Ainslee's Magazine, February 1913 — page 36: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

26 live together in union of body, and to procreate children, which is the law of God and nature. Man added arrange- ment and endowment of property, and the church added spiritual sacrament. But God and nature invented the vital thing. If it were not so it would have been possible for the spiritually mind- ed, of which company you infer your- self to be, to live with .a woman on terms of brother and sister, and never let the senses speak at all. There would then have been no necessity for the ceremony of marriage for priests with your views.” Eustace Medlimott shook with pas- sion and emotion as he answered fu- riously: “You would turn the question into one of whether a priest should marry or not. It is a question which has agitated me all my life, and which I have only lately been able to come to a conclusion upon, I refuse to let you disturb me in it.” “T had not thought of doing so,” Count Roumovski returned tranquilly. “You and your views and your destiny do not interest me, | must own, except in so far as they interfere with myself and the woman I love. You have proved yourself to be just a warped atom of the great creation, incapable of anything but ignoble narrowness. You cannot even examine your own emo- tions honestly and probe their mean- ing, or you would realize no man should marry, be he priest or layman, if he looks upon the joys of physical love as base, and his succumbing to them a proof of the power of the beast in him- self. Because he then lives under con- tinual degradation of soul by acting against his conscience.” Mr. Medlicott was now silent, almost choking with perturbation. So Count Roumovski went on: “The wise man faces the facts of na- ture, looks straight to find God’s mean- ing in them, and then tries to exalt and ennoble them to their loftiest good. He does not, in his puny impotence, quar- rel with the all-powerful Creator and try to stamp out that with which He thought fit to endow human beings.” “Your words convey a flagrant denial AINSLEE’sS of original sin, and I cannot listen to such argument,” Mr. Medlicott flashed, his anger now at white heat. “You would do away with a whole principle of the Christian religion.” “No, I would only do away with a faulty interpretation which man grafted upon it,” Count Roumovski answered. Then the two men glared straight into each other’s eyes for a moment, and Eustace Medlicott quailed beneath the magnetic force of the Russian’s blue eyes; he turned away abruptly. He was too intolerant of character, and too disturbed now, to permit himself to hear more of these reasonings. He could but resort to protest, and let his wrath rise to assist him. “Tt cannot benefit either Miss Raw- son or ourselves to continue this un- seemly controversy over her,” he said, in a raucous voice. “I have told you I will give no freedom upon your re- quest, and I have warned you of my action. Now I shall go.” And he took three steps toward the door. But Count Roumovski’s next words arrested him a moment. His tone was no longer one of suave, detached calm- ness, but sharp and decisive, and his bearing was instinct with strength and determination. “Since we are coming to warnings,” he said, “we drop the velvet glove. The discourtesy to a lady conveyed in your words obliges me to use my own way without further consulting you for as- sisting her wishes. I will again thank you for coming up here, and will have the honor to wish you good night.” With which he opened the door politely and bowed his visitor out. And when he was alone Count Rou- movski sat down by the open window, and puffed his cigar meditatively for some minutes, smiling quietly to him- self as he mused: “Poor, stupid fellow! If people could only be honest enough with them- selves to have a sensible point of view! It is all so simple if they would get down to the reason of things without all this false sentiment. Of what use to chain the body of a woman to one man if her spirit is with another? Of COMMUC oOo) K< (C@