To Leeward. F. Marion Crawford
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is not adapted to the larger view."
"No," said Leonora, "for Time is evidently a portion of universal pure Being, and is therefore Nothing. I am sure of it."
"No. Time is not Nothing—it is Colour."
"How do you mean, dear?" asked Leonora in some surprise.
"I do not quite know, dearest, but I am sure it must be. It is quite certain that Colour is a fundamental conception."
"Of course." There was a pause. Apparently the identity of Infinite Time with Colour did not interest Miss Carnethy, who stared at the light through the blinds between her two friends.
"It seems to me that we girls have no field nowadays," said she, rather irrelevantly.
"An infinite field, dear."
"And infinite time, dearest."
"I would give anything I possess to be able to do anything for anybody," began Leonora. "We know so much about life in theory, and we know nothing about it in practice. I wish mamma would even let me order the dinner sometimes; it would be something. But of course it is all an illusion, and nothing, and very infinite."
Poor Miss Carnethy turned on her pillow with a dreary look in her eyes.
"It will be different when you are married, dear," suggested one.
"Of course," acquiesced the other.
"But can you not see," objected Miss Carnethy, "that we shall never marry men whose ideas are so high and beautiful as ours? And then, to be tied forever to some miserable creature! Fancy not being understood! What do these wretched society men care about the really great questions of life?"
"About Time—"
"And Infinite Space—"
"Nothing, nothing, nothing!" cried Miss Carnethy in real distress.
"And yet it would be dreadful to be an old maid"—
"Perfectly dreadful, of course!" exclaimed all three, in a breath. Then there was a short silence, during which Leonora moved uneasily, and finally sat up, her heavy red hair falling all about her.
"By the bye," she said at last, "have you been out to-day, dears? What have you been doing? Tell me all about it."
"We have been to Lady Smyth-Tompkins's tea. It was very empty."
"You mean very hollow, for there were many people there."
"Yes," said the other, "it was very hollow—empty—everything of that sort. Then we went to drive on the Pincio."
"So very void."
"Yes. We saw Carantoni leaning against a post. I am sure he was thinking of nothing. He looks just like a stuffed glove—such an inane dandy!"
Miss Carnethy's blue eyes suddenly looked as though they were conscious of something more than mere emptiness in the world. Her strong, well-shaped red lips set themselves like a bent bow, and the shaft was not long in flying.
"He is very pleasant to talk to," said she, "and besides—he really dances beautifully." It was probably a standing grievance with her two friends that Marcantonio did not dance with them, or Leonora could scarcely have produced such an impression in so few words.
"What does he talk about?" asked one, with an affectation of indifference.
"Oh, all sorts of things," answered Leonora. "He does not believe at all in the greatest good of the greatest number. He says he has discovered the Spencerian fallacy, as he calls it."
"Alas, then that also is nothing!"
"Absolutely nothing, dear," continued Leonora. "He says that, if there is no morality beyond happiness"—
"Of course!"
—"then every individual has as much right to be happy as the whole human race put together, since he is under no moral obligation to anybody or anything, there being no abstract morality. Do you see? It is very pretty. And then he says it follows that there is no absolute good unless from a divine standard, which of course is pure nonsense, or ought to be, if Hegel is right."
"Dear me! Of course it is!"
"And so, dears," concluded Leonora triumphantly, "we are all going to the Devil do you see?" The association of ideas seemed exhilarating to Miss Carnethy, and in truth the conclusion was probably suggested more by her feelings than by her logic, if she really possessed any. She felt better, and would put off the further consideration of Nothing and Being to some more convenient season. She therefore gave her friends some tea in her bedroom, and the conversation became more and more earthly, and the subjects more and more minute, until they seemed to be thoroughly within the grasp of the three young ladies.
At last they went, these two charming damsels, very much impressed with Leonora's cleverness, and very much interested in her future—which she would only refer to in the vaguest terms possible. They were both extremely fashionable young persons, possessed of dowries, good looks, and various other charms, such as good birth, good manners, and the like; and it would be futile to deny that they took a lively interest in the doings of their world, however hollow and vain the cake appeared to them between two bites.
"Are you going to-night, Leonora dear?" they inquired as they left her.
"Of course," answered Miss Carnethy. "I must hear the rest of the 'Spencerian fallacy' you know!"
When Leonora was alone she had a great many things to think of.
The atmosphere had cleared during the last hour, so far as philosophy was concerned, and as she looked at herself in the glass, she was wondering how she should look in the evening. Not vainly—at least, not so vainly as most girls with her advantages might have thought—but reflectively, the English side of her twofold nature having gained the upper hand. For as she gazed into her own blue eyes, trying to search and fathom her own soul, she was conscious of something that gave her pleasure and hope—something which she had treated scornfully enough in her thoughts that very afternoon.
She knew, for her mother had told her, that Marcantonio Carantoni had written to her parents, had called, had an interview, and had been told that he should be an acceptable son-in-law, provided that he could obtain Leonora's consent. She knew also that in the natural course of things he would this very evening ask her to be his wife; and, lastly, she knew very well that she would accept him.
She wondered vaguely how all those strange unsettled ideas of hers would harmonise in a married life. How far should she and her husband ever agree? She had a photograph of him in her desk, which he had given to her mother, and which she had naturally stolen and hidden away. Now she took it out and brought it to the window, and looked at it minutely, wonderingly, as she had looked at herself in the mirror a moment earlier.
Yes, he was a proper husband enough, with his bright honest eyes and his brave aristocratic nose and black moustache. Not very intelligent, perhaps, by the higher standard—that everlasting "higher standard" again—but withal goodly and noble as a lover should be. A lover? What weal and woe of heart-stirring romance that word used to suggest! And so this was her lover, the one man of all others dreamed of as a future divinity throughout her passionate girlhood. A creature of sighs and stolen glances—ay, perhaps of stolen kisses—a lover should be; breathing soft things and glancing hot glances. Was Marcantonio really her lover?
He was so honest—and so rich! He could hardly want her for her dower's sake—no, she knew that was impossible. For her beauty's sake, then? No, she was not so beautiful as that, and never could be, though the fashion had changed and red hair was in vogue. A pretty conceit, that mankind should make one half of creation fashionable at the expense of the other! But it is so all the same, and always will be. However, even with red hair, and an immense quantity of it, she was not a great beauty.
Perhaps Marcantonio would have married a great beauty if he could have met one who would accept him. It would not be nice, she thought, to marry a man who could not have the best if he chose. To