at callydon the colors of life were being contrasted in bolder fashion and with more riotous effect. vermilion was the prevailing dye. the sentimentalities had verged somewhat on heavy melodrama, and a suggestive voluptuousness in the staging had prolonged the play.
two people mutually enamoured of an identical future are not long in coming to some understanding of each other’s hearts, particularly if the hearts in question possess more of the human element than the divine.
james maltravers had succumbed seriously to interests that he had been almost brought to regard as the mere foibles of frivolity. and since his honor was a somewhat opalescent thing, blue and sincere one moment, red the next when caught in certain rays of the sun, it may be imagined that his conscience was nimble in the justification of his cause. the dramaticisms of life are in the higher sense wholly a matter of character. there is nothing so impressive as the grand temptation of a fine spirit; nothing more mean and contemptible than the facile sinning of a corrupt one. incidents are what our souls make them, the song of the swan or the death-slime of the snail.
it had pleased ophelia strong to represent herself as a woman oppressed beneath a grievous and unkindly past. it had pleased her to pose picturesquely at her husband’s expense, to reverse the primitive fable, and accuse the marital adam of leading evil into eden. the assumption was easily upheld by ingenuity, much fanciful detail, and an intelligent disregard of truth. having assumed an air of martyrdom, it was easy for her to procure artistic matter to color the romance.
as for the soldier, he was a man, and a sentimentalist in a somewhat florid school of realism. it was easy to discover chivalry in the affair—even to suffer chivalry to flame up into a more serious emotion. the woman stood in need of sympathy, made abundant pretence of desolation, posed very charmingly in the part like the interesting woman that she was. maltravers soon discovered that sympathy was a very pleasant commodity for barter. it cost nothing, supplied infinite recreation, enhanced the charms of billiards and the like. he was quite prepared to echo ophelia’s humor. let her but pipe to him and he would dance.
it is sufficient for the needs of the narrative to record certain remarks that passed on one occasion between ophelia strong and her most platonic confidant. golf was the excuse, a foursome on the callydon links, in which miss mable saker and a male friend formed the opposition. sundry disjointed sentences were possible as the game proceeded. the physical distractions present were useful in deducting from the gravity of the dialogue and shedding an air of flippant satiricism over the incidents.
“how is your bibliomaniac?” said the soldier, as the two were following on after a drive.
“fairly frigid,” came the response.
“has his magnificence favored you with a letter of late?”
“not for ten days. you see, he is so much in demand as a genius.”
“geniuses are dangerous folk—tar-barrels, dynamite. they need damping.”
they passed about the hem of a larch-wood where a thousand emerald points were shimmering in the sun. the gorse was ablaze on either side of the track. down in the valley beneath them a lake flickered under the heavens, and they could catch the faint roar of the water as it foamed over the weir.
“i suppose your friends know all about it?” said the major, pulling the peak of his cap down to shade his eyes in the sun.
ophelia glanced at his clean-shaven, jockey-like profile with critical approval.
“not much.”
“oh, but they ought to.”
two small boys trespassed on the line of fire.
“fore! you brats.”
the soldier’s voice rang clear and clarion-like. it seemed to come from his chest with a brisk and healthful forcefulness, a strenuous virility that was unproblematic and easeful.
“my dear girl, you are much too amiable,” he said, as they waded through a lagoon of heather.
“am i?”
“you women are so patient; you will stand hell and damnation for the man you are fond of.”
ophelia smiled.
“and you think i am still fond of him?” she said.
“don’t ask me to be a prophet.”
“i am not a mary or a prudence.”
“not so puritanically fatuous.”
“hardly.”
“matters often sift themselves,” he said; “gentlemen of that class usually unbuckle the strap with their own fingers sooner or later. all the better for society, you know. indiscretions brought to light, judicial interference, a decree nisi, etc. oh yes, these things can be managed.”
