Remembering Flora de Barral in the depths of moral misery, and Roderick
Anthony carried away by a gust of tempestuous tenderness, I asked myself,
Is it all forgotten already? What could they have found to estrange them
from each other with this rapidity and this thoroughness so far from all
temptations, in the peace of the sea and in an isolation so complete that
if it had not been the jealous devotion of the sentimental Franklin
stimulating the attention of Powell, there would have been no record, no
evidence of it at all.
I must confess at once that it was Flora de Barral whom I suspected. In
this world as at present organized women are the suspected half of the
population. There are good reasons for that. These reasons are so
discoverable with a little reflection that it is not worth my while to
set them out for you. I will only mention this: that the part falling to
women's share being all "influence" has an air of occult and mysterious
action, something not altogether trustworthy like all natural forces
which, for us, work in the dark because of our imperfect comprehension.
If women were not a force of nature, blind in its strength and capricious
in its power, they would not be mistrusted. As it is one can't help it.
You will say that this force having been in the person of Flora de Barral
captured by Anthony . . . Why yes. He had dealt with her masterfully.
But man has captured electricity too. It lights him on his way, it warms
his home, it will even cook his dinner for him--very much like a woman.
But what sort of conquest would you call it? He knows nothing of it. He
has got to be mighty careful what he is about with his captive. And the
greater the demand he makes on it in the exultation of his pride the more
likely it is to turn on him and burn him to a cinder . . . "
"A far-fetched enough parallel," I observed coldly to Marlow. He had
returned to the arm-chair in the shadow of the bookcase. "But accepting
the meaning you have in your mind it reduces itself to the knowledge of
how to use it. And if you mean that this ravenous Anthony--"
"Ravenous is good," interrupted Marlow. "He was a-hungering and
a-thirsting for femininity to enter his life in a way no mere feminist
could have the slightest conception of. I reckon that this accounts for
much of Fyne's disgust with him. Good little Fyne. You have no idea
what infernal mischief he had worked during his call at the hotel. But
then who could have suspected Anthony of being a heroic creature. There
are several kinds of heroism and one of them at least is idiotic. It is
the one which wears the aspect of sublime delicacy. It is apparently the
one of which the son of the delicate poet was capable.