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III
A LOVER'S DILEMMA

"How are you feeling now?"

Words could not express the music of these six liquid syllables that fell through the stillness and the blackness on my ears.

"Not very bright, I'm afraid, nurse," said I.

Think of something to do with streams and moonlight, and you may have an idea of the mellow ripple of the laugh I heard.

"I'm not the nurse. Can't you tell the difference? I'm Miss Deane – Dr. Deane's daughter."

"Deane?" I echoed.

"Don't you know where you are?"

"Every thing is still confused," said I.

I had an idea that they had carried me somewhere by train and put me into a bed, and that soft-fingered people had tended my eyes; but where I was I neither knew nor cared. Torture and blindness had been quite enough to occupy my mind.

"You are at Dr. Deane's house," said the voice, "and Dr. Deane is the twin brother of Mr. Deane, the great oculist of Grandchester, who was summoned to Shepton-Marling when you met with your accident. Perhaps you know you had a gun accident?"

"I suppose it was only that after all," said I, "but it felt like the disruption of the solar system."

"Are you still in great pain?" my unseen hostess asked sympathetically.

"Not since you have been in the room. I mean," I added, chilled by a span of silence, "I mean – I am just stating what happens to be a fact."

"Oh!" she said shortly. "Well, my uncle found that you couldn't be properly treated at your friend's little place at Shepton-Marling, so he brought you to Grandchester – and here you are."

"But I don't understand," said I, "why I should be a guest in your house."

"You are not a guest," she laughed. "You are here on the most sordid and commercial footing. Your friend – I forget his name – "

"Mobray," said I.

"Mr. Mobray settled it with my uncle. You see the house is large and father's practice small, as we keep a nursing home for my uncle's patients. Of course we have trained nurses."

"Are you one?" I asked.

"Not exactly. I do the housekeeping. But I can settle those uncomfortable pillows."

I felt her dexterous cool hands about my head and neck. For a moment or two my eyes ceased to ache, and I wished I could see her. In tendering my thanks, I expressed the wish. She laughed her delicious laugh.

"If you could see you wouldn't be here, and therefore you couldn't see me anyhow."

"Shall I ever see you?" I asked dismally.

"Why, of course! Don't you know that Henry Deane is one of the greatest oculists in England?"

We discussed my case and the miraculous skill of Henry Deane. Presently she left me, promising to return. The tones of her voice seemed to linger, as perfume would, in the darkness.

That was the beginning of it. It was love, not at first sight, but at first sound. Pain and anxiety stood like abashed goblins at the back of my mind. Valerie Deane's voice danced in front like a triumphant fairy. When she came and talked sick-room platitudes I had sooner listened to her than to the music of the spheres. At that early stage what she said mattered so little. I would have given rapturous heed to her reading of logarithmic tables. I asked her silly questions merely to elicit the witchery of her voice. When Melba sings, do you take count of the idiot words? You close eyes and intellect and just let the divine notes melt into your soul. And when you are lying on your back, blind and helpless, as I was, your soul is a very sponge for anything beautiful that can reach it. After a while she gave me glimpses of herself, sweet and womanly; and we drifted from commonplace into deeper things. She was the perfect companion. We discussed all topics, from chiffons to Schopenhauer. Like most women, she execrated Schopenhauer. She must have devoted much of her time to me; yet I ungratefully complained of the long intervals between her visits. But oh! those interminable idle hours of darkness, in which all the thoughts that had ever been thought were rethought over and over again until the mind became a worn-out rag-bag! Only those who have been through the valley of this shadow can know its desolation. Only they can understand the magic of the unbeheld Valerie Deane.

"What is the meaning of this?" she asked one morning. "Nurse says you are fretful and fractious."

"She insisted on soaping the soles of my feet and tickling me into torments, which made me fractious, and I'm dying to see your face, which makes me fretful."

"Since when have you been dying?" she asked.

"From the first moment I heard your voice saying, 'How are you feeling now?' It's irritating to have a friend and not in the least know what she is like. Besides," I added, "your voice is so beautiful that your face must be the same."

She laughed.

"Your face is like your laugh," I declared.

"If my face were my fortune I should come off badly," she said in a light tone. I think she was leaning over the foot-rail, and I longed for her nearer presence.

"Nurse has tied this bandage a little too tightly," I said mendaciously.

I heard her move, and in a moment her fingers were busy about my eyes. I put up my hand and touched them. She patted my hand away.

"Please don't be foolish," she remarked. "When you recover your sight and find what an exceedingly plain girl I am, you'll go away like the others, and never want to see me again."

"What others?" I exclaimed.

"Do you suppose you're the only patient I have had to manage?"

I loathed "the others" with a horrible detestation; but I said, after reflection:

"Tell me about yourself. I know you are called Valerie from Dr. Deane. How old are you?"

She pinned the bandage in front of my forehead.

"Oh, I'm young enough," she answered with a laugh. "Three-and-twenty. And I'm five-foot-four, and I haven't a bad figure. But I haven't any good looks at all, at all."

"Tell me," said I impatiently, "exactly how you do look. I must know."

"I have a sallow complexion. Not very good skin. And a low forehead."

"An excellent thing," said I.

"But my eyebrows and hair run in straight parallel lines, so it isn't," she retorted. "It is very ugly. I have thin black hair."

"Let me feel."

"Certainly not. And my eyes are a sort of watery china blue and much too small. And my nose isn't a bad nose altogether, but it's fleshy. One of those nondescript, unaristocratic noses that always looks as if it has got a cold. My mouth is large – I am looking at myself in the glass – my my teeth are white. Yes, they are nice and white. But they are large and protrude – you know the French caricature of an Englishwoman's teeth. Really, now I consider the question, I am the image of the English mees in a French comic paper."

"I don't believe it," I declared.

"It is true. I know I have a pretty voice – but that is all. It deceives blind people. They think I must be pretty too, and when they see me —bon soir, la compagnie! And I've such a thin, miserable face, coming to the chin in a point, like a kite. There! Have you a clear idea of me now?"

"No," said I, "for I believe you are wilfully misrepresenting yourself. Besides, beauty does not depend upon features regular in themselves, but the way those features are put together."

"Oh, mine are arranged in an amiable sort of way. I don't look cross."

"You must look sweetness itself," said I.

She sighed and said meditatively:

"It is a great misfortune for a girl to be so desperately plain. The consciousness of it comes upon her like a cold shower-bath when she is out with other girls. Now there is my cousin – "

"Which cousin?"

"My Uncle Henry's daughter. Shall I tell you about her?"

"I am not in the least interested in your cousin," I replied.

She laughed, and the entrance of the nurse put an end to the conversation.

Now I must make a confession. I was grievously disappointed. Her detailed description of herself as a sallow, ill-featured young woman awoke me with a shock from my dreams of a radiant goddess. It arrested my infatuation in mid-course. My dismay was painful. I began to pity her for being so unattractive. For the next day or two even her beautiful voice failed in its seduction.

But soon a face began to dawn before me, elusive at first, and then gradually gaining in definition. At last the picture flashed upon my mental vision with sudden vividness, and it has never left me to this day. Its steadfastness convinced me of its accuracy. It was so real that I could see its expression vary, as she spoke, according to her mood. The plainness, almost ugliness, of the face repelled me. I thought ruefully of having dreamed of kisses from the lips that barely closed in front of the great white teeth. Yet, after a while, its higher qualities exercised a peculiar attraction. A brave, tender spirit shone through. An intellectual alertness redeemed the heavy features – the low ugly brow, the coarse nose, the large mouth; and as I lay thinking and picturing there was revealed in an illuminating flash the secret of the harmony between face and voice. Thenceforward Valerie Deane was invested with a beauty all her own. I loved the dear plain face as I loved the beautiful voice, and the touch of her fingers, and the tender, laughing womanliness, and all that went with the concept of Valerie Deane.

Had I possessed the daring of Young Lochinvar, I should, on several occasions, have declared my passion. But by temperament I am a diffident procrastinator. I habitually lose golden moments as some people habitually lose umbrellas. Alas! There is no Lost Property Office for golden moments!

Still I vow, although nothing definite was said, that when the unanticipated end drew near, our intercourse was arrant love-making.

All pain had gone from my eyes. I was up and dressed and permitted to grope my way about the blackness. To-morrow I was to have my first brief glimpse of things for three weeks, in the darkened room. I was in high spirits. Valerie, paying her morning visit, seemed depressed.

"But think of it!" I cried in pardonable egotism. "To-morrow I shall be able to see you. I've longed for it as much as for the sight of the blue sky."

"There isn't any blue sky," said Valerie. "It's an inverted tureen that has held pea-soup."

Her voice had all the melancholy notes of the woodwind in the unseen shepherd's lament in "Tristan und Isolde."

"I don't know how to tell you," she exclaimed tragically, after a pause. "I shan't be here to-morrow. It's a bitter disappointment. My aunt in Wales is dying. I have been telegraphed for, and I must go."

She sat on the end of the couch where I was lounging, and took my hands.

"It isn't my fault."

My spirits fell headlong.

"I would just as soon keep blind," said I blankly.

"I thought you would say that."

A tear dropped on my hand. I felt that it was brutal of her aunt to make Valerie cry. Why could she not postpone her demise to a more suitable opportunity? I murmured, however, a few decent words of condolence.

"Thank you, Mr. Winter," said Valerie. "I am fond of my aunt; but I had set my heart on your seeing me. And she may not die for weeks and weeks! She was dying for ever so long last year, and got round again."

I ventured an arm about her shoulders, and spoke consolingly. The day would come when our eyes would meet. I called her Valerie and bade her address me as Harold.

I have come to the conclusion that the man who strikes out a new line in love-making is a genius.

"If I don't hurry I shall miss my train," she sighed at last.

She rose; I felt her bend over me. Her hands closed on my cheeks, and a kiss fluttered on my lips. I heard the light swish of her skirts and the quick opening and shutting of the door, and she was gone.

Valerie's aunt, like King Charles II, was an unconscionable time a-dying. When a note from Valerie announced her return to Grandchester, I had already gone blue-spectacled away. For some time I was not allowed to read or write, and during this period of probation urgent affairs summoned me to Vienna. Such letters as I wrote to Valerie had to be of the most elementary nature. If you have a heart of any capacity worth troubling about, you cannot empty it on one side of a sheet of notepaper. For mine reams would have been inadequate. I also longed to empty it in her presence, my eyes meeting hers for the first time. Thus, ever haunted by the beloved plain face and the memorable voice, I remained inarticulate.

As soon as my business was so far adjusted that I could leave Vienna, I started on a flying visit, post-haste, to England. The morning after my arrival beheld me in a railway carriage at Euston waiting for the train to carry me to Grandchester. I had telegraphed to Valerie; also to Mr. Deane, the oculist, for an appointment which might give colour to my visit. I was alone in the compartment. My thoughts, far away from the long platform, leaped the four hours that separated me from Grandchester. For the thousandth time I pictured our meeting. I foreshadowed speeches of burning eloquence. I saw the homely features transfigured. I closed my eyes the better to retain the beatific vision. The train began to move. Suddenly the door was opened, a girlish figure sprang into the compartment, and a porter running by the side of the train, threw in a bag and a bundle of wraps, and slammed the door violently. The young lady stood with her back to me, panting for breath. The luggage lay on the floor. I stooped to pick up the bag; so did the young lady. Our hands met as I lifted it to the rack.

"Oh, please, don't trouble!" she cried in a voice whose familiarity made my heart beat.

I caught sight of her face, for the first time, and my heart beat faster than ever. It was her face – the face that had dawned upon my blindness – the face I had grown to worship. I looked at her, transfixed with wonder. She settled herself unconcerned in the farther corner of the carriage. I took the opposite seat and leaned forward.

"You are Miss Deane?" I asked tremulously.

She drew herself up, on the defensive.

"That is my name," she said.

"Valerie!" I cried in exultation.

She half rose. "What right have you to address me?"

"I am Harold Winter," said I, taken aback by her outraged demeanour. "Is it possible that you don't recognize me?"

"I have never seen or heard of you before in my life," replied the young lady tartly, "and I hope you won't force me to take measures to protect myself against your impertinence."

I lay back against the cushions, gasping with dismay.

"I beg your pardon," said I, recovering; "I am neither going to molest you nor be intentionally impertinent. But, as your face has never been out of my mind for three months, and as I am travelling straight through from Vienna to Grandchester to see it for the first time, I may be excused for addressing you."

She glanced hurriedly at the communication-cord and then back at me, as if I were a lunatic.

"You are Miss Deane of Grandchester – daughter of Dr. Deane?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Valerie Deane, then?"

"I have told you so."

"Then all I can say is," I cried, losing my temper at her stony heartlessness, "that your conduct in turning an honest, decent man into a besotted fool, and then disclaiming all knowledge of him, is outrageous. It's damnable. The language hasn't a word to express it!"

She stood with her hand on the cord.

"I shall really have to call the guard," she said, regarding me coolly.

"You are quite free to do so," I answered. "But if you do, I shall have to show your letters, in sheer self-defence. I am not going to spend the day in a police-station."

She let go the cord and sat down again.

"What on earth do you mean?" she asked.

I took a bundle of letters from my pocket and tossed one over to her. She glanced at it quickly, started, as if in great surprise, and handed it back with a smile.

"I did not write that."

I thought I had never seen her equal for unblushing impudence. Her mellow tones made the mockery appear all the more diabolical.

"If you didn't write it," said I, "I should like to know who did."

"My Cousin Valerie."

"I don't understand," said I.

"My name is Valerie Deane and my cousin's name is Valerie Deane, and this is her handwriting."

Bewildered, I passed my hand over my eyes. What feline trick was she playing? Her treachery was incomprehensible.

"I suppose it was your Cousin Valerie who tended me during my blindness at your father's house, who shed tears because she had to leave me, who – "

"Quite possibly," she interrupted. "Only it would have been at her father's house and not mine. She does tend blind people, my father's patients."

I looked at her open-mouthed. "In the name of Heaven," I exclaimed, "who are you, if not the daughter of Dr. Deane of Stavaton Street?"

"My father is Mr. Henry Deane, the oculist. You asked if I were the daughter of Dr. Deane. So many people give him the wrong title I didn't trouble to correct you."

It took me a few moments to recover. I had been making a pretty fool of myself. I stammered out pleas for a thousand pardons. I confused myself, and her, in explanation. Then I remembered that the fathers were twin brothers and bore a strong resemblance one to the other. What more natural than that the daughters should also be alike?

"What I can't understand," said Miss Deane, "is how you mistook me for my cousin."

"Your voices are identical."

"But our outer semblances – "

"I have never seen your cousin – she left me before I recovered my sight."

"How then could you say you had my face before you for three months?"

"I am afraid, Miss Deane, I was wrong in that as in everything else. It was her face. I had a mental picture of it."

She put on a puzzled expression. "And you used the mental picture for the purpose of recognition?"

"Yes," said I.

"I give it up," said Miss Deane.

She did not press me further. Her Cousin Valerie's love affairs were grounds too delicate for her to tread upon. She turned the conversation by politely asking me how I had come to consult her father. I mentioned my friend Mobray and the gun accident. She remembered the case and claimed a slight acquaintance with Mobray, whom she had met at various houses in Grandchester. My credit as a sane and reputable person being established, we began to chat most amicably. I found Miss Deane an accomplished woman. We talked books, art, travel. She had the swift wit which delights in bridging the trivial and the great. She had a playful fancy. Never have I found a personality so immediately sympathetic. I told her a sad little Viennese story in which I happened to have played a minor part, and her tenderness was as spontaneous as Valerie's – my Valerie's. She had Valerie's woodland laugh. Were it not that her personal note, her touch on the strings of life differed essentially from my beloved's, I should have held it grotesquely impossible for any human being but Valerie to be sitting in the opposite corner of that railway carriage. Indeed there were moments when she was Valerie, when the girl waiting for me at Grandchester faded into the limbo of unreal things. A kiss from those lips had fluttered on mine. It were lunacy to doubt it.

During intervals of non-illusion I examined her face critically. There was no question of its unattractiveness to the casual observer. The nose was too large and fleshy, the teeth too prominent, the eyes too small. But my love had pierced to its underlying spirituality, and it was the face above all others that I desired.

Toward the end of a remarkably short four hours' journey, Miss Deane graciously expressed the hope that we might meet again.

"I shall ask Valerie," said I, "to present me in due form."

She smiled maliciously. "Are you quite sure you will be able to distinguish one from the other when my cousin and I are together?"

"Are you, then, so identically alike?"

"That's a woman's way of answering a question – by another question," she laughed.

"Well, but are you?" I persisted.

"How otherwise could you have mistaken me for her?" She had drawn off her gloves, so as to give a tidying touch to her hair. I noticed her hands, small, long, and deft. I wondered whether they resembled Valerie's.

"Would you do me the great favour of letting me touch your hand while I shut my eyes, as if I were blind?"

She held out her hand frankly. My fingers ran over it for a few seconds, as they had done many times over Valerie's. "Well?" she asked.

"Not the same," said I.

She flushed, it seemed angrily, and glanced down at her hand, on which she immediately proceeded to draw a glove.

"Yours are stronger. And finer," I added, when I saw that the tribute of strength did not please.

"It's the one little personal thing I am proud of," she remarked.

"You have made my four hours pass like four minutes," said I. "A service to a fellow-creature which you might take some pride in having performed."

"When I was a child I could have said the same of performing elephants."

"I am no longer a child, Miss Deane," said I with a bow.

What there was in this to make the blood rush to her pale cheeks I do not know. The ways of women have often surprised me. I have heard other men make a similar confession.

"I think most men are children," she said shortly.

"In what way?"

"Their sweet irresponsibility," said Miss Deane.

And then the train entered Grandchester Station.

I deposited my bag at the station hotel and drove straight to Stavaton Street. I forgot Miss Deane. My thoughts and longings centred in her beloved counterpart, with her tender, caressing ways, and just a subtle inflection in the voice that made it more exquisite than the voice to which I had been listening.

The servant who opened the door recognized me and smiled a welcome. Miss Valerie was in the drawing-room.

"I know the way," said I.

Impetuous, I ran up the stairs, burst into the drawing-room, and stopped short on the threshold in presence of a strange and exceedingly beautiful young woman. She was stately and slender. She had masses of bright brown hair waving over a beautiful brow. She had deep sapphire eyes, like stars. She had the complexion of a Greuze child. She had that air of fairy diaphaneity combined with the glow of superb health which makes the typical loveliness of the Englishwoman. I gaped for a second or two at this gracious apparition.

"I beg your pardon," said I; "I was told – "

The apparition who was standing by the fireplace smiled and came forward with extended hands.

"Why, Harold! Of course you were told. It is all right. I am Valerie."

I blinked; the world seemed upside down; the enchanting voice rang in my ears, but it harmonized in no way with the equally enchanting face. I put out my hand. "How do you do?" I said stupidly.

"But aren't you glad to see me?" asked the lovely young woman.

"Of course," said I; "I came from Vienna to see you."

"But you look disappointed."

"The fact is," I stammered, "I expected to see some one different – quite different. The face you described has been haunting me for three months."

She had the effrontery to laugh. Her eyes danced mischief.

"Did you really think me such a hideous fright?"

"You were not a fright at all," said I, remembering my late travelling companion.

And then in a flash I realised what she had done.

"Why on earth did you describe your cousin instead of yourself?"

"My cousin! How do you know that?"

"Never mind," I answered. "You did. During your description you had her face vividly before your mind. The picture was in some telepathic way transferred from your brain to mine, and there it remained. The proof is that when I saw a certain lady to-day I recognised her at once and greeted her effusively as Valerie. Her name did happen to be Valerie, and Valerie Deane too, and I ran the risk of a police-station – and I don't think it was fair of you. What prompted you to deceive me?"

I was hurt and angry, and I spoke with some acerbity. Valerie drew herself up with dignity.

"If you claim an explanation, I will give it to you. We have had young men patients in the house before, and, as they had nothing to do, they have amused themselves and annoyed me by falling in love with me. I was tired of it, and decided that it shouldn't happen in your case. So I gave a false description of myself. To make it consistent, I took a real person for a model."

"So you were fooling me all the time?" said I, gathering hat and stick.

Her face softened adorably. Her voice had the tones of the wood-wind.

"Not all the time, Harold," she said.

I laid down hat and stick.

"Then why did you not undeceive me afterward?"

"I thought," she said, blushing and giving me a fleeting glance, "well, I thought you – you wouldn't be sorry to find I wasn't – bad looking."

"I am sorry, Valerie," said I, "and that's the mischief of it."

"I was so looking forward to your seeing me," she said tearfully. And then, with sudden petulance, she stamped her small foot. "It is horrid of you – perfectly horrid – and I never want to speak to you again." The last word ended in a sob. She rushed to the door, pushed me aside, as I endeavoured to stop her, and fled in a passion of tears. Spretæ injuria formæ! Women have remained much the same since the days of Juno.

A miserable, remorseful being, I wandered through the Grandchester streets, to keep my appointment with Mr. Henry Deane. After a short interview he dismissed me with a good report of my eyes. Miss Deane, dressed for walking, met me in the hall as the servant was showing me out, and we went together into the street.

"Well," she said with a touch of irony, "have you seen my cousin?"

"Yes," said I.

"Do you think her like me?"

"I wish to Heaven she were!" I exclaimed fervently. "I shouldn't be swirling round in a sort of maelstrom."

She looked steadily at me – I like her downrightness.

"Do you mind telling me what you mean?"

"I am in love with the personality of one woman and the face of another. And I never shall fall out of love with the face."

"And the personality?"

"God knows," I groaned.

"I never conceived it possible for any man to fall in love with a face so hopelessly unattractive," she said with a smile.

"It is beautiful," I cried.

She looked at me queerly for a few seconds, during which I had the sensation of something odd, uncanny having happened. I was fascinated. I found myself saying: "What did you mean by the 'sweet irresponsibility of man'?"

She put out her hand abruptly and said good-bye. I watched her disappear swiftly round a near corner, and I went, my head buzzing with her, back to my hotel. In the evening I dined with Dr. Deane. I had no opportunity of seeing Valerie alone. In a whisper she begged forgiveness. I relented. Her beauty and charm would have mollified a cross rhinoceros. The love in her splendid eyes would have warmed a snow image. The pressure of her hand at parting brought back the old Valerie, and I knew I loved her desperately. But inwardly I groaned, because she had not the face of my dreams. I hated her beauty. As soon as the front door closed behind me, my head began to buzz again with the other Valerie.

I lay awake all night. The two Valeries wove themselves inextricably together in my hopes and longings. I worshipped a composite chimera. When the grey dawn stole through my bedroom window, the chimera vanished, but a grey dubiety dawned upon my soul. Day invested it with a ghastly light. I rose a shivering wreck and fled from Grandchester by the first train.

I have not been back to Grandchester. I am in Vienna, whither I returned as fast as the Orient Express could carry me. I go to bed praying that night will dispel my doubt. I wake every morning to my adamantine indecision. That I am consuming away with love for one of the two Valeries is the only certain fact in my uncertain existence. But which of the Valeries it is I cannot for the life of me decide.

If any woman (it is beyond the wit of man) could solve my problem and save me from a hopeless and lifelong celibacy she would earn my undying gratitude.