'No. I suppose you wouldn't, as you're not in love.'
I then remarked that, though I could understand her not being in love
with a man my uncle's age, it was my belief that she had never in her
life been in love. Not even with Siegfried. Not with anybody.
Dolly said she hadn't, and that she liked people much too much to want
to grab at them.
'Grab at them!'
'That's what your being in love does,' said Dolly. 'It grabs.'
'But you've been grabbed yourself, and you liked it. Uncle Rudolph is
certainly bent on grabbing you.'
'Yes. But the man gets over it quicker. He grabs and has done with it,
and then settles down to the real things,--affection and kindness. A
woman hasn't ever done with it. She can't let go. And the poor thing,
because she what you call loves, is so dreadfully vulnerable, and gets
so hurt, so hurt--'
Dolly began kissing me and stroking my hair.
'I think though,' I said, while she was doing this, 'I'd rather have
loved thoroughly--you can call it grabbing if you like, I don't care
what ugly words you use--and been vulnerable and got hurt, than never
once have felt--than just be a sort of amiable amoeba--'
'Has it occurred to you,' interrupted Dolly, continuing to kiss me--her
cheek was against mine, and she was stroking my hair very
tenderly--'that if I marry that dear little uncle of yours I shall be
your aunt?'
_October 13th._
Well, then, if Dolly is ready to marry my uncle and my uncle is dying to
marry Dolly, all that remains to be done is to remove Mrs. Barnes for an
hour from the hall. An hour would be long enough, I think, to include
everything,--five minutes for the proposal, fifteen for presenting
Siegfried, thirty-five for explaining Juchs, and five for the final
happy mutual acceptances.
This very morning I must somehow manage to get Mrs. Barnes away. How it
is to be done I can't think; especially for so long as an hour. Yet
Juchs and Siegfried couldn't be rendered intelligible, I feel, in less
than fifty minutes between them. Yes; it will have to be an hour.
I have tried over and over again the last few days to lure Mrs. Barnes
out of the hall, but it has been useless. Is it possible that I shall
have to do something unpleasant to myself, hurt myself, hurt something
that takes time to bandage? The idea is repugnant to me; still, things
can't go on like this.
I asked Dolly last night if I hadn't better draw Mrs. Barnes's attention
to my uncle's lovelorn condition, for obviously the marriage would be a
solution of all her difficulties and could give her nothing but
extraordinary relief and joy; but Dolly wouldn't let me. She said that
it would only agonise poor Kitty to become aware that my uncle was in
love, for she would be quite certain that the moment he heard about
Juchs horror would take the place of love. How could a dean of the
Church of England, Kitty would say, bring himself to take as wife one
who had previously been married to an item in the forbidden list of the
Tables of Affinity? And Juchs being German would only, she would feel,
make it so much more awful. Besides, said Dolly, smiling and shaking her
head, my uncle mightn't propose at all. He might change again. I myself
had been astonished, she reminded me, at the sudden violent change he
had already undergone from unction to very nearly swearing; he might
easily under-go another back again, and then what a pity to have
disturbed the small amount of peace of mind poor Kitty had.
'She hasn't any, ever,' I said; impatiently, I'm afraid.
'Not very much,' admitted Dolly with wistful penitence. 'And it has all
been my fault.'
But what I was thinking was that Kitty never has any peace of mind
because she hasn't any mind to have peace in.