways so typical of woman, in others individual and peculiar, a very different set of ideas marched to the front and argued pro and con.
did she want another husband, no matter how good, how devoted, how generous, how strong? it was now nearly a year and a half since she had lived with france, but if the memories of her married life were no longer active, no longer embittered her existence, she had by no means buried them, and they affected her attitude toward all men. had nigel swept her out of england and into that strange bizarre world of america, no doubt the experiences in the new land, assisted by the fiction that she was about to begin life over, really would have annihilated memory; but thinking it all over in the cold small hours of an english winter morning, wrapped in a blanket and shovelling coals into a small unwilling english grate, she failed to visualize love as the sweetest thing in the world.
even so, this inability to respond to the genuine love that was offered her might not have prevented her ultimate acceptance. the man’s foe was far more deadly.
looking into herself, julia slowly understood that what she, in her youth and inexperience, had mistaken for hardness and callousness, was in reality strength. nature had endowed her with strength of character and independence of mind. for eighteen years her mother had dominated her, almost without her knowledge; then she had been flung into the world and treated to a succession of experiences which had left her gasping and dizzy, without either the maturity or the opportunities to develop herself with deliberation. but the subsequent years had done their work; ultimately certain influences, sufferings, horrors, terrors, had pushed her on to a point where she must sink or swim. in swimming she had proved that she belonged to the army of the strong, not to the vast and insignificant majority of her sex that found their only strength in man.
she was strong. she fully realized it for the first time. all the spurious cynicism and philosophy of youth fell away from her; she saw herself for what she was, a woman, equipped with a nature of flexible steel, able to endure any test without snapping, fashioned not so much for endurance as for conquest. conquest of what? she speculated, that something which so long had striven for expression moving dumbly. never mind, it was there; she should find the connection in time.
her mind rapidly reviewed the whole field of woman. she had no statistics, but she knew that several millions of her sex were forcing the world to recognize them as breadwinners, independently of any assistance from man. it was magnificent, the opportunities of to-day, when compared with the meagre resources of the past, and the repeated struggle of woman for expression and independence almost from the dawn of history. they had found themselves at last, the twentieth century was theirs, and they were driving rapidly toward the goal of complete equality with man. but how many of these women were strong enough to go through life without love? none, she fancied, until they had undergone a process of disillusion similar to her own. then she rejoiced in what for so long had seemed to her the harshest of destinies; for sitting there in the cold dawn, the one perfect destiny seemed to her to be an utter independence of soul and mind and body, the power to cultivate every faculty toward a state of development in which one human being, having in perfect balance the highest potencies of both sexes, should stand alone, indifferent to all extrinsic aid. and this perfect balance could be attained only by woman, unhampered as she was by the animality of man.
perfection. the word started her off on another train of thought. how was this perfection of strength, character, mind, and poise to be attained? to stand alone without aid from man or woman was neither a means nor an end. she had none of the common need of religion. it could play little or no part in her development. nor could happiness be found merely in perfecting self toward a standard which must inevitably deteriorate into self-righteousness. to stand alone is the most magnificent ideal of the human character, but that strength must be used toward some end beyond self. she groped along and began to see clearly. she must work for the race. she must regard herself as a chosen instrument of usefulness, as, indeed, all exceptionally gifted people were. and for this she was peculiarly equipped, not only by nature, but by life. had she not married at all, or at the most, casually, her woman’s nature would have protested against any such program, demanded its rights first; but these sources of disturbances were choked with hideous weeds, and julia was unable to conceive that the weeds might rot in time and the waters rise refreshed. she felt that she was fortunately accoutred, and she longed for her opportunities.
what they might be she had no inkling as yet, nor was she conscious of love for her kind, and a desire to be useful to it on general principles. her ambition, if ambition it could be called, was centred in her brain. if she had been chosen for a work, she would perform it. what else, in fact, was there for her to do? it had not needed bridgit and ishbel to teach her contempt for the morbid type of female that exaggerates sex until it becomes a disease, the women that play with their nerves until they have become mere neurotic systems without either sex or brains, and that exhibit egos either in private or public whose swollen deformities cause a momentary thrill and a prolonged disgust. abnormal without individuality. it was an ideal carefully avoided by all the sane strong women julia had met.
for the present, she could only wait and endure. she could not even go out and study the great problems of life, those problems she had chosen to ignore. but there is hardly any greater test of strength than passive endurance; and the time of her liberation could not be far off. the day ishbel married lord dark she should leave france and look for work in london.
nigel’s fate was settled before the rising of the sun. far away on what to europeans seem the confines of civilization, in other words, san francisco, a youth was growing to masterful manhood, who, in due course, would avenge him, and, incidentally, much else. but of that poor nigel could know nothing, nor would he have felt consoled had he foreseen; when he received julia’s letter, whose finality was as convincing as a black midnight without stars, he wished that he had left his wretched heart and bones in south africa, retired to the country with his broken father, and began another book. there was still the n?bel peace prize to work for, and he felt peculiarly fitted to win it. it may be stated here that he did, and all england (of his class, and one or two strata just below) was astonished that an englishman should have competed for a prize that involved a damnifying of war. it deeply disapproved.