It must be by the light of a great confidence in himself that a man
rejoices in fatalism. As I walked along the cliffs that morning to
meet Clarissa, the beating of my heart was high. For that one hour I
had believed in Fate, in the imperishable reason in all things. But as
I saw her pass round the distant corner and vanish out of sight, the
whole order of the world was plunged in chaos. I began to ask myself
what freak of circumstance had sent me out upon such an errand of folly.
By the very movement of her body, the very temper of her step, as I
watched her walking back to Ballysheen, I knew that I had awakened in
her a living despot of determination.
Women are like that. Nothing will alter them. It proves to me
conclusively how little I know of their nature when I brought reason
and a spirit of logic along with me to urge Clarissa to the sacrifice
of her romance. For it is not with women that they are unreasonable.
To be reasonable, one must know what reason is. Now I would swear
that, as a sex, they do not know the first meaning of the word. Their
intelligence is of another, perhaps a higher, order altogether. Reason,
with a woman, only aggravates her to determination. Intuition, on the
other hand, with a man, aggravates him to obstinacy. That is why I
think--and maybe I am wrong--that the order of a woman's intelligence
is higher than that of a man's. Determination is the better part of
obstinacy.
Now I had aggravated Clarissa to determination. In those few moments of
her anger she had left all her timidity, all her childlikeness, behind
her. So far from increasing the doubt of him, which I know must have
been already in her mind, I had in one simple movement--the relation
of my story--swept it utterly away. She believed in and loved him then
more wholly and completely than she had ever done before, and, as I
thought it all out, point by point, along the rigid line of logic, I
came to the conclusion that God and my mother had not qualified me for
so deft and delicate a business as the meddling with a woman's heart.
"Dandy," said I, presently, "we'd better get back to lunch. We've made
hopeless fools of ourselves. Even God, who made woman, knows how to
treat them no better than we. Or why did He send that man into her
life? It's not losing a woman to see no more of her. We should not have
lost, we should have won her, if she'd gone back to Dominica. But we've
lost her utterly now. Unless--unless--" the hope of it leapt suddenly
into my mind--"unless he never marries her."
It was one of those things too great and generous in circumstance to
count upon. No sooner did it enter my thoughts, than back came the
picture of Clarissa--a child by her bedside upon her knees--praying God
that she would never see me again; at which, when I had contemplated it
for a moment, I rose quickly to my feet.
"Dandy," I said again, "we'd better get back to London." Therefore,
taking the tone of my voice, he fell behind disconsolately to my heels
and, in silence, we walked back to Ballysheen. Only once did I look
round at him. It was when a rabbit scurried across the path in front of
us. Then I turned my head.
"Did you see him?" said I.
He stood still and stared up into my face.
"I did," said he, "but I didn't want to."
I know that feeling so well. I was quite aware I had to go back to
lunch. God knows I did not want to.