Poor child! she found truth very hard to define, and the criticism exercised by pure reason a very insufficient weapon. Moreover, like Job of old, she had friends and comforters to help in making life hideous. She wondered to-day, as she lay in her darkened room, whether any of them would come, and the thought was unpleasant.
She had just made up her mind to ring the bell and tell her maid that no one should be admitted, when the door opened after the least possible apology for a knock, and she realised that she had thought of the contingency too late.
"Dear Leonora!"
"Dearest Leonora!"
The room was so dark that the young ladies stood still at the door, as they fired off the first shots of their brimming affection. Leonora moved so as to see their dark figures against the light.
"Oh," she said, "is it you?"
She was not glad to see her dear friends, for her fits of philosophical despair were real while they lasted, and she hated to be disturbed in them. But as these two young women were her companions in the study of universal hollowness, she felt that she must bear with them. So, after a little hesitation she allowed them to let some light into the room, and they sat down and held her hands.
"We want to talk to you about Infinite Time!"
"And Infinite Space!"
"I am persuaded," said the first young lady, "that our ideas of Time are quite mistaken. This system of hours and minutes 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
