CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE INEVITABLE.

Late in the day her maid awoke her and said that Mrs. Dykman was down-stairs.

Hermia hesitated; then she bade the girl bring the visitor up to her boudoir. It was as well for several reasons that Mrs. Dykman should know.

She thrust her feet into a pair of night-slippers, drew a dressing-gown about her, and went into the next room. Mrs. Dykman, as she entered a moment later, raised her level brows.

“Hermia!” she said, “what is the matter?”

Hermia glanced at herself in the mirror. She shuddered a little at her reflection. “Several things,” she said, briefly. “Sit down.”

Mrs. Dykman, with an extremely uncomfortable sensation, took a chair. On the occasion of her first long conversation with Hermia she had made up her mind that her new-found relative would one day electrify the world by some act which her family would strive to forget. How she wished Hermia had been cast in that world’s conventional mold! It had come! She was convinced of that, as she looked at Hermia’s face. What _had_ she done?

“I have something to tell you,” said Hermia; and then she stopped.

“Well?”

Mrs. Dykman uttered only one word; but before that calm, impassive expectancy there was no retreat. She looked as immovable, yet as compelling, as a sphinx.

Hermia told her story to the end. At so low an ebb was her vitality that not a throb of excitement was in her voice.

When she had finished, Mrs. Dykman drew a breath of relief. It was all very terrible, of course, but she had felt an indefinable dread of something worse. She knew with whom she had to deal, however, and decided upon her line of argument without the loss of a moment. For Hermia to allow any barrier to stand between herself and Quintard was ridiculous.

“It is a very unfortunate thing,” she said, in a tone intended to impress Hermia with its lack of horror; “but has it occurred to you that it could not be helped?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you remember that for more years than you can count you nursed and trained and hugged the idea of an adventurous love-affair? The moment you got the necessary conditions you thought of nothing but of realizing your dream. To have changed your ideas would have involved the changing of your whole nature. The act was as inevitable as any minor act in life which is the direct result of the act which preceded it. You could no more have helped having an intrigue than you could help having typhoid fever if your system were in the necessary condition. I think that is a logical statement of the matter.”

“I do not deny it,” said Hermia indifferently; “but why was I so blind as to mistake the wrong man for the right?”

“The men of your imagination were so far above reality that all men you met were a disappointment. Cryder was the first who had any of the qualities you demanded. And there was much about Cryder to please; he was one of the most charming men I ever met. You found it delightful to be with a man who, you thought, understood you, and whose mind was equal to your own. You were lonely, too—you wanted a companion. If Quintard had come first, there would have been no question of mistake; but, as the case stands, it was perfectly natural for you to imagine yourself in love with Cryder.”

Hermia turned her head listlessly against the back of the chair and stared at the wall. It was all true; but what difference did it make?

Mrs. Dykman went on: “Moreover—although it is difficult for you to accept such a truth in your present frame of mind—the affair did you good, and your chances of happiness are greater than if you took into matrimony neither experience nor the memory of mistakes. If you had met Quintard first and married him, you would have carried with you through life the regret that you had never realized your wayward dreams. You would have continued to invest an intrigue with all the romance of your imagination; now you know exactly how little there is in it. What is more, you have learned something of the difference in men, and will be able to appreciate a man like Quintard. You will realize how few men there are in the world who satisfy all the wants of a woman’s nature. There is no effect in a picture without both light and shade. The life you will have with Quintard will be the more complete and beautiful by its contrast to the emptiness and baldness of your attempt with Cryder.”

Hermia placed her elbows on her knees and pressed her hands against her face. “You are appealing to my intellect,” she said; “and what you say is very clever, and worthy of you. But, if I had met Quintard in time, he would have dispelled all my false illusions and made me more than content with what he offered in return. No, I have made a horrible mistake, and no logic will help me.”

“But look at another side of the question. You have given yourself to one man; Heaven knows how many love affairs Grettan Quintard has had. You know this; you heard him acknowledge it in so many words. And yet you find no fault with him. Why, then, is your one indiscretion so much greater than his many? Your life until you met Quintard was your own to do with as it pleased you. If you chose to take the same privilege that the social code allows to men, the relative sin is very small; about positive right and wrong I do not pretend to know anything. With the uneven standard of morality set up by the world and by religion, who does? But relatively you are so much less guilty than Quintard that the matter is hardly worth discussing. And, if he never discovers that you give him less than he believes, it will not hurt him. When you are older, you will have a less tender regard for men than you have to-day.”

Hermia leaned back and sighed heavily. “Oh, it is not the abstract sin,” she said. “It is that _it was_, and that _now_ I love.”

“Hermia,” said Mrs. Dykman, sternly, “this is unworthy of a woman of your brains and character. You have the strongest will of any woman I have ever known; take your past by the throat and put it behind you. Stifle it and forget it. You have the power, and you must surely have the desire.”

“No,” said Hermia, “I have neither the power nor the desire. That is the one thing in my life beyond the control of my will.”

“Then there is but one thing that will bring back your normal frame of mind, and that is change. I will give you a summer in London and a winter in Paris. I promise that at the end of that time you will marry Quintard.”

“Well,” said Hermia, listlessly, “I will think of it.” She was beginning to wish her aunt would go. She had made her more disgusted with life than ever.

Mrs. Dykman divined that it was time to leave the girl alone, and rose. She hesitated a moment and then placed her hand on Hermia’s shoulder. “I have had every experience that life offers to women,” she said—and for the first time in Hermia’s knowledge of her those even tones deepened—“every tragedy, every comedy, every bitterness, every joy—_everything_. Therefore, my advice has its worth. There is little in life—make the most of that little when you find it. You are facing a problem that more than one woman has faced before, and you will work it out as other women have done. It was never intended that a life-time of suffering should be the result of one mistake.” Then she gathered her wraps about her and left the room.

Shortly after, Hermia drove down to her lawyer’s office and made a will. She left bequests to Helen Simms and Miss Newton, and divided the bulk of her property between Bessie, Miss Starbruck, and Mrs. Dykman.

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