The Call of the Blood

No event in his life had shocked him so much as the death of Delarey.

It had shocked both his intellect and his heart. And yet his intellect

could hardly accept it as a fact. When, early that morning, one of the

servants of the Hôtel Regina Margherita had rushed into his room to tell

him, he had refused to believe it. But then he had seen the fishermen,

and finally Dr. Marini. And he had been obliged to believe. His natural

impulse was to go to his friend in her trouble as she had come to him in

his. But he checked it. His agony had been physical. Hers was of the

affections, and how far greater than his had ever been! He could not bear

to think of it. A great and generous indignation seized him, an

indignation against the catastrophes of life. That this should be

Hermione's reward for her noble unselfishness roused in him something

that was like fury; and then there followed a more torturing fury against

himself.

He had deprived her of days and weeks of happiness. Such a short span of

joy had been allotted to her, and he had not allowed her to have even

that. He had called her away. He dared not trust himself to write any

word of sympathy. It seemed to him that to do so would be a hideous

irony, and he sent the line in pencil which she had received. And then he

walked up and down in his little sitting-room, raging against himself,

hating himself.

In his now bitterly acute consideration of his friendship with Hermione

he realized that he had always been selfish, always the egoist claiming

rather than the generous donor. He had taken his burdens to her, not

weakly, for he was not a weak man, but with a desire to be eased of some

of their weight. He had always been calling upon her for sympathy, and

she had always been lavishly responding, scattering upon him the wealth

of her great heart.

And now he had deprived her of nearly all the golden time that had been

stored up for her by the decree of the Gods, of God, of Fate,

of--whatever it was that ruled, that gave and that deprived.

A bitterness of shame gripped him. He felt like a criminal. He said to

himself that the selfish man is a criminal.

"She will hate me," he said to himself. "She must. She can't help it."

Again the egoist was awake and speaking within him. He realized that

immediately and felt almost a fear of this persistence of character. What

is the use of cleverness, of clear sight into others, even of genius,

when the self of a man declines to change, declines to be what is not

despicable?