CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

She was in the music-room, looking through the first act of "Grania," and thinking that perhaps after all she might remain on the stage and create the part. Her father had gone to St. Joseph's for choir practice, Ulick had gone to London for strings for her viola da gamba; and all the morning she had been uneasy and expectant. The feeling never quite left her that something was about to happen, that she was to meet someone—someone for whom she had been waiting a long while. So she started on hearing the front door bell ring. She could think of no one whom it might be unless Owen. If it were, what would she say? And she waited, eager for the servant to announce the visitor. It was Monsignor Mostyn.

She was dressed in a muslin tea-gown over shot green silk, and was conscious of her triviality as she stood before the tall, spare ecclesiastic. She admired the calm, refined beauty of his face, the bright, dark eyes and the thin features, steadfast and aloof as some saints she had seen in pictures.

"I called to see your father, Miss Innes, but he is not in, and hearing that you were, I asked to see you. For my business is really with you, that is, if you can spare the time?"

"Won't you sit down, Monsignor?"

"I have come, Miss Innes, to remind you of a promise that you once made me."

The colour returned to her cheeks, and a smile to her lips. But she did not remember, and was slightly embarrassed.

"Did I make you a promise?"

"Have you forgotten my speaking to you about some poor sisters who might be driven from their convent if they failed to pay the interest on a mortgage?"

"Ah, yes, on the night of the concert."

"They have paid the interest and kept a roof over their heads, but in doing so they have exhausted their resources; and not to put too fine a point upon it, I am afraid they often have not enough to eat. Something must be done for them. I thought that a concert would be the quickest way of getting them some money."

"You want me to sing?"

"It really would be a charitable action."

"I shall be delighted to sing for them. Where is this convent?"

"At Wimbledon."

"My old convent! The Passionist Sisters!"

"Your old convent?"

"Yes," Evelyn replied, the colour rising slightly to her cheeks. "I made a retreat there, long ago, before I went on the stage."

She was grieved to hear that the Reverend Mother she had known was dead; she had died two years ago, and Mother Margaret was dead too. Monsignor could tell her nothing about Sister Bonaventure. Mother Philippa was the sub-prioress; and in the midst of her questions he explained how the financial difficulties had arisen. They were, he said, the result of the imprudences of the late Reverend Mother, one of the best and holiest of women, but unfortunately not endowed with sufficient business foresight. He was quite prepared to admit that the little wooden chapel which had preceded the present chapel was inadequate, and that she was justified in building another, but not in expending nearly one thousand pounds in stained glass. The new chapel had cost ten thousand pounds, and the interest of this money had to be paid. There were other debts—

"But there is no reason why I should weary you with an exact statement."

"But you do not weary me, Monsignor; I am, on the contrary, deeply interested."

"The convent owes a great deal to the late Reverend Mother, and the last thing I wish to express is disapproval. We do not know the circumstances, and must not judge her; we know that she acted for the best. No doubt she is now praying to God to secure the safety of her convent."

Evelyn sat watching him, fascinated by the clear, peremptory, ecclesiastical dignity which he represented. If he had a singing voice, she said to herself, it would be a tenor. He had allowed the conversation to wander from the convent to the concert; and they were soon talking of their musical preferences. There was an impersonal tenderness, a spiritual solicitude in his voice which enchained her; no single idea held her, but wave after wave of sensation passed, transforming and dissolving, changeable as a cloud. Human life demands hope, and the priest is a symbol of hope; there is always a moment when the religionist doubts, and there is also a moment when the atheist says, "Who knows, perhaps." And this man had done what she had not been able to do: he had put aside the paltry pleasures of the world, he placed his faith in things beyond the world, pleasures which perchance were not paltry. An entirely sensual life was a terrible oppression; hers often weighed upon her like a nightmare; to be happy one must have an ideal and strive to live up to it. Her mind flickered and sank, changing rapidly as an evening sky, never coming to anything distinct enough to be called a thought. She desired to hear him speak, she felt that she must speak to him about religion; she wanted to know if he were sure, and how he had arrived at his certitudes.... She wanted to talk to him about life, death and immortality. She had tried to lead the conversation into a religious discussion, but he seemed to avoid it, and just as she was about to put a definite question, Ulick came into the room. He stood crushing his grey felt hat between his hands, a somewhat curious figure, and she watched him talking to Monsignor, thinking of the difference of vision. As Ulick said, everything was in that. Men were divided by the difference of their visions. She was curious to know how the dogmatic and ritualistic vision of Monsignor affected Ulick, and when the prelate left she asked him.

He was as ingenuous and unexpected on this subject as he was on all subjects. If the antique priest, he said, clothed himself in purple, it was to produce an exaltation in himself which would bring him closer to the idea, which would render him, as it were, accessible to it. But the vestments of the modern priest had lost their original meaning, they were mere parade. This explanation was very like Ulick; she smiled, and was interested, but her interest was passing and superficial. The advent of the priest had moved her in the depths of her being, and her mind was thick with lees of ancient sentiment, and wrecks of belief had floated up and hung in mid memory. She knew that the beauty of the ritual, the eternal psalms, the divine sacrifice, the very ring of the bell, the antiquity of the language, lifted her out of herself, and into a higher, a more intense ecstasy than the low medium of this world's desires. And if she did not believe that the bread and wine were the true body and blood of God, she still believed in the real Presence. She was aware of it as she might be of the presence of someone in the room, though he might be hidden from her eyes. Though the bread and wine might not be the body and blood of Christ, still the act of consecration did seem to her to call down the spirit of God, and it had seemed to her to inhabit the church at the moment of consecration. It might not be true to Owen, nor yet to Ulick, but it was true to her—it was a difference of vision.... She sat buried in herself. Then she walked to the window confused and absorbed, with something of the dread of a woman who finds herself suddenly with child. When Ulick came to her she did not notice him, and when he asked her to do some music with him she refused, and when he put his arms about her she drew away sullenly, almost resentfully.

A few days after she was in Park Lane. She had gone there to pay some bills, and she was going through them when she was startled by the front door bell. It was a visitor without doubt. Her thoughts leaped to Monsignor, and her face lighted up. But he did not know she was at Park Lane; he would not go there.... It was Owen come up from Bath. What should she say to him? Good heavens! It was too late to say she was not at home. He was already on the stairs. And when he entered he divined that he was not welcome. They sat opposite each other, trying to talk. Suddenly he besought her not to throw him over.... She had to refuse to kiss him, and that was convincing, he said. Once a woman was not greedy for kisses, the end was near. And his questions were to the point, and irritatingly categorical. Had she ever been unfaithful to him? Did she love Ulick Dean? Not content with a simple denial, he took her by both hands, and looking her straight in the face, asked her to give him her word of honour that Ulick Dean was not her lover, that she had never kissed him, that she had never even desired to kiss him, that no idea of love making had ever arisen between them. She pledged her word on every point, and this was the second time that her liaison with Ulick had obliged her to lie, deliberately in so many words. Nor did the lying even end there. He wanted her to stay, to dine with him; she had to invent excuses—more lies.

She was returning to Dulwich in her carriage, and until she arrived home her thoughts hankered and gnawed, pestered and terrified her. Never had she felt so ashamed, so disgusted with herself, and the after taste of the falsehoods she had told came back into her mouth, and her face grew dark in the beautiful summer evening. Her brows were knit, and she resolved that if the occasion happened again, she would tell Owen the truth. This was no mock determination; on this point she was quite sure of herself. Looking round she saw the mean streets of Camberwell. She saw them for a moment, and then she sank back into her reverie.

She was deceiving Owen, she was deceiving her father, she was deceiving Ulick, she was deceiving Monsignor—he would not have thought of asking her to sing at the concert if he knew what a life was hers. Nor would those good women at the convent accept her aid if they knew what kind of woman she was. And the strange thing was that she did not believe herself to be a bad woman; at the bottom of her heart she loved truth and sincerity. She wished to have an ideal and to live up to it, yet she was doing the very opposite. That was what was so strange, that was what she did not understand, that was what made her incomprehensible to herself. She sighed, and at the bottom of her heart there lay an immense weariness, a weariness of life, of the life she was leading, and she longed for a life that would coincide with her principles, and she felt that if she did not change her life, she would do something desperate. She might kill herself.

It is true that man is a moral animal, but it is not true that there is but one morality; there are a thousand, the morality of each race is different, the morality of every individual differs. The origin of each sect is the desire to affirm certain moral ideas which particularly appeal to it; every change of faith is determined by the moral temperament of the individual; we prefer this religion to that religion because our moral ideas are more implicit in these affirmations than in those.

The restriction of sexual intercourse is the moral ideal of Western Europe; it is the one point on which all Christians are agreed; it is the one point on which they all feel alike. So inherent is the idea of sexual continence in the Western hemisphere that even those whose practice does not coincide with their theory rarely impugn the wisdom of the law which they break; they prefer to plead the weakness of the flesh as their excuse, and it is with reluctance that they admit that without an appeal to conscience it would be impossible to prove that it is wrong for two unmarried people to live together. It is not perceived that the fact that no material proof can be produced strengthens rather than weakens the position of the moralist. To do unto others as you would be done unto, to love your neighbour as yourself, are practical moralities which may be derived from social necessities, but the abstract moralities, that sexual intercourse is wrong except between married people, and that it is wrong to tell a lie, even if the lie be a perfectly harmless one, exist of themselves. That we cannot bring abstract moralities into the focus of our understanding is no argument. As well deny the stars because we cannot understand them. That abstract moralities impose on us should be a sufficient argument that they cannot be the futilities that Owen would argue them to be—not them, he only protested against one.... (She had not thought of that before—Owen was no more rational than she.) That the idea of chastity should persist in spite of reason is proof of its truth. For what more valid argument in favour of a chaste life than that the instinct of chastity abides in us? After all, what we feel to be true is for us the greatest truth, if not the only real truth. Ulick was nearer the truth than Owen. He had said, "A sense which eludes all the other senses and which is not apprehensible to reason governs the world, all the rest is circumstantial, ephemeral. Were man stripped one by one of all his attributes, his intelligence, his knowledge, his industry, as each of these shunks was broken up and thrown aside, the kernel about which they had gathered would be a moral sense."

Evelyn remembered that when she had sent Owen away before, he had said, "Sexual continence at best is not the whole of morality; from your use of the word one would think that it was." But for her the sexual conscience was the entire conscience—she had no temptation to steal. There was lying, but she was never tempted to tell lies except for one reason; she could not think of herself telling a lie for any other. To her the sexual sin included all the others. She turned her head aside, for the bitterness of her conscience was unendurable, and she vowed that, whatever happened, she would speak the truth if Owen questioned her again. She could never bring herself to tell such horrible falsehoods again.

These revulsions of feeling alternated with remembrances of Owen's tenderness; fugitive sensations of him tingled in her veins, and ill-disposed her to Ulick. She spoke little, and sat with averted eyes. When he asked her if he should come to her room, she answered him peremptorily; and he heard her lock her door with a determined hand.

As she lay in bed, conscious of the inextricable tangle of her life, it was knotting so closely and rapidly that her present double life could not endure much longer, the odious taste of the lies she had told that afternoon rose again to her lips, and, as if to quench the bitterness, she vowed that she would tell Owen the truth ... if he asked her. If he did not ask her she would have to bear the burden of her lies. She tried not to wish that he might ask her. Then questions sallied from every side. She could not marry Owen without telling him about Ulick. She could not marry Ulick without telling him that she had been unfaithful to him with Owen. Should she send away Owen and marry Ulick, or would it be better to send away Ulick and marry Owen—if he would marry her after he had heard her confession? It was unendurable to have to tell lies all day long—yes, all day long—of one sort or another. She ought to send them both away.... But could she remain on the stage without a lover? Could she go to Bayreuth by herself? Could she give up the stage? And then?

She awoke in a different mood—at least, it seemed to her that her mood was different. She was not thinking of Owen, of the lies she had told him; and she could talk gaily with Ulick about the concert she had promised to sing at. She seemed inclined to take the whole responsibility of this concert upon her own shoulders. As Ulick said, it was impossible for her to take a small part in any concert.

They were driving in Richmond Park, not far from the convent. The autumn-tinted landscape, the vicissitudes of the woods, and the plaintive air brought a tender yearning into her mood, and she contrasted the lives of those poor, holy women with her own life. Ulick did not intrude himself; he sat silent by her, and she thought of Monsignor. Sometimes he was no more than a little shadow in the background of her mind; but he was never wholly absent, and that day all matters were unconsciously referred to him. She was curious to know what his opinions were of the stage; and as they returned home in the short, luminous autumn evening, she seemed to discover suddenly the fact that she was no longer as much interested in the stage as she used to be. She even thought that she would not greatly care if she never sang on the stage again. Last night she had put the thought aside as if it were madness, to-day it seemed almost natural. Thinking of the poor sisters who lived in prayer and poverty on the edge of the common, she remembered that her life was given up to the portrayal of sensual emotion on the stage. She remembered the fierce egotism of the stage—an egotism which pursued her into every corner of her life. Compared with the lives of the poor sisters who had renounced all that was base in them, her life was very base indeed. In her stage life she was an agent of the sensual passion, not only with her voice, but with her arms, her neck and hair, and every expression of her face, and it was the craving of the music that had thrown her into Ulick's arms. If it had subjugated her, how much more would it subjugate and hold within its sensual persuasion the ignorant listener—the listener who would perceive in the music nothing but its sensuality. Why had the Church not placed stage life under the ban of mortal sin? It would have done so if it knew what stage life was, and must always be. She then wondered what Monsignor thought of the stage, and from the moment her curiosity was engaged on this point it did not cease to trouble her till it brought her to the door of the presbytery. The ostensible object of her visit was to make certain proposals to Monsignor regarding the music she was to sing at the concert.

She was shown into a small room; its one window was so high up on the wall that the light was dim in the room, though outside there was brilliant sunshine. The sadness of the little room struck cold upon her, and she noticed the little space of floor covered with cocoa-nut matting, and how it grated under the feet. The furniture was a polished oak table, with six chairs to match. A pious print hung on each wall. One was St. Monica and St. Augustine, and the rapt expression of their faces reminded her that she might be bartering a divine inheritance for a coarse pleasure that left but regret in the heart. And it was in such heartsick humour that Monsignor found her. He seemed to assume that she needed his help, and the tender solicitude with which he wished to come to her aid was in itself a consolation. She was already an incipient penitent as she told him of her project to bring an orchestra at her own expense to Wimbledon, and give the forest murmurs with the Bird Song from "Siegfried." Monsignor left everything to her; he placed himself unreservedly in her hands. After a long silence she pushed a cheque for fifty pounds across the table, begging him not to mention the name of the giver. She was singing for them, that was sufficient obligation. He approved of her delicacy of feeling, thanked her for her generosity, and the business of the interview seemed ended.

"I'm so much obliged to you, Monsignor Mostyn, for having come to me, for having given me an opportunity of doing some good with my money. Hitherto, I'm ashamed to say, I've spent it all on myself. It has often seemed to me intolerably selfish, and I often felt that I must do something, only I did not know what to do."

Then, feeling that she must take him into her confidence, she asked him what proportion of our income we should devote to charity. He said it was impossible to fix a precise sum, but he knew many deserving cases, and offered to advise her in the distribution of whatever money she might decide to spend in charity. Suddenly his manner changed; he even seemed to wish her to stay, and the conversation turned back to music. The conversation was mundane as possible, and it was only now and then, by some slight allusion to the Church, that he reminded Evelyn, and perchance himself, that the essential must be distinguished from the circumstantial.

Again and again the temptation rose up, it seemed to look out from her very eyes, and she was so conscious of this irresistible desire to speak to him of herself that she no longer heard him, and hardly saw the blank wall with the pious print upon it.

"I have not told you, Monsignor," she said at last, "that I am leaving the stage."

She knew that he must ask her what had induced her to think of taking so important a step, and then she would have an opportunity of asking his opinion of the stage. Of course neither Ulick's nor Owen's name would be mentioned.

"As at present constituted, the stage is a dangerous influence. Some women no doubt are capable of resisting evil even when surrounded by evil. Even so they set a bad example, for the very knowledge of their virtue tempts others less sure of themselves to engage in the same life, and these weak ones fall. The virtuous actress is like a false light, which instead of warning vessels from the rocks entices them to their ruin."

He did not indite the Oberammergau Passion Play, but he could not accept "Parsifal." He had heard Catholics aver, while approving of the performance of "Parsifal," that they would not wish to see the piece performed out of Bayreuth. But he failed to understand this point of view altogether. It seemed to assume that a parody of the Mass was unobjectionable at Bayreuth, though not elsewhere. If there was no parody of the Mass, why should they say that they would not like to see the piece performed elsewhere? He had read the book and knew the music, and could not understand how a great work of art could contain scenes from real life. Whether these be religious ceremonies or social functions, the artistic sin is the same. He asked Evelyn why she was smiling, and she told him that it was because the only two whom she had heard disapprove of "Parsifal" were Monsignor Mostyn and Ulick Dean. It seemed strange that two such extremes should agree regarding the profligacy of "Parsifal." Monsignor was interested for a moment in Ulick Dean's views, and then he said—

"But was it with the intention of consulting me, Miss Innes, that you introduced the subject? I hear that you are going to play the principal part next year—Kundry."

"Nothing is settled. As I told you just now, Monsignor, I am thinking of leaving the stage, and your opinions concerning it do not encourage me to remain an actress."

"My dear child, you have had the good fortune to be brought up in holy Church. You have, I hope, constant recourse to the sacraments. You have confided the difficulties of your stage life to your confessor. How does he advise you?"

Raising her eyes, Evelyn said in a sinking voice—

"Even if one has doubts about the whole doctrine of the Church, it is still possible to wish to lead a good life. Don't you think so, Monsignor?"

"There are many Protestants who lead excellent lives. But I have always noticed that when a Catholic begins to question the doctrine of the Church, his or her doubts were preceded by a desire to lead an irregular life."

And in the silence Evelyn became aware of the afternoon sun shining through the window above their heads, enlivening the dark parlour. It seemed strange to sit discussing such subjects in the sunshine. The ray that fell through the window lighted up the priest's thin face till it seemed like one of the wood carvings she had seen in Germany. When he resumed the conversation it was to lead her to speak of herself and the reasons which had suggested an abandonment of her stage career. The tender, impersonal kindness of the priest drew her out of herself, and she told him how she had begun to perceive that the stage had ceased to interest her as it had once done; she spoke of vulgarity and parade, yet that was not quite what she meant; it had come to seem to her like so much waste, as if she were wasting her time in doing things that did not matter, like grown people would feel if they were asked to pass the afternoon playing with dolls. Shrugging her shoulders hysterically, she said she could not explain.

"But have you an idea of what life you wish to lead?"

"No, I don't think I have; I only know that I am not happy in my present life."

"I believe you see a good deal of Sir Owen Asher. He helped you, did he not, in your musical education?"

"Yes," she answered under her breath. "He is an intimate friend." In a moment of unexpected courage, she said, "Do you know him, Monsignor?"

"I have heard a good deal about him, and nothing, I regret to say, to his credit. He is, I believe, an avowed atheist, and does not hesitate to declare his unbelief in every society, and to make open boast of an immoral life. He has read and tried to understand a little more than the people with whom he associates. I suppose the doubts you entertain regarding the doctrine of the Church are the result of his teaching?"

With a little pathetic air, Evelyn admitted that Owen had used every possible argument to destroy her faith. She had read Huxley, Darwin, and a little Herbert Spencer.

"Herbert Spencer! Miserable collections of trivial facts, bearing upon nothing. Of what value, I ask, can it be to suffering humanity to know that such and such a fact has been observed and described? Then the general law! rubbish, ridiculous rubbish!"

"The scientists fail to see that what we feel matters much more than what we know."

"True, quite true," he said, turning sharply and looking at her with admiration. Then, recollecting himself, he said, "But God does not exist because we feel He exists. He exists not through us, but through Himself, from all time and through all eternity. To feel is better than to observe, to pray is better than to inquire, but indiscriminate abandonment to our feelings would lead us to give credence to every superstition. You have, I perceive, escaped from the rank materialism of Sir Owen's teaching, but whither are you drifting, my dear child? You must return to the Church; without the Church, we are as vessels without a rudder or compass."

He walked up and down the room as though debating with himself. Evelyn held her breath, wondering what new turn the conversation would take. Suddenly she lost her courage, and overcome with fear got up to go, and Monsignor, considering that enough had been said, did not attempt to detain her. But as he bade her good-bye at the door, his keen eye fixed upon her, he added, "Remember, I do not admit your difficulties to be intellectual ones. When you come to realise that for yourself, I shall be glad to do all in my power to help you. God bless you, my child!"

If only she could put the whole thing aside—refuse to bother her head any more, or else believe blindly what she was told. She hated wobbling, yet she did nothing else. Suddenly she felt that if she were to believe at all, it must be like Monsignor. The magnetism of his faith thrilled her, and, in a moment, it had all became real to her. But it was too late. She could never do all her religion asked. Her whole life would have to come to pieces; nothing of it would remain, and she entirely lost heart when she considered in detail the sacrifices she would have to make. She saw herself at Dulwich with her father, giving singing lessons, attending the services, and living about St. Joseph's. She saw herself singing operas in every capital, and always a new lover at her heels. Both lives were equally impossible to her. As she lay back in her carriage driving through the lazy summer streets, she almost wished she had no conscience at all. What was the use of it? She had just enough to spoil her happiness in wrong-doing, yet not enough to prevent her doing what deep down in her heart she knew to be wrong.

That evening she wrote a number of letters, and begged a subscription of every friend—Owen was out of the question and she hesitated whether she should make use of Ulick. She would have liked to have left him out of this concert altogether, and it was only because she had no one else whom she could depend upon that she consented to let him go off in search of the necessary tenor. But to take him to the concert did not seem right.

She dipped her pen in the ink, and then laid it down, overcome by a sudden and intolerable melancholy. She could have cried, so great was her weariness with the world, so worthless did her life seem. She had begged her father's forgiveness; he had forgiven her, but she had not sent away her lover.... She had told Monsignor that, in consequence of certain scruples of conscience, she intended to give up the stage, but she had not told him that she had taken another lover and brought him to live with her under her father's roof. Whether there was a God and a hereafter, or merely oblivion, such conduct as hers was surely wrong. She walked to and fro, and came to a resolution regarding her relations with Ulick, at all events in her father's house.

Then life seemed perfectly hopeless, and she wished Monsignor had not come to see her. What could she do to shake off this clammy and unhealthy depression which hung about her? She might go for a walk, but where? The perspective of the street recalled the days when she used to stand at the window wondering if nothing would ever happen to her. She remembered the moment with singular distinctness when she heard the voice crying within her? "Will nothing ever happen? Will this go on for ever?" She remembered the very tree and the very angle of the house! Dulwich was too familiar; it was like living in a room where there was nothing but mirrors. Dulwich was one vast mirror of her past life. In Dulwich she was never living in the present. She could not see Dulwich, she could only remember it. One walk more in that ornamental park! She knew it too well! And the picture gallery meant Owen—she would only see him and hear his remarks. Her thoughts reverted to his proposal of marriage and her acceptance. Not for the whole world! Why, she did not know. He had been very good to her. Her ingratitude shocked her. She shrugged her shoulders hysterically; she could not help it—that was how she felt.

But Ulick? Should she marry him and accept the Gods? That would settle everything.

But a sense of humour solves nothing, and at that moment the servant brought her a small brown paper parcel. It looked like a book. It was a book. She opened it. Monsignor had sent her a book. As she turned the leaves she remembered the parcels of books from Owen which she used to open in the same room, sitting in the same chair. Sin and its Consequences! She began reading it. On one point she was sure, that sin did exist.... If we felt certain things to be wrong, they were wrong; at least they were wrong for those who thought them wrong, and she had never been able to feel that it was right to live with a man to whom she was not married. Everyone had a moral code. Owen would not cheat at cards, and he thought it mean to tell lies—a very poor code it was, but still he acted up to it. She did not know how Ulick felt on such matters; his beliefs, though numerous and picturesque, supplied no moral code, and she could not live on symbols, though perhaps they were better than Owen's theories. Her mistake from the beginning was in trying to acquire a code of morals which did not coincide with her feelings. But the teaching in this book did coincide with her feelings. Could she follow it? That was the point. Could she live without a lover? Owen thought not. She laughed and then walked about the room, unable to shake off a dead weight of melancholy. Though the Church was all wrong, and there was no God, she was still leading a life which she felt to be wrong; and if the Church were right, and there was a resurrection, her soul was lost. She took up the book and read till her fears became so intense that she could read no more, and she walked up and down the room, her nerves partially unstrung. In the evening she talked a great deal and rapidly, apparently not quite aware of what she was saying, or else her face wore a brooding look; sometimes it awakened a little, and then her eyes were fixed on Ulick.

The next day was Friday, and as the train service seemed complex and inconvenient, and as she had not at Dulwich a suitable dress to wear at the concert, she decided to sleep at Park Lane and drive to Wimbledon in the afternoon. She left her father, promising to return to him soon, and she had told Ulick that she thought it better he should return by train. She saw that he had noticed the book in her hand, and she knew that he understood her plea that she did not wish to be seen driving with him to mean that she was going to call on Monsignor on her way home. She had thought of calling at St. Joseph's, but, unable to think of a sufficient excuse for the visit, had abandoned the idea. She knew the time was not opportune. Monsignor would be hearing confessions. But as the carriage turned out of Camberwell, she remembered that it would be polite to thank him for the book, and leaning forward she told the coachman to drive to St. Joseph's.... So after all she was going there.... Ulick was right.

The attendant told her that Monsignor was hearing confessions, and would not be free for another half-hour. She drew a breath of relief, for this second visit had frightened her. The attendant asked her if she would wait. She thought she would like to wait in church. She desired its collectedness, its peace. But the thought of Monsignor's confessional frightened her, and she thanked the attendant hurriedly, and went slowly to her carriage.

When Ulick came in that evening she was seated on the corner of the sofa near the window. The moon was shining on the breathless park, and a moth whirled between the still flames of the candles which burned on the piano. He noticed that her mood was subdued and reflective. She liked him to sit by her, to take her hand and tell her he loved her. She liked to listen to him, but not to music; nor would she sing that evening, and his questions as to the cause remained unanswered. Her voice was calm and even, and seemed to come from far away. There was a tremor in his, and between whiles they watched and wondered at the flight of the moth. It seemed attracted equally by darkness and light. It emerged from the darkness, fluttered round the perilous lights and returned again to its natural gloom. But the temptation could not be resisted, and it fell singed on the piano.

"We ought to have quenched those candles," Evelyn said.

"It would have found others," Ulick answered, and he took the maimed moth on to the balcony and trod it out of its misery. They sat there under the little green verandah, and in the colour of the clear night their talk turned on the stars and the Zodiacal signs. Ulick was born under the sign of Aquarius, and all the important events of his life began when Aquarius was rising. Pointing to a certain group of stars, he said—

"The story of Grania is no more than our story, your story, my story, and the story of Sir Owen Asher, and I had written my poem before I saw you." Then, as a comment on this fact, he added, "We should be careful what we write, for what we write will happen. Grania is the beautiful fortune which we will strive for, which chooses one man to-day and another to-morrow."

The idea interested her for a moment, but she was thinking of her project to find out if, like Owen, he thought that the virtue of chastity was non-essential in women, or if the other virtues were dependent upon it. But how to lead the conversation back to this question she did not for the moment know. At last she said—"You ask me to love you—but to be my lover you would have to surrender all your spiritual life, that which is most to you, that which makes your genius. Do you think it worth it?"

He hesitated, then answered her with some vague reference to destiny, but she guessed the truth. As free as Owen himself from ethical scruples, he still felt that we should overcome our sexual nature. She asked herself why: and she wondered just as Owen wondered when confronted by her religious conscience. They looked at each other long and gravely, and he told her of the great seer who had collected in her own person all the cryptic revelation, all the esoteric lore of the East. He admitted that she had allowed carnal intercourse to some of her disciples while forbidding it to others.

"Evidently judging chastity to be in some cases essential to the other virtues."

She heard him say that a sect of mystics to which he belonged, or perhaps it was whose society he frequented, advised the married state but with this important reservation, that instead of corporal possession they should endeavour to aid each other to rise to a higher spiritual plane, anticipating in this life a little the perfect communion of spirit which awaited them in the next. But such theories did not appeal to Evelyn. She could only understand the renunciation of the married state for the sake of closer intimacy with the spiritual life; and she was more interested when he told her of the cruelties, the macerations and the abstinences which the Indian seers resorted to, so that the opacity of the fleshly envelope might be diminished and let the soul through. In modern, as in the most ancient ages, with the scientist as with the seer, marvels and prodigies are reached through the subjugation of the flesh; as life dwindles like a flame that a breath will quench, the spirit attains its maximum, and the abiding and unchanging life that lies beyond death waxes till it becomes the real life.

"Is this life, then, not real?"

"If reality means what we understand, could anything be more unreal?"

"Then you do believe in a future state?"

"Yes, I certainly believe in a future state.... So much so that it seems impossible to believe that life ends utterly with death."

But to Evelyn's surprise, he seemed to doubt the immortality of this future state, and fell back on the Irish doctrine which holds that after death you pass to the great plain or land under the sea, or the land over the sea, or the land of the children of the goddess Dana.

"Even now my destiny is accomplishing."

The true Celt is still a pagan—Christianity has been superimposed. It is little more than veneer, and in the crises of life the Celt turns to the ancient belief of his race. But did Ulick really believe in Angus and Lir and the Great Mother Dana? Perhaps he merely believed that as a man of genius it was his business to enroll himself in the original instincts and traditions of his race.

They were as unquiet as cattle before an approaching storm, and when they returned to the drawing-room it seemed to him like a scene in a theatre about to be withdrawn to make way for another part of the story. Even while looking at it, it seemed to have receded a little.

At last it was time for Ulick to go. As they said good-night he asked her if he should come to lunch. She looked at him, uncertain if she ought to take him to the concert at all.