Colonel Wimpole looked positively old that evening when he went down to
dinner with his sister and Sylvia. His face was drawn and weary and the
lids hung a little, in small wrinkles; but down in his grey eyes there
was a far-off gleam of danger-light.
Sylvia looked down when she met him, and she was very silent and grave
at first. At dinner she sat between him and Miss Wimpole, and for some
time she scarcely dared to glance at him. He, on his part, was too much
preoccupied to speak much, and she thought he was displeased.
Nevertheless, he was more than usually thoughtful for her. She
understood by the way he sat, and even by the half-unconscious shrinking
of the elbow next to her, that he was sorry for her. At table, seated
close together, there is a whole language in one's neighbour's elbow and
an unlimited power of expression in its way of avoiding collisions. Very
perceptive people understand that. Primarily, in savage life, the bold
man turns his elbows out, while the timid one presses them to his sides,
as though not to give offence with them. Society teaches us to put on
some little airs of timidity as a substitute for the modesty that few
feel, and we accordingly draw in our elbows when we are near any one.
It is ridiculous enough, but there are a hundred ways of doing it, a
hundred degrees of readiness, unwillingness, pride, or consideration for
others, as well as sympathy for their troubles or in their successes,
all of which are perfectly natural to refined people, and almost
entirely unconscious. The movement of a man's jaws at dinner shows much
of his real character, but the movement of his elbows shows with fair
accuracy the degree of refinement in which he has been brought up.
Sylvia was sure that the colonel was sorry for her, and the certainty
irritated her, for she hated to be pitied, and most of all for having
done something foolish. She glanced at Wimpole's tired face, just when
he was looking a little away from her, and she was startled by the
change in his features since the early afternoon. It needed no very keen
perception to see that he was in profound anxiety of some kind, and she
knew of nothing which could have disturbed him deeply but her own
conduct.
Under the vivid light of the public dining table, he looked old. That
was undeniable, and it was really the first time that Sylvia had
definitely connected the idea of age with him. Just beyond him sat a
man in the early prime of strength, one of those magnificent specimens
of humanity such as one sees occasionally in travelling but whom one
very rarely knows in acquaintance. He could not have been more than
twenty-eight years old, straight in his seat, broad-shouldered, with
thick, close, golden hair and splendid golden beard, white forehead and
sunburned cheeks, broad, well-modelled brows and faultless nose, and
altogether manly in spite of his beauty. As he leaned forward a little,
his fresh young face appeared beside the colonel's tired profile, in
vivid contrast.
For the first time, Sylvia realized the meaning of Wimpole's words,
spoken that afternoon. He might almost have been her grandfather, and
he was in reality of precisely the same age as her father. Sylvia
looked down again and reflected that she must have made a mistake with
herself. Youth can sometimes close its eyes to grey hair, but it can
never associate the idea of love with old age, when clearly brought to
its perceptions.
For at least five minutes the world seemed utterly hollow to Sylvia, as
she sat there. She did not even wonder why she had thought the colonel
young until then. The sudden dropping out of her first great illusion
left a void as big and as hollow as itself.
She turned her head, and looked once more, and there, again, was the
glorious, unseamed youth of the stranger, almost dazzling her and making
the poor colonel look more than ever old, with his pale, furrowed cheeks
and wrinkled eyelids. She thought a moment, and then she was sure that
she could never like such a terribly handsome young man; and at the same
instant, for the first time in her life, she felt that natural, foolish,
human pity which only extreme youth feels for old age, and she wondered
why she had not always felt it, for it seemed quite natural, and was
altogether in accordance with the rest of her feelings for the colonel,
with her reverence for his perfect character, her admiration for his
past deeds, her attachment to his quiet, protective, wise, and
all-gentle manliness. That was her view of his qualities, and she had
to admit that though he had them all, he was what she called old. She
had taken for love what was only a combination of reverence and
attachment and admiration. She realized her mistake in a flash, and it
seemed to her that the core had withered in the fruit of the universe.
Just then the colonel turned to her, holding his glass in his hand.
"We must not forget that it is your birthday, my dear," he said, and his
natural smile came back. "Rachel," he added, speaking to his sister
across the young girl, "let us drink Sylvia's health on her eighteenth
birthday."
Miss Wimpole usually took a little thin Moselle with the cold water she
drank. She solemnly raised the glass, and inclined her head as she
looked first at Sylvia and then at the colonel.
"Thank you," said Sylvia, rather meekly.
Then they all relapsed into silence. The people at the big table talked
fast, in low tones, and the clattering of dishes and plates and knives
and forks went on steadily and untunefully all around. Sylvia felt
lonely in the unindividual atmosphere of the Swiss hotel. She hated the
terribly handsome young man, with a mortal hatred, because he made the
colonel look old. She could not help seeing him whenever she turned
towards Wimpole. At last she spoke softly, looking down at her plate.
"Uncle Richard," she said, to call his attention.
He was not really her uncle, and she almost always called him 'colonel,'
half playfully, and because she had hated the suggestion of age that is
conveyed by the word 'uncle.' Wimpole turned to her quietly.
"Yes, my dear," he said. "What is it?"
"I suppose I was very foolish to-day, wasn't I?" asked Sylvia, very low
indeed, and a bright blush played upon her pretty face.
The colonel was a courteous man, and was also very fond of her.
"A woman need never be wise when she is lovely," he said in his rather
old-fashioned way, and he smiled affectionately at the young girl. "It
is quite enough if she is good."
But she did not smile. On the contrary, her face became very grave.
"I am in earnest," she said, and she waited a moment before saying more.
"I was very foolish," she continued, thoughtfully. "I did not
understand--or I did not realize--I don't know. You have been so much
to me all my life, and there is nobody like you, of course. It seemed
to me--I mean, it seems to me--that is very much like really caring for
some one, isn't it? You know what I mean. I can't express it."
"You mean that it is a good deal like love, I suppose," answered the
colonel, speaking gravely now. "Yes, I suppose that love is better when
people believe each other to be angels. But it is not that sort of
thing which makes love what it is."
"What is it, then?" Sylvia was glad to ask any question that helped to
break through the awkwardness and embarrassment she felt towards him.
"There are a great many kinds of love," he said; "but I think there is
only one kind worth having. It is the kind that begins when one is
young, and lasts all one's life."
"Is that all?" asked Sylvia, innocently, and in a disappointed tone.
"All!" The colonel laughed softly, and a momentary light of happiness
came into his face, for that all was all he had ever had. "Is not that
enough, my dear?" he asked. "To love one woman or man with all one's
heart for thirty or forty years? Never to be disappointed? Never to
feel that one has made a mistake? Never to fear that love may grow old
because one grows old oneself? Is not that enough?"
"Ah, yes! That would be, indeed. But you did not say all those other
things at first."
"They are just what make a life-long love," answered the colonel. "But
then," he added, "there are a great many degrees, far below that. I am
sure I have seen people quite really in love with each other for a
week."
Sylvia suddenly looked almost angry as she glanced at him.
"That sort of thing ought not to be called love at all!" she answered
energetically. "It is nothing but a miserable flirtation,--a miserable,
wretched, unworthy flirtation."
"I quite agree with you," said Wimpole, smiling at her vehemence.
"Why do you laugh?" she asked, almost offended by his look. His smile
disappeared instantly.
"You hit the world very hard, my dear," he answered.
"I hate the world!" cried Sylvia.
She was just eighteen. Wimpole knew that she felt an innocent and
instinctive repulsion for what the world meant to him, and for all the
great, sinful unknown. He disliked it himself, with the steady, subdued
dislike which is hatred in such natures as his, both because it was
contrary to his character, and for Sylvia's sake, who must surely one
day know something of it. So he did not laugh at her sweeping
declaration. She hated the world before knowing it, but he hated it in
full knowledge. That was a bond of sympathy like any other. To each of
us the world means both what we know, and what we suspect, both what we
see and the completion of it in the unseen, both the outward lives of
our companions which we can judge, and their inward motives, which we
dimly guess.
But on this evening Sylvia felt that the world was particularly odious,
for she had suffered a first humiliation in her own eyes. She thought
that she had lowered herself in the colonel's estimation, and she had
discovered that she had made a great mistake with herself about him.
"I hate the world!" she repeated, in a lower tone, almost to herself,
and her eyes gleamed with young anger, while her delicate, curving lips
just showed her small white teeth.
Wimpole watched her face.
"That is no reason for hating yourself," he said gently.
She started and turned her eyes to him. Then she blushed and looked
away.
"You must not guess my thoughts," she answered. "It is not kind."
"I did not mean to. I am sorry."
"Oh--you could not help it, of course. I was so foolish to-day."
The blush deepened, and she said nothing more. The colonel returned to
his own secret trouble, and on Sylvia's other side Miss Wimpole was
silently planning a charitable institution of unusual severity, while
she peeled an orange with the most scrupulous neatness and precision.