The Woman Who Did

Chapter 5

He met her by appointment on the first ridge of Bore Hill. A sunny

summer morning smiled fresh after the rain. Bumble-bees bustled

busily about the closed lips of the red-rattle, and ripe gorse pods

burst with little elastic explosions in the basking sunlight.

When Alan reached the trysting-place, under a broad-armed oak, in a

glade of the woodland, Herminia was there before him; a good woman

always is, 'tis the prerogative of her affection. She was simply

dressed in her dainty print gown, a single tea-rosebud peeped out

from her bodice; she looked more lily-like, so Alan thought in his

heart, than he had ever yet seen her. She held out her hand to him

with parted lips and a conscious blush. Alan took it, but bent

forward at the same time, and with a hasty glance around, just

touched her rich mouth. Herminia allowed him without a struggle;

she was too stately of mien ever to grant a favor without granting

it of pure grace, and with queenly munificence.

Alan led her to a grassy bank where thyme and basil grew matted,

and the hum of myriad wings stirred the sultry air; Herminia let

him lead her. She was woman enough by nature to like being led;

only, it must be the right man who led her, and he must lead her

along the path that her conscience approved of. Alan seated

himself by her side, and took her hand in his; Herminia let him

hold it. This lovemaking was pure honey. Dappled spots of light

and shade flecked the ground beneath the trees like a jaguar's

skin. Wood-pigeons crooned, unseen, from the leafy covert. She

sat there long without uttering a word. Once Alan essayed to

speak, but Herminia cut him short. "Oh, no, not yet," she cried

half petulantly; "this silence is so delicious. I love best just

to sit and hold your hand like this. Why spoil it with language?"

So they sat for some minutes, Herminia with her eyes half-closed,

drinking in to the full the delight of first love. She could feel

her heart beating. At last Alan interposed, and began to speak to

her. The girl drew a long breath; then she sighed for a second, as

she opened her eyes again. Every curve of her bosom heaved and

swayed mysteriously. It seemed such a pity to let articulate words

disturb that reverie. Still, if Alan wished it. For a woman is a

woman, let Girton do its worst; and Herminia not less but rather

more than the rest of them.

Then Alan began. With her hand clasped in his, and fondling it

while he spoke, he urged all he could urge to turn her from her

purpose. He pointed out to her how unwise, how irretrievable her

position would be, if she once assumed it. On such a road as that

there is no turning back. The die once cast, she must forever

abide by it. He used all arts to persuade and dissuade; all

eloquence to save her from herself and her salvation. If he loved

her less, he said with truth, he might have spoken less earnestly.

It was for her own sake he spoke, because he so loved her. He

waxed hot in his eager desire to prevent her from taking this fatal

step. He drew his breath hard, and paused. Emotion and anxiety

overcame him visibly.

But as for Herminia, though she listened with affection and with a

faint thrill of pleasure to much that he said, seeing how deeply he

loved her, she leaned back from time to time, half weary with his

eagerness, and his consequent iteration. "Dear Alan," she said at

last, soothing his hand with her own, as a sister might have

soothed it, "you talk about all this as though it were to me some

new resolve, some new idea of my making. You forget it is the

outcome of my life's philosophy. I have grown up to it slowly.

I have thought of all this, and of hardly anything else, ever since

I was old enough to think for myself about anything. Root and

branch, it is to me a foregone conclusion. I love you. You love

me. So far as I am concerned, there ends the question. One way

there is, and one way alone, in which I can give myself up to you.

Make me yours if you will; but if not, then leave me. Only,

remember, by leaving me, you won't any the more turn me aside from

my purpose. You won't save me from myself, as you call it; you

will only hand me over to some one less fit for me by far than you

are." A quiet moisture glistened in her eyes, and she gazed at him

pensively. "How wonderful it is," she went on, musing. "Three

weeks ago, I didn't know there was such a man in the world at all

as you; and now--why, Alan, I feel as if the world would be nothing

to me without you. Your name seems to sing in my ears all day long

with the song of the birds, and to thrill through and through me as

I lie awake on my pillow with the cry of the nightjar. Yet, if you

won't take me on my own terms, I know well what will happen. I

shall go away, and grieve over you, of course, and feel bereaved

for months, as if I could never possibly again love any man. At

present it seems to me I never could love him. But though my heart

tells me that, my reason tells me I should some day find some other

soul I might perhaps fall back upon. But it would only be falling

back. For the sake of my principles alone, and of the example I

wish to set the world, could I ever fall back upon any other. Yet

fall back I would. And what good would you have done me then by

refusing me? You would merely have cast me off from the man I love

best, the man who I know by immediate instinct, which is the voice

of nature and of God within us, was intended from all time for me.

The moment I saw you my heart beat quicker; my heart's evidence

told me you were the one love meant for me. Why force me to

decline upon some other less meet for me?"

Alan gazed at her, irresolute. "But if you love me so much," he

said, "surely, surely, it is a small thing to trust your future to

me."

The tenderness of woman let her hand glide over his cheek. She was

not ashamed of her love. "O Alan," she cried, "if it were only for

myself, I could trust you with my life; I could trust you with

anything. But I haven't only myself to think of. I have to think

of right and wrong; I have to think of the world; I have to think

of the cause which almost wholly hangs upon me. Not for nothing

are these impulses implanted in my breast. They are the voice of

the soul of all women within me. If I were to neglect them for the

sake of gratifying your wishes,--if I were to turn traitor to my

sex for the sake of the man I love, as so many women have turned

before me, I should hate and despise myself. I couldn't love you,

Alan, quite so much, loved I not honor more, and the battle imposed

upon me."

Alan wavered as she spoke. He felt what she said was true; even if

he refused to take her on the only terms she could accept, he would

not thereby save her. She would turn in time and bestow herself

upon some man who would perhaps be less worthy of her,--nay even on

some man who might forsake her in the sequel with unspeakable

treachery. Of conduct like that, Alan knew himself incapable. He

knew that if he took Herminia once to his heart, he would treat her

with such tenderness, such constancy, such devotion as never yet

was shown to living woman. (Love always thinks so.) But still, he

shrank from the idea of being himself the man to take advantage of

her; for so in his unregenerate mind he phrased to himself their

union. And still he temporized. "Even so, Herminia," he cried,

bending forward and gazing hard at her, "I couldn't endure to have

it said it was I who misled you."

Herminia lifted her eyes to his with just a tinge of lofty scorn,

tempered only by the womanliness of those melting lashes. "And you

can think of THAT?" she murmured, gazing across at him half in

tears. "O Alan, for my part I can think of nothing now but the

truths of life and the magnitude of the issues. Our hearts against

the world,--love and duty against convention."

Then Alan began again and talked all he knew. He urged, he prayed,

he bent forward, he spoke soft and low, he played on her tenderest

chords as a loving woman. Herminia was moved, for her heart went

forth to him, and she knew why he tried so hard to save her from

her own higher and truer nature. But she never yielded an inch.

She stood firm to her colors. She shook her head to the last, and

murmured over and over again, "There is only one right way, and no

persuasion on earth will ever avail to turn me aside from it."

The Truth had made her Free, and she was very confident of it.

At last, all other means failing, Alan fell back on the final

resort of delay. He saw much merit in procrastination. There was

no hurry, he said. They needn't make up their minds, one way or

the other, immediately. They could take their time to think.

Perhaps, with a week or two to decide in, Herminia might persuade

him; or he might persuade her. Why rush on fate so suddenly?

But at that, to his immense surprise, Herminia demurred. "No, no,"

she said, shaking her head, "that's not at all what I want. We

must decide to-day one way or the other. Now is the accepted time;

now is the day of salvation. I couldn't let you wait, and slip by

degrees into some vague arrangement we hardly contemplated

definitely. To do that would be to sin against my ideas of

decorum. Whatever we do we must do, as the apostle says, decently

and in order, with a full sense of the obligations it imposes upon

us. We must say to one another in so many words, 'I am yours; you

are mine;' or we must part forever. I have told you my whole soul;

I have bared my heart before you. You may take it or leave it; but

for my dignity's sake, I put it to you now, choose one way or the

other."

Alan looked at her hard. Her face was crimson by this with

maidenly shame; but she made no effort to hide or avert it. For

the good of humanity, this question must be settled once for all;

and no womanish reserve should make her shrink from settling it.

Happier maidens in ages to come, when society had reconstructed

itself on the broad basis of freedom, would never have to go

through what she was going through that moment. They would be

spared the quivering shame, the tingling regret, the struggle with

which she braced up her maiden modesty to that supreme effort. But

she would go through with it all the same. For eternal woman's

sake she had long contemplated that day; now it had come at last,

she would not weakly draw back from it.

Alan's eyes were all admiration. He stood near enough to her level

to understand her to the core. "Herminia," he cried, bending over

her, "you drive me to bay. You press me very hard. I feel myself

yielding. I am a man; and when you speak to me like that, I know

it. You enlist on your side all that is virile within me. Yet how

can I accept the terms you offer? For the very love I bear you,

how do you this injustice? If I loved you less, I might perhaps

say yes; because I love you so well, I feel compelled to say no to

you."

Herminia looked at him hard in return. Her cheeks were glowing now

with something like the shame of the woman who feels her love is

lightly rejected. "Is that final?" she asked, drawing herself up

as she sat, and facing him proudly.

"No, no, it's not final," Alan answered, feeling the woman's

influence course through body and blood to his quivering fingertips.

Magical touches stirred him. "How can it be final, Herminia, when

you look at me like that? How can it be final, when you're so

gracious, so graceful, so beautiful? Oh, my child, I am a man; don't

play too hard on those fiercest chords in my nature."

Herminia gazed at him fixedly; the dimples disappeared. Her voice

was more serious now, and had nothing in it of pleading. "It isn't

like that that I want to draw you, Alan," she answered gravely.

"It isn't those chords I want to play upon. I want to convince

your brain, your intellect, your reason. You agree with me in

principle. Why then, should you wish to draw back in practice?"

"Yes, I agree with you in principle," Alan answered. "It isn't

there that I hesitate. Even before I met you, I had arrived at

pretty much the same ideas myself, as a matter of abstract

reasoning. I saw that the one way of freedom for the woman is to

cast off, root and branch, the evil growth of man's supremacy. I

saw that the honorableness of marriage, the disgrace of free union,

were just so many ignoble masculine devices to keep up man's

lordship; vile results of his determination to taboo to himself

beforehand and monopolize for life some particular woman. I know

all that; I acknowledge all that. I see as plainly as you do that

sooner or later there must come a revolution. But, Herminia, the

women who devote themselves to carrying out that revolution, will

take their souls in their hands, and will march in line to the

freeing of their s*x through shame and calumny and hardships

innumerable. I shrink from letting you, the woman that I love,

bring that fate upon yourself; I shrink still more from being the

man to aid and abet you in doing it."

Herminia fixed her piercing eyes upon his face once more. Tears

stood in them now. The tenderness of woman was awakened within

her. "Dear Alan," she said gently, "don't I tell you I have

thought long since of all that? I am PREPARED to face it. It is

only a question of with whom I shall do so. Shall it be with the

man I have instinctively loved from the first moment I saw him,

better than all others on earth, or shall it be with some lesser?

If my heart is willing, why should yours demur to it?"

"Because I love you too well," Alan answered doggedly.

Herminia rose and faced him. Her hands dropped by her side. She

was splendid when she stood so with her panting bosom. "Then you

decide to say good-bye?" she cried, with a lingering cadence.

Alan seized her by both wrists, and drew her down to his side.

"No, no, darling," he answered low, laying his lips against hers.

"I can never say good-bye. You have confessed you love me. When a

woman says that, what can a man refuse her? From such a woman as

you, I am so proud, so proud, so proud of such a confession; how

could I ever cease to feel you were mine,--mine, mine, wholly mine

for a lifetime?"

"Then you consent?" Herminia cried, all aglow, half nestling to his

bosom.

"I consent," Alan answered, with profound misgivings. "What else

do you leave open to me?"

Herminia made no direct answer; she only laid her head with perfect

trust upon the man's broad shoulder. "O Alan," she murmured low,

letting her heart have its way, "you are mine, then; you are mine.

You have made me so happy, so supremely happy."