"I'm going to make my mark," she heard Martin cry."I'm going to make something that will last.My father's name was Martin Gray, and I'll make it mean something out here for his sake.""And I," she heard herself say, "will go joy-riding on that huge Round-about.I've seen what it is to be old and useless, and so Ishall make the most of every day and hour while I'm young.I can live only once, and I shall make life spin whichever way I want it to go.If I can get anybody to pay my whack, good.If not, I'll pay it myself,--whatever it costs.My motto's going to be a good time as long as I can get it and who cares for the price!"Young fool, you young fool!
The boy followed her to the window, and the moonlight fell upon them both.
"Yes, you'll get a bill all right.How did you know that?"And once more she heard her answer."I haven't lived with all those old people so long for nothing.But you won't catch me grumbling if I get half as much as I'm going out for.Listen to my creed, Martin, and take notes if you want to keep up with me....I shall open the door of every known Blue Room, hurrying out if there are ugly things inside.I shall taste a little of every known bottle, feel everything there is to feel except the thing that hurts, laugh with everybody whose laugh is catching, do everything there is to do, go into every booth in the big Bazaar, and when I'm tired and there's nothing left, slip out of the endless procession with a thousand things stored in my memory.Isn't that the way to live?""Young fool, you young fool," she cried, with the feeling of being forgotten and deserted, with not one speck on the blank horizon.
"You've failed--failed in everything.You haven't even carried out your program.Others have paid,--Martin and Gilbert and Alice, but the big bill has come in to you...Who cares? You do, you do, you young fool, and you must creep out of the procession with only one thing stored in your memory,--the loss of Martin, Martin."It was a bad hour for this girl-child who had tried her wings too young.
And when Gilbert straightened up and gave thanks to God for the woman who had never stirred him, but whose courage and tenderness had added to his respect, he too turned towards the sea with its blank horizon,--the sea upon which he was to be taken by his good wife for rest and sleep, and there was Joan...young, and slight and alluring, with her back to him and her hands behind her back, and the mere sight of her churned his blood again, and set his dull fire into flames.Once more the old craving returned, the old madness revived, as it always would when the sight and sound of her caught him, and all the common sense and uncommon goodness of the little woman who had given him comfort rose like smoke and was blown away....To win this girl he would sacrifice Alice and barter his soul.She was in his blood.She was the living picture of his youthful vision.She only could satisfy the Great Emotion....
There was the plan that he had forgotten,--the lunatic plan from which, even in his most desperate moment, he had drawn back, afraid,--to cajole her to the cottage away from which he would send his servants; make, with doors and windows locked, one last passionate appeal, and then, if mocked and held away, to take her with him into death and hold her spirit in his arms.
To own himself beaten by this slip of a girl, to pack his traps and leave her the field and sneak off like a beardless boy,--was that the sort of way he did things who had had merely to raise his voice to hear the approach of obsequious feet?...Alice and the yacht and nothing but sea to a blank horizon? He laughed to think of it.
It was, in fact, unthinkable.
He would put it to Joan in a different way this time.He would hide his fire and be more like that cursed boy.That would be a new way.
She liked new things.