Lying Prophets Part 15

He was looking listlessly out over the sea as he spoke, and Joan felt thankful his eyes were turned away from her, for this wonderful dream incident made her grow hot all over. He seemed to divine by her silence that his answer to her question had not added to her happiness.

"I shouldn't have told you that, Joan, only you asked me. You see, in dreams, we are real in some senses, though unreal in others. In dreams the savage part of us comes to the top and Nature can whisper to us. She chooses night to do so and often speaks to men in visions, because by day the voice of the world is in their ears and they have no attention for any other. It was strange, too, that I should fancy such a thing--should imagine I was kissing you--because I never kissed a woman in my life."

But from her point of view this falsehood was not so alluring as he meant to make it sound.

"'Twould be wrong to kiss any maiden, I reckon, onless you was tokened to her or she were your awn sister."

"But, as we look at life, we're all brothers and sisters, Joan--with Nature for our mother. We agreed about that long ago."

He turned to his easel, and she went and stood where her feet had already made a brown mark on the gra.s.s.

"I seen you last night, but you dedn' see me," she said, changing the conversation with abruptness.

"Yes, I did," he answered, "sitting under the shadow of the lighthouse, waiting for Mr. Tregenza, I expect."

"An' you never took no note o' me!"

He flung down his brushes, turned away from the picture before he had touched it, and went and lay near the edge of the cliff.

"Come here, Joan, and I will tell you why I didn't notice you, though I longed to do so. Come and sit down by me and I'll explain why I seemed so rude."

She came slowly and sat down some distance from him, putting her elbows on her knees and looking away to sea.

"'Tweern't kind," she said, "but when you'm with other folks, I s'pose you'm ashamed o' me 'spite what you tawld me 'bout yourself."

"You mustn't say that, Joan, or you'll make me unhappy. Ashamed of you! Is it likely I'm ashamed of the only friend I've got in the world? No, I'm frightened of losing you; I'm selfish; I couldn't make you known to any other man because I should be afraid you'd like him better than me, and then I should have no friend at all. So I wouldn't speak and reveal my treasure to anybody else. I'm very fond of my friend, and very proud of her, and as greedy as a miser over his gold."

Joan took a long breath before this tremendous a.s.sertion. He had told her in so many words that he was fond of her; and he had mentioned it most casually as a point long since decided. Here was the question which she had asked herself so often answered once for all. Her heart leaped at tidings of great joy, and as she looked up into his face the man saw infinite wonder and delight in her own. Mind was adding beauty to flesh, and he, fast losing the artist's instinct before another, thought she had never looked so lovely as then.

"Oh, Mister Jan, you'm fond o' me!"

"Why, didn't you know it, Joan? Did it want my words to tell you so? Hadn't you guessed it?"

He rose slowly and approached his picture.

"Oh, how I wish this was a little more like my dream and like reality! I need inspiration, Joan; I have reached a point beyond which I cannot go. My colors are dead; my soul is dead. Something must happen to me or I shall never finish this."

"Ban't you so well as you was?"

"No, Joan, I'm not. A thing has come between me and my happiness, between me and my picture. I know not what to call it. Nature has sent it."

"Then 'tis right an' proper, I s'pose?"

"I suppose so, but it stops work. It makes my hand shake and my heart throb fast and my brains grow hot."

"Can't 'e take no physic for't?"

"Why, yes, but I hesitate."

He turned to her and went close to her.

"Let me look at you, Joan--close--very close--so close that I can feel your breath. It was so easy to learn the furze; it is so hard to learn you."

"Sure I've comed out butivul in the picksher."

"Not yet, not yet."

He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes until she grew nervous and brushed her hand across her cheek. Then, without a second's warning, he bent down and kissed her on the mouth.

"Mister Jan! How could 'e! 'Tis wrong--wrong of 'e! I'd never a thot--"

She started from him, wild, alarmed, blus.h.i.+ng hotly; and he shook his head at her dismay and answered very calmly, very seriously:

"It was not wrong, Joan, or I should not have done it. You heard me ask to whom I should pray for inspiration, and Nature told me I must seek it from you. And I have."

"You shouldn't never a done it. I trusted 'e so!"

"But I had to do it. Nature said 'Kiss her, and you will find what you want.' Do you understand that? I have touched you and I am awake and alive again; I have touched you, Joan, and I am not hopeless and sad, but happy.

Nature thought of me, Joan, when she made you and brought you into the world; and she thought of sweet Joan when she fas.h.i.+oned Jan. Believe it--you must believe it."

"You did ought to a arsked me."

"Listen. Nature let you live quiet in the country--for me, Joan. She let me live all lonely in the world--for you. Only for you. Can't you understand?"

"You did ought to a arsked me. Kissing be wrong 'tween us. You knaws it, Mr. Jan."

"It is right and proper and fair and beautiful," he said quietly. "My heart sang when I kissed you, Joan, and so did yours. D'you know why? Because we are two halves of a whole. Because the suns.h.i.+ne of your life would go out without me; because my life, which never had any suns.h.i.+ne in it until now, has been full of suns.h.i.+ne since I knew Joan."

"I dunnaw. 'Twadden a proper thing to do, seein' how I trusted 'e."

"We are children of Nature, Joan. I always do what she tells me. I can't help it. I have obeyed her all my life. She tells me to love you, Joan, and I do. I'm very sorry. I thought she had told you to love me, but I suppose I was wrong. Never mind this once. Forgive me, Joan. I'll even fight Nature rather than make you angry with me. Let me finish my picture and go away.

Come. I've no business to waste your precious time, though you have been so kind and generous with it. Only I was tired and hopeless and you came like a drink of wine to me, Joan; and I drank too much, I suppose."

He picked up his brushes, spoke in a sad minor key, and seemed crushed and weary. The flash died from his face and he looked older again. Joan, the mistress of the situation, found it wholly bitter. She was bewildered, for affairs had proceeded with such rapidity. He had declared frankly that he loved her, and yet had stopped there. To her ideas it was impossible that a man should say as much as that to a woman and no more. Love invariably meant ultimate union for life, Joan thought. She could not understand any other end to it. The man talked about Nature as a little child talks of its mother. He had deemed himself entirely in the right; yet something--not Nature, she supposed--had told her that he was wrong. But who was she to judge him? Who was she to say where his conduct erred? He loved truth. It was not a lie to kiss a girl. He promised nothing. How could he promise anything or propose anything? Was she not another man's sweetheart? That doubtless had been the reason why he had said no more than that he loved her. To love her could be no sin. Nature had told him to; and G.o.d knew how she loved him now.

But she could not make it up with him. A cold curtain seemed to have fallen between them. The old reserve which had only melted after many meetings, was upon him again. He stood, as it seemed, on the former pedestal. A strange, surging sensation filled her head--a sense of helpless fighting against a flood of unhappy affairs. All the new glory of life was suddenly tarnished through her own act, and she felt that things could never be the same again.

She thought and thought. Then John Barron saw Joan's blue eyes begin to wink ominously, the corners of her bonny mouth drag down and something bright twinkle over her cheek. He took no notice, and when he looked up again, she had moved away and was sitting on the gra.s.s crying bitterly with her hands over her face. The sun was bright, a lark sang overhead; from adjacent inland fields came the jolt and clank of a plow with a man's voice calling to his horses at the turns. The artist put down his palette and walked over to Joan.

"My dear, my dear," he said, "d'you know what's making you so unhappy?"

She sobbed on and did not answer.

"I can tell you, I think. You don't quite know whether to believe me or not, Joan. That is very natural. Why should you believe me? And yet if you knew--"

She sat up, swallowed some of her tears, and smudged her face with her knuckles. He took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. It was cool and pleasant, and she went on crying a while, but tears which were comforting and different to the first stinging drops bred from a sudden, forlorn survey of life. He talked on, and his voice soothed her. He kept his distance, and presently, as her ruffled spirit grew calmer, his remarks a.s.sumed a brighter note.

"Has my poor little Lady of the Gorse forgiven me at last? She won't punish me any more, I know, and it is a very terrible punishment to see tears in her eyes."