The Call of the Blood

Artois was a reserved man, but, like many reserved people, if once he

showed himself as he really was, he could continue to be singularly

frank. He was singularly frank with Hermione. She became his confidante,

often at a distance. He scarcely ever came to London, which he disliked

exceedingly, but from Paris or from the many lands in which he

wandered--he was no pavement lounger, although he loved Paris rather as a

man may love a very chic cocotte--he wrote to Hermione long letters, into

which he put his mind and heart, his aspirations, struggles, failures,

triumphs. They were human documents, and contained much of his secret

history.

It was of this history that he was now thinking, and of Hermione's

comments upon it, tied up with a ribbon in Paris. The news of her

approaching marriage with a man whom he had never seen had given him a

rude shock, had awakened in him a strange feeling of jealousy. He had

grown accustomed to the thought that Hermione was in a certain sense his

property. He realized thoroughly the egotism, the dog-in-the-manger

spirit which was alive in him, and hated but could not banish it. As a

friend he certainly loved Hermione. She knew that. But he did not love

her as a man loves the woman he wishes to make his wife. She must know

that, too. He loved her but was not in love with her, and she loved but

was not in love with him. Why, then, should this marriage make a

difference in their friendship? She said that it would not, but he felt

that it must. He thought of her as a wife, then as a mother. The latter

thought made his egotism shudder. She would be involved in the happy

turmoil of a family existence, while he would remain without in that

loneliness which is the artist's breath of life and martyrdom. Yes, his

egotism shuddered, and he was angry at the weakness. He chastised the

frailties of others, but must be the victim of his own. A feeling of

helplessness came to him, of being governed, lashed, driven. How unworthy

was his sensation of hostility against Delarey, his sensation that

Hermione was wronging him by entering into this alliance, and how

powerless he was to rid himself of either sensation! There was good cause

for his melancholy--his own folly. He must try to conquer it, and, if

that were impossible, to rein it in before the evening.

When he reached the hotel he went into his sitting-room and worked for an

hour and a half, producing a short paragraph, which did not please him.

Then he took a hansom and drove to Peathill Street.