The Crimson Tide: A Novel

And suddenly, to her own astonishment, her endurance came to its end. She had never expected to say what she was now going to say to him. She had never dreamed of confession–of enlightening him. And now, all at once, she knew she was going to do it, and that it was a needless and cruel and insane and useless thing to do, for it led her nowhere, and it would leave him in helpless pain.

“Vanya,” she said, “I am in love with Jim Shotwell.”

After a few moments, she turned and slowly crossed the studio. Her hat and coat lay on a chair. She put them on and walked out.

The following morning, Palla, arriving to consult Marya on a matter of the Club’s business, discovered Vanya alone in the studio.

He was lying on the lounge when she entered, and he looked ill, but he rose with all his characteristic grace and charm and led her to a chair, saluting her hand as he seated her.

“Marya has not yet arrived?” she inquired.

His delicate features became very grave and still.

“I thought,” added Palla, “that Marya usually breakfasted at eleven–”

Something in his expression checked her; and she fell silent, fascinated by the deathly whiteness of his face.

“I am sorry to tell you,” he said, in a pleasant and steady voice, “that Marya has not returned.”

“Why–why, I didn’t know she was away–”

“Yesterday she decided. Later she was good enough to telephone from the Hotel Rajah, where, for the present, she expects to remain.”

“Oh, Vanya!” Palla’s involuntary exclamation brought a trace of colour into his cheeks.

He said: “It is not her fault. She was loyal and truthful. One may not control one’s heart… And if she is in love–well, is she not free to love him?”

“Who–is–it?” asked Palla faintly.

“Mr. Shotwell, it appears.”

In the dead silence, Vanya passed his hand slowly across his temples; let it drop on his knee.

“Freedom above all else,” he said, “–freedom to love, freedom to cease loving, freedom to love anew… Well … it is curious–the scheme of things… Love must remain inexplicable. For there is no analysis. I think there never could be any man who cared as I have cared, as I do care for her…”

He rose, and to Palla he seemed already a trifle stooped;–it may have been his studio coat, which fitted badly.

“But, Vanya dear–” Palla looked at him miserably, conscious of her own keen fears as well as of his sorrow. “Don’t you think she’ll come back? Do you suppose it is really so serious–what she thinks about–Mr. Shotwell?”

He shook his head: “I don’t know… If it is so, it is so. Freedom is of first importance. Our creed is our creed. We must abide by what we teach and believe.”

“Yes.”

He nodded absently, staring palely into space.

Perhaps his lost gaze evoked the warm-skinned, sunny-haired girl who had gone out of the semi-light of this still place, leaving the void unutterably vast around him. For this had been the lithe thing’s silken lair–the slim and supple thing with beryl eyes–here where thick-piled carpets of the East deadened every human movement–where no sound stirred, nor any air–where dull shapes loomed, lacquered and indistinct, and an odour of Chinese lacquer and nard haunted the tinted dusk.

Like one of those lazy, golden, jewelled sea-creatures of irresponsible freedom brought seemed to fill the girl cooler currents arouses a restlessness infernal, Marya’s first long breath of freedom subtly excited her.

She had no definite ideas, no plans. She was merely tired of Vanya.

Perhaps her fresh, wholesome contact with Jim had started it–the sense of a clean vitality which had seemed to envelop her like the delicious, half-resented chill of a spring-pool plunge. For the exhilaration possessed her still; and the sudden stimulation which the sense of irresponsible freedom brought seemed to fill the girl with a new vigour.

Foot-loose, heart-loose, her green eyes on the open world where it stretched away into infinite horizons, she paced her new nest in the Hotel Rajah, tingling with subdued excitement, innocent of the faintest regret for what had been.

For a week she lived alone, enjoying the sensation of being hidden, languidly savouring the warm comfort of isolation.

She had not sent for her belongings. She purchased new personal effects, enchanted to be rid of familiar things.

There was no snow. She walked a great deal, moving in unaccustomed sections of the city at all hours, skirting in the early winter dusk the glitter of Christmas preparations along avenues and squares, lunching where she was unlikely to encounter anybody she knew, dining, too, at hazard in unwonted places–restaurants she had never heard of, tea-rooms, odd corners.

Vanya wrote her. She tossed his letters aside, scarcely read. Ilse and Palla wrote her, and telephoned her. She paid them no attention.

The metropolitan jungle fascinated her. She adored her liberty, and looked out of beryl-green eyes across the border of license, where ghosts of the half-world swarmed in no-man’s-land.

Conscious that she had been fashioned to trouble man, the knowledge merely left her indefinitely contented, save when she remembered Jim. But that he had checked her drift toward him merely excited her; for she knew she had been made to trouble such as he; and she had seen his face that night…

Ilse, on her way home to dress–for she was going out somewhere with Estridge–stopped for tea at Palla’s house, and found her a little disturbed over an anonymous letter just delivered–a typewritten sheet bluntly telling her to take her friends and get out of the hall where the Combat Club held its public sessions; and warning her of serious trouble if she did not heed this “friendly” advice.

“Pouf!” exclaimed Ilse contemptuously, “I get those, too, and tear them up. People who talk never strike. Are you anxious, darling?”

Palla smiled: “Not a bit–only such cowardice saddens me… And the days are grey enough…”

“Why do you say that? I think it is a wonderful winter–a beautiful year!”

Palla lifted her brown eyes and let them dwell on the beauty of this clear-skinned, golden-haired girl who had discovered beauty in the aftermath of the world’s great tragedy.

Ilse smiled: “Life is good,” she said. “This world is all to be done over in the right way. We have it all before us, you and I, Palla, and those who love and understand.”

“I am wondering,” said Palla, “who understands us. I’m not discouraged, but–there seems to be so much indifference in the world.”

“Of course. That is our battle to overcome it.”

“Yes. But, dear, there seems to be so much hatred, too, in the world. I thought the war had ended, but everywhere men are still in battle–everywhere men are dying of this fierce hatred that seems to flame up anew across the world; everywhere men fight and slay to gain advantage. None yields, none renounces, none gives. It is as though love were dead on earth.”

“Love is being reborn,” said Ilse cheerfully. “Birth means pain, always–”

Without warning, a hot flush flooded her face; she averted it as the tea-tray was brought and set on a table before Palla. When her face cooled, she leaned back in her chair, cup in hand, a sort of confused sweetness in her blue eyes.

Palla’s heart was beating heavily as she leaned on the table, her cup untasted, her idle fingers crumbing the morsel of biscuit between them.

After a moment she said: “So you have concluded that you care for John Estridge?”

“Yes, I care,” said Ilse absently, the same odd, sweet smile curving her cheeks.

“That is–wonderful,” said Palla, not looking at her.

Ilse remained silent, her blue gaze aloof.