University of Virginia Library

17. XVII.
WHETHER OR NO.

MIRIAM lost and found, was dearer now than
ever. Dismayed at the chances that might
have befallen, he could scarcely endure her out
of his sight. Loving, previously, had been like
living or breathing; now, it was a positive thing,
another existence; and so precious did it seem,
that analyzing, he began to entertain a jealousy
of it.

He knew very well that he always borrowed
tone from the nature that had influenced him last
and strongest. Thus when his Ghost was his sole
companion, he had been fit for such intimacy;
afterward, he had taken St. Denys's genial calm;
and now when Miriam, dancing and iridescent as
a foam-flake, met and overpowered him with her
exuberant life, he was sentient of wearing the
same hues in which she beamed. So that, in fact,

she unconsciously saw herself mirrored in him,
and with a natural self-love was attracted toward
the image. An apotheosis of self-love, truly; but
then, thought Sir Rohan, what more is any other
love? And is not its design and use, perhaps, for
the highest development of personality? Those,
then, who have loved, — loved in the mad flames
that burn away dross and leave the bare edge of
self-consciousness welded with that of another, —
those may die.

As a corollary to this idea, not long subsequently
a strange fantasy seized him. Floating
with Miriam in his boat, one sail stretched through
light and shade, down a small river that he had
not navigated for years, and rocking in midchannel
on the broad oily swells of the receding
tide, that, compared to the crisp wavelets nearer
shore, surrounded them like fields of calm, he
suddenly found himself drifting in a current that
ran swiftly out among the breakers at the river's
mouth, glimpses of whose white plumes he already
caught tossing in glee over their approaching
prey. The little boat, once among them, would
be staved to atoms, wave after wave dashing
against it; the strongest swimmer would only be

gored and impaled upon those cruel rocks; while
with the effort to free himself, one oar snapped,
and he saw it sucked along far in advance. In
the midst of his strenuous exertions with the remaining
one, he paused to gaze on the unconscious
girl, suffering the boat to drift onward, and thinking
were it not better both together now to plunge
into the vortex of eternity, than that he at some
future day, meeting a stronger influence, should
cease to reflect her nature, to represent her startling
characteristics; should reassume himself, —
though still cherishing her tenderly, — and she,
finding the pleasing likeness no longer there,
should cease to bestow her love upon that which,
having held it, was now to her vacant. A
thing, he felt, that might be as natural for
her, as for a queen to put on and take off the
crown.

It was not he that experienced change, but circumstance
that conquered him; yet she — change
was half her beauty. But while he balanced life
and chances, Time was meddling with the weights,
and the boat settling downward; and still he
gazed at the one whose moments he was numbering,
shuddered at the gaunt image of a day destitute

of her devotion, and thrilled at the delirious
draught of death that it was theirs to quaff in
youth should they choose. He knew the wild
moment of fear that would snatch her heart away
at first; but he also pictured the returning passion
when, absorbed in him, she sank down
the great gulfs of darkness, while, even should
there be no hereafter, they almost eternized
this love by its dying strength, soul closing with
soul.

But in this instance, as in others, the instinct
for life exceeded the reasoning power, and Sir
Rohan, after a struggle, made the shallower water
once more, and following the windings of the
stream, reached their starting-point at last, in the
shades of his unfrequented park, scattering the
deer who had trooped to drink in the quiet pools
of its lazier flow.

It was not, however, an agreeable conclusion
that had forced itself upon him, — that the moment
he ceased to present in himself the image of Miriam,
she would transfer her love to its next shrine,
— nor was it fealty to her. Neither was it pleasant
to find himself no relief — no cameo — but
merely a vacuum where other and more glowing

individualities painted themselves. Yet after all,
he believed Death would come to him sooner than
loss of love.

In short, it was probably provoking that he had
no longer a subject for annoyance.