December Love Part 18

And--Lady Sellingworth was sure of it--Caroline was not ravaged by the Furies who attack "foolish" middle-aged women.

What did Caroline Briggs think of her? What must she think?

Caroline knew well nearly all the members of the "old guard," and most of them were fond of her. She had never got in any woman's way with a man, and she was never condemnatory. So among women she was a very popular woman. Many people confided in her. Lady Sellingworth had never done this. But now she wished that she could bring herself to do it.

Caroline must certainly know her horribly well. Perhaps she could be helped by Caroline.

She needed help, for she was abominably devoid of moral courage.

She did not quite know why at this particular moment she was overwhelmed by a feeling of degradation; she only knew that she was overwhelmed.

She felt ashamed of being in Paris. She even compared herself with the horrible old woman in the wig, who, perhaps, had bought the brown man as she might have bought a big Newfoundland dog.

Fifty! Fifty! Fifty! It knelled in her ears. Caroline saw her as a woman of fifty. Perhaps everyone really saw her so. And yet--why had the man given her that strange look in Bond Street? Why had he wished her to come to Paris? She tried, with a really unusual sincerity, to find some other reason than the reason which had delighted her vanity. But she failed. Sincerely she failed.

And yet--was it possible?

She thought of giving up, of becoming like Caroline. It would be a great rest. But how empty her life would be. Caroline's life was a habit. But such a life for her would be an absolute novelty. No doubt Caroline's reward had come to her in middle-age. Middle-age was bringing something to her, Adela Sellingworth, which was certainly not a reward. One got what one earned. That was certain. And she had earned wages which she dreaded having paid to her.

She had a good brain, and she realized that if she had the moral courage she might--it was possible--be rewarded by a peace of mind such as she had never yet known. She was able as it were to catch a glimpse of a future in which she might be at ease with herself. It even enticed her.

But something whispered to her, "It would be stagnation--death in life."

And then she was afraid of it.

She spent the evening in miserable depression, not knowing what she could do. She distrusted and almost hated herself. And she could not decide whether or not on the morrow to give Caroline some insight into her state of mind.

On the following day she was still miserable, even tormented, and quite undecided as to what she was going to do.

She spent the morning at her dressmaker's, and walked, with her maid, in the Rue de la Paix. There she met a Frenchwoman whom she knew well, Madame de Gretigny, who begged her to come to lunch at her house in the Faubourg St. Honore. She accepted. What else could she do? After lunch she drove with her friend in the Bois. Then they dropped in to tea with some French mutual friends.

The usual Paris was gently beginning to take possession of her. What was the good of it all? What had she really expected of this visit? She had started from London with a crazy sense of adventure. And here she was plunged in the life of convention! Oh, for the freedom of a man! Or the stable content of a Caroline Briggs!

At moments she felt enraged.

She saw the crowds pa.s.sing in the streets, women tripping along consciously, men--flaneurs--strolling with their well-known look of watchful idleness, and she felt herself to be one of life's prisoners.

And she knew she would never again take hands with the Paris she had once known so well. Why was that? Because of something in herself, something irrevocable which had fixed itself in her with the years. She was changing, had changed, not merely in body, but in something else.

She felt that her audacity was sinking under the influence of her diffidence. Suddenly it occurred to her that perhaps this sudden visit to Paris on the track of an adventure was the last strong effort of her audacity. How would it end? In a meek and ridiculous return to London after a lunch with Caroline Briggs, a dinner with Caroline, a visit to the Opera Comique with Caroline! That really seemed the probable conclusion of the whole business. And yet--and yet she still had a sort of queer under feeling that she was drawing near to a climax in her life, and that, when she did return to London, she would return a definitely changed woman.

At half-past eight that night she walked into Caroline's wonderful house in the Champs-Elysees.

During dinner the two women talked as any two women of their types might have talked, quite noncommittally, although, in a surface way, quite intimately. Miss Briggs was a creature full of tact, and was the last person in the world to try to force a confidence from anyone. She was also not given at any time to pouring out confidences of her own.

After dinner they sat in a little room which Miss Briggs had had conveyed from Persia to Paris. Everything in it was Persian. When the door by which it was entered had been shut there was absolutely nothing to suggest Europe to those within. A faint Eastern perfume pervaded this strange little room, which suggested a deep retirement, an almost cloistered seclusion. A grille in one of the walls drew the imagination towards the harem. It seemed that there must be hidden women over there beyond it. Instinctively one listened for the tinkle of childish laughter, for the distant plash of a fountain, for the shuffle of slippers on marble.

Lady Sellingworth admired this room, and envied her friend for possessing it. But that night it brought to her a thought which she could not help expressing.

"Aren't you terribly lonely in this house, Caroline?" she said. "It is so large and so wonderful that I should think it must make solitude almost a bodily shape to you. And this room seems to be in the very heart of the house. Do you ever sit here without a friend or guest?"

"Now and then, but not often at night," said Miss Briggs, with serene self-possession.

"You are an extraordinary woman!" said Lady Sellingworth.

"Extraordinary! Why?"

"Because you always seem so satisfied to live quite alone. I hate solitude. I'm afraid of it."

Suddenly she felt that she must be partially frank with her hostess.

"Is self-respect a real companion for a woman?" she said. "Can one sit with it and be contented? Does it repay a woman for all the sacrifices she has offered up to it? Is it worth the sacrifices? That's what I want to know."

"I dare say that depends on the woman's mental make up," replied Miss Briggs. "One woman, perhaps, might find that it was, another that it was not."

"Yes, we are all so different, so dreadfully different, one from another."

"It would be very much duller if we weren't."

"Even as it is life can be very dull."

"I should certainly not call your life dull," said Miss Briggs.

"Anyhow, it's dreadful!" said Lady Sellingworth, with sudden abandonment.

"Why is it dreadful?"

"Caroline, I was fifty a few days ago."

As Lady Sellingworth said this she observed her friend closely to see if she looked surprised. Miss Briggs did not look surprised. And she only said:

"Were you? Well, I shall be fifty-eight in a couple of months."

"You don't look it."

"Perhaps that's because I haven't looked young for the last thirty years."

"I hate being fifty. The difficulty with me is that my--my nature and my temperament don't match with my age. And that worries me. What is one to do?"

"Do you want me to advise you about something?"

"I think I do. But it's so difficult to explain. Perhaps there is a time to give up. Perhaps I have reached it. But if I do give up, what am I to do? How am I to live? I might marry again."

"Why not?"

"It would have to be an elderly man, wouldn't it?"

"I hope so."

"I--I shouldn't care to marry an elderly man. I don't want to."

"Then don't do it."

"You think if I were to marry a comparatively young man--"