Chapter XIV: Jealousy

O, my lord, beware of jealousy.
It is a green-eyed monster that doth mock
The food it eats on.
_Othello_.

A bright smile from Blanche welcomed Cecil, as he passed from the dining-room to the drawing-room, and walked up to the piano at which she was sitting. He thought he had never seen her look so lovely; perhaps the remembrance of his having contemplated giving her up made him more sensible of her charms.

He took up her portfolio of loose music, and began turning over the sheets, as if seeking some particular song. She came to help him, and as she bent over the portfolio he whispered gently,--

"Can you contrive to slip away unobserved, and meet me in the shrubbery? I have something of the deepest importance to communicate."

She trembled, but it was with delight, as she whispered, "Yes."

"Plead fatigue, and retire after tea."

He then moved away, and approaching Violet asked her if she remembered the name of a certain Neapolitan canzonette, which her sister Blanche had sung the other night; and on receiving a negative sat down by her side, and entered into conversation with her.

All the rest of the evening he sat by Violet, only occasionally addressing indifferent questions to Blanche. Captain Heath seeing this, and noticing a strange agitation in Blanche's manner, which she in vain endeavoured to disguise, interpreted it according to his wishes, and sat down to a rubber at whist with great internal satisfaction.

"I have been thinking, Mr. Chamberlayne," said Meredith Vyner, shuffling the cards, "that even differences of pronunciation may assist your theory. Thus we English--a modest race--express our doubt by _scepticism_, deriving it from σκέψιϛ, deliberation. But the Scotch--a hard dogmatic race--pronounce it _skeepticism_, hereby deriving it from σκηψιϛ, intimating that a man _leans upon_ his own opinion, and that his dissent from others is not a deliberation, but a walking-stick, wherewith he trudges onwards to the truth."

"Mr. Chamberlayne," said Mrs. Meredith Vyner, "are we not to have some music from you this evening? Come, one of your charming Spanish songs."

"By the way," said Vyner, while Cecil tuned his guitar, "talking of Spanish songs reminds me of a passage I met in a Spanish play this morning, in which the author says,

Sin zelos amor
Es estar sin alma el cuerpo.

What say you to that, ladies? It means that love without jealousy is a body without soul. _Immane quantum discrepat_!"

"Love has nothing whatever to do with jealousy," said Violet; "and so far from jealousy being the soul of love, I should say it was only the contemptible part of our nature that feels jealousy, and only the highest part of our nature that feels love."

"No one will agree with you, my dear Violet," said Mrs. Langley Turner. "Sir Harry, it is your deal."

"Perhaps not," said Violet.

"I should vewy much like to hear Miss Violet's pwoof of her wemark. I have always wead that jealousy is insepewable fwom love; though, I confess, I never expewienced jealousy myself."

"Nor love either--eh?" said Rose.

"That is sevewe, Miss Wose! Do you pwetend that I never felt that sensation which evewy man has felt?"

"If you mean love," replied Rose, "I say, that if you have felt it, I imagine it has only been just the _beginning_."

"Twue, twue!"

"And like the charity of other people, your love has begun at home!"

"Miss Wose, Miss Wose!" said Tom Wincot, shaking his finger at the laughing girl.

"So that, if you _have_ ever been jealous," she continued, "you must have an exaggerated susceptibility."

"And why an exaggewated susceptibility?"

"Because jealous of a person no other earthly being would think of disputing with you--your own!"

This sally produced a hearty laugh, and Tom Wincot, turning to Violet, said,--

"I'm afwaid of your sister Wose's wepawtees, so shall not pwolong the discussion; but pway explain your pwevious weflection on jealousy."

"I mean," said Violet, "that jealousy has its source in egotism; love, on the contrary, has its source in sympathy: hence it is that the manifestations of the one are always contemptible, of the other always noble and beautiful."

"And I," said Maxwell, his dark face lighting up with a savage expression, "think that jealousy is the most natural instinctive feeling we possess. The man or woman who is not jealous, does not know what it is to love."

"That is a mere assertion, Mr. Maxwell: can you prove it?'

"Prove it! easily. What is jealousy but a fear of losing what we hold most dearly? Look at a dog over a bone; if you approach him he will growl, though you may have no intention of taking away his bone: your presence is enough to excite his fear and anger. If you attempt to snatch it, though in play, then he will bite."

"You are speaking of _dogs_," said Violet, haughtily, "I spoke of _men_."

"The feeling is the same in both," retorted Maxwell.

"Yes, when men resemble dogs.--I spoke of men who possessed the higher qualities."

"Curiously enough," observed Vyner, "the Spaniards, whose jealousy is proverbial, and whose great poet, Calderon, has expressed himself in the almost diabolical manner just mentioned, these Spaniards have no word which properly means jealousy. _Zelos_ is only the plural of _zelo_--zeal."

"I do not think, papa, you are quite correct," said Violet, "when you say the Spaniards are more jealous than other nations."

"They have the character, my dear."

"I am quite aware of it. But what one nation says of another is seldom accurate. If I understand jealousy, it is the sort of passion which would be _felt_ quite as readily by northerns as by southerns, though it would not be expressed in so vehement a manner; but because one man uses a knife, when another man uses a court of law, that does not make a difference in the sentiments."

"I agree with Violet," said Captain Heath, "it seems to me that jealousy is a mean and debasing passion, whatever may be the cause which excites it. To suspect the woman whom you love and who loves you, is so degrading both to her and to you, that a man who suspects, without overwhelming evidence, must be strangely deficient in nobility of soul; and suppose the evidence complete--suppose that she loves another, even then a noble soul arms itself with fortitude, and instead of wailing like a querulous child, accepts with courage the fate which no peevishness can avert. The love that is gone cannot be recalled by jealousy. A man should say with Othello,--

I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;
And on the doubt there is no more but this--
Away at once with love and jealousy."

He looked for Blanche as he concluded this speech, but she had already retired to her room.

Cecil sang, but soon left off; and pleading "heartburn," caught at the advice of Tom Wincot, who assured him that a stwong cigar was the best wemedy for it, and strolled out into the grounds to smoke.