The Complete Works of George Bernard Shaw. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
dead?”
“No: it is marriage that kills the heart and keeps it dead. Better starve the heart than overfeed it. Better still to feed it only on fine food, like music. Besides, I sometimes think I will marry Mrs Simpson when I grow a little older.”
“You are jesting: you have been jesting all along. It is not possible that a woman refused your love.”
“It is quite possible, and has happened. And,” here he rose and prepared to go, “I should do the same good service to a woman, if one were so foolish as to persuade herself on the same grounds that she loved me.”
“You would not believe that she could love you on any deeper and truer grounds?” said Madge, rising slowly without taking her eyes off his face.
“Stuff! Wake up, Miss Madge; and realize what nonsense you are talking. Rub your eyes and look at me, a Kobold — a Cyclop, as that fine woman Mrs Herbert once described inc. What sane person under forty would be likely to fall in love with me? And what do I care about women over forty, except perhaps Mrs. Herbert — or Mrs. Simpson I like them young and beautiful, like you.”
Madge, as if unconsciously, raised her hand, half offering it to him. He took it promptly, and continued humorously, “And I love you, and have always done so. Who could know such a lovely woman and fine genius as you without loving her? But,” he added, shaking her fingers warningly, “you must not love me. My time for playing Romeo was over before you ever saw me; and Juliet must not fall in love with Friar Lawrence, even when he is a great composer.”
“Not if he forbids her — and she can help it,” said Madge with solemn sadness, letting her hand drop as he released it.
“Not on any account,” said Jack. “Come, he added, turning to her imperiously: “we are not a pair, you and I. I know how to respect myself: do you learn to know yourself. We two are artists, as you are aware. Well, there is an art that is inspired by nothing but a passion for shamming; and that is yours, so far. There is an art which is inspired by a passion for beauty, but only in men who can never associate beauty with a lie. That is my art. Master that and you will be able to make true love. At present you only know how to make scenes, which is too common an accomplishment to interest me. You see you have not quite finished you lessons yet. Goodbye.”
“Adieu,” said Madge, like a statue.
He walked out in the most prosaic manner possible; and she sank on the ottoman in an attitude of despair, and — finding herself at her ease in it, and not understanding him in the least — kept it up long after he, by closing the door, had, as it were, let fall the curtain. For it was her habit to attitudinize herself when alone quite as often as to other people, in whose minds the pleasure of attitudinizing is unalloyed by association with the labor of breadwinning.
Jack, meanwhile, had let himself out of the house. It had become dusk by this time; and he walked away in a sombre mood, from which he presently roused himself to shake his head at the house he had just left, and to say aloud, “You are a bold-faced jade.” This remark, which was followed by muttered imprecations, was ill-received by a passing woman who, applying it to herself, only waited until he was at a safe distance before retorting with copious and shrill abuse, which soon caused many persons to stop and stare after him. But he, hardly conscious of the tumult, and not suspecting that it had anything to do with him, walked on without raising his head, and was presently lost to them in the deepening darkness.
All this time, Charlie, who had been among the first to leave Madge’s rooms, was wandering about Kensington in the neighborhood of Herbert’s lodging. He felt restless and unsatisfied, shrinking from the observation of the passers-by, with a notion that they might suspect and ridicule the motive of his lurking, there. He turned into Campden Hill at last, and went to his sister’s. Mary usually had visitors on Sunday evenings; and some of them might help him to pass away the evening pleasantly in spite of Hoskyn’s prose. Perhaps even — but here he shook off further speculation, and knocked at the door.
“Anyone upstairs?” he asked carelessly of the maid, as he hung up his hat.
“Only one lady, sir. Mrs Herbert.”
Something within him s make a spring at the name. He glanced at himself in the mirror before going into the drawing room, where, to his extreme disappointment, he found Mary conversing, not with Herbert’s wife, but with his mother. She had but just arrived, and was explaining to Mary that she had returned the day before, from a prolonged absence in Scotland. Charlie never enjoyed his encounters with Mrs Herbert; for she had known him as a boy, and had not yet got out the of habit of treating him as one. So, hearing that Hoskyn was in another room, smoking, he pleaded a desire for a cigar, and went off to join him, leaving the two ladies together.
“You were saying — ?” said Mary, resuming the conversation which his entrance had Interrupted.
“I was saying,” said Mrs Herbert, “that I have never been able to sympathize with the interest which you take in Adrian’s life and opinions. Geraldine tells me that I have no maternal instinct; but then Geraldine has no sons, and does not quite know what she is talking about. I look on Adrian as a failure, and I really cannot take an interest in a man who is a failure. His being my son only makes the fact disappointing to me personally. I retain a kind of nursery affection for my boy; but of what use that to him, since he has given up his practice of stabbing me through it? I would go to him if he were ill; and help him if he were in trouble; but as to maintaining a constant concern on his account, really I do not see why I should. You, with your own little dear one a fresh possession — almost a part of yourself still, doubtless think me very heartless; but you will learn that children have their separate lives and interests as completely independent of their parents as the remotest strangers. I do not think Adrian would even like me, were it not for his sense of duty. You will understand some day that the common notion of parental and filial relations are more unpractical than even those of love and marriage.
Mary, who ^had already made some discoveries in this direction, did not protest as “ she would have done in her maiden time. “What surprises me chiefly is that Mrs Herbert should have been rude to you,” she said. “I doubt whether she is particularly fond of me: indeed, I am sure she is not; but nothing could be more exquisitely polite and kind than her manner to me, especially in her own house.”
“I grant you the perfection of her manners, dear. She was not rude to me. Not that they are exactly the manners of good society; but they are perfect of their kind, for all that. Hush! I think — did I not hear Adrian’s voice that time?”
Adrian was, in fact, speaking in the hall to Hoskyn, who had just appeared there with Charlie on his way to the drawing room. Aurélie was with her husband. They all went for a moment into the study, which served on Sunday evenings as a cloak room.
“I assure you, Mrs. Herbert,” said Hoskyn, officiously helping Aurélie to take off her mantle, “I am exceedingly glad to see you.”
“Ah, yes,” said Aurélie; “but this is quite wrong. It is you who should render me a visit in this moment, because I ask you to dine with me; and you do not come.”
“You have turned up at a very good time,’ said Charlie mischievously. “Mrs. Herbert is upstairs.”
“My mother!” said Adrian, in consternation.
“Shall we go upstairs?” said Hoskyn, leading the way with resolute cheerfulness.
Ädrian looked at Aurélie. She had dropped the lively manner in which she had spoken to Hoskyn, and was now moving towards the door with ominous grace and calm.
“Aurélie,” he said, detaining her in the room for a moment: “my mother is here. You will speak to her — for my sake — will you not?”
She only raised her hand to signify that she was not to be troubled, and then, without heeding his look of pain and disappointment, passed out and followed Hoskyn to the drawingroom, where Mary and Mrs Herbert, having heard her foreign voice, were waiting, scarcely less disturbed than Adrian by their fear of how she might act.
“Mrs Herbert junior