“One thing I will say of you,” remarked the Philosopher,
condescendingly, “and that is--you are not a Nagger!”
He and she were walking together across a meadow full of buttercups and
daisies, and they had just been on the point of what the middle-classes
politely call “words.” He was not without temper--she was not without
spirit--hence the little breeze that had for the moment ruffled the calm
of their platonic friendship. Her “sentimentalism,” however, had saved
the situation. When she perceived that his irritability was fast
developing into downright bearishness, she had suddenly raised her eyes
and shown them full of tears.
“Don’t be cross,” she had murmured, cooingly--“it’s so ugly!”
Whereat the Philosopher’s set mouth had relaxed into a rather grieved
smile, and he had casually observed:
“You seem to have caught a cold. Your eyes are red!”
But to this she had made no answer,--and merely swallowing an
uncomfortable lump in her throat had walked on quietly, light-footed and
serene. And it was this swiftly attained composure of hers that had
moved him to the implied compliment he had just uttered: “You are not a
Nagger!”
She did not speak--so he went on.
“Of all detestable things in this world a Nagger is the worst!
Once--years ago--I knew one.”
She turned her head towards him.
“Man or woman?” she asked.
“Woman, of course! Foolish child! Did you ever hear of a male nagger?
The type is essentially feminine!”
She smiled, but was silent.
“This woman,” he continued, “was by way of being a domestic martyr. A
sort of self-created aureole of glory shone over her head--and one heard
the rustle of heavenly palm branches where’er she walked. ‘Pray don’t
mind me!’ she would observe, with mournful sweetness, at times when she
was most confoundedly in the way--‘I’m so accustomed to take a second,
even a _third_ place, that it really doesn’t matter!’ And if she and her
belongings had a little difference”--here he hesitated--“such as you and
I have been having--she would shed torrents of tears. ‘All my life,’ she
would wail, dismally, ‘I’ve done more than my duty to you! Money could
not buy such devotion as mine! And this is my reward!’ And on she would
go like a flowing stream, the victim to circumstances--the ‘buffer’ of
cruel mischance. Men fled from her as from the eye of Medusa, though she
was not bad-looking, and had managed to secure a husband.”
“What was her husband like?”
“Oh, he was quite a decent sort of chap--a hard-working, easy-going,
scientific man. She had her waves of sentiment, too,--they came rolling
over her in the most unexpected places. For example, one morning, having
nagged her husband till he put both hands to his head in an effort to
keep his trembling scalp in its place, she suddenly altered her tone and
asked him if she should bring him the ‘cure-all’ for his corns! There
now!--I thought you would laugh!”
She certainly did laugh; a pretty little laugh full of subdued
merriment.
“It’s much better to laugh than to cry,” said the Philosopher,
sententiously. “Men don’t understand women’s tears. They’re so--so wet
and uncomfortable! This Nagger I’m telling you of was always shedding
them--a regular water-barrel with the tap forever turned on.”
“How unfeeling you are!” she said, reproachfully. “Poor woman!”
“Poor woman! Poor man, you mean! Think of her husband!--working hard all
day and a great part of the night as well--and getting no sympathy in
his aims, no touch of interest in his work--nothing but stories of
domestic martyrdom nobly endured for duty’s sake, and copious weeping!
Now if you were married, you wouldn’t behave like that, would you?”
“No, I shouldn’t!” she replied. “But _we women_ are not _all_ alike,
though _you men_ generally think so!”
“Confound it all!” and the Philosopher, suddenly stopped short in his
walk, trying to rekindle his pipe. A soft wind played about the vesta he
had struck and puffed it out as though in fun. “Can’t get the cursed
thing to light anyhow!”
She came close up to him, and held a pair of little hands curved like a
couple of shells round the bowl of his briar, while he lit a fresh vesta
and made another essay,--this time successfully.
“Thanks!” he said, curtly. “You really can be very useful when you
like!”
She laughed and moved away, stepping quickly over the grass as though
bent on making distance between herself and him.
“Where are you going?” called the Philosopher, irritably. “Don’t skip
about like that! Can’t you be quiet for five minutes?”
She came back slowly and stood still, with a quaint air of mock
humility.
“You’re playing!” said the Philosopher, severely. “And I’m not always in
a playing mood.”
“No?”
The question slid through a little round O of a mouth that suggested
kisses. The Philosopher quickly averted his eyes.
“No!” he answered, with increased sternness. “I’m in a thinking mood
to-day.”
He walked on, and she walked with him; her soft linen gown made a little
“frou-frou” sound among the grasses that was pleasant and companionable.
Her footsteps were too light to be heard at all, and presently the
Philosopher, through two whiffs of his pipe, caught himself smiling.
“What a little goose it is!” he half murmured. “Dear little sentimental
goose!”
Here he coughed loudly--quite an ugly cough.
“Are you tired?” he demanded.
“Not at all!”
“You women generally get tired after half an hour’s walking,” he said.
“Would you like to sit on that stile and look at the scenery?”
“No, thanks! I would rather go on.”
The Philosopher’s face fell. The stile he had alluded to was quite a
tempting thing. It was situated under an ancient tree whose broad
branches spread out sheltering foliage on all sides, and it would have
been very agreeable to him to sit there and rest for a few minutes, even
with a “sentimental goose” for his companion. But this goose would
rather go on. And she did go on;--she was over the stile, too, before he
could so much as assist her, and he only caught a glimpse of a frilled
flounce and the point of a buckled shoe. This was really too bad!
“You’re in such a hurry this morning,” he grumbled. “And we’ve come out
for a sociable walk.”
“Oh, no, we haven’t!” she said. “Much more than that! You want to think,
you know!”
“Well, a man must think sometimes,” he observed.
“Indeed he must!” she agreed, emphatically. “Not only sometimes, but
always! Then he will know what he is doing!”
“_Then he will know what he is doing!_” echoed the Philosopher, grimly.
“That’s deep,--very deep! Quite beyond me! Are there ever any
occasions,--setting drink aside,--when he _doesn’t_ know what he is
doing?”
She gave him a fleeting glance.
“Oh, yes! Many!”
“Indeed! You are developing a very singular perspicuity! Could you name
one of those occasions?”
She laughed.
“Well! Let us say when he’s in love!”
“In love!” The Philosopher almost snorted contempt. “In love! You women
think of nothing but love! Do you know--have you ever realised--that
being ‘in love’ as you call it, is the least and most unimportant part
of a man’s career?”
She looked up at him.
“Is it?”
The Philosopher rather winced as she put the question. He was conscious
of a little quicker beating of the heart (which, of course, might be
attributed to indigestion)--and he studied the aspect of the sky
critically, in order to avoid her eyes.
“Well! Perhaps I need not go so far as that,” he remarked, mildly.
“No!” And her voice was very sweet and thrilling. “I don’t think you
should--if you are really a wise man--go so far as that!”
He drew his pipe slowly from his mouth--it was out again. He looked at
it forlornly, and put it in his pocket. He realised that they had
mutually crossed swords, and that she held him at the point of her
steel. But he rose to the occasion and slipped his arm coaxingly through
hers.
“Let us talk about the weather!” he said, cheerfully. “It’s a beautiful
day!”
“Lovely!” she answered.
“And you are not a Nagger?”
“I hope not!”
“You will not tell me you are a martyr to the cause of--”
“Philosophy?” she suggested.
He laughed good-humouredly.
“If you like! You will not say you have toiled years and years
ungrudgingly to make everybody happy, despite your own utter misery?
That you are a heroine,--an angel and what not? You will not cry and say
nobody cares for you--”
“No! I won’t say that!” she interrupted, with a mischievous smile.
“You won’t?”
“No! Because it wouldn’t be true!”
“It wouldn’t be true,--it wouldn’t--”
“No! Lots of people care for me--people you don’t even know! There’s
Jack--but you know _him_!”
“Always cropping up!” murmured the Philosopher.
“Then there’s Willie, and Claude, and Fred--and--”
“No women in the list? Are they _all_ men?”
“Well, I like men best,” she confessed.
The Philosopher emitted a curious sound between a grunt and a growl.
“Of course you do! Trust you! ‘’Twas John and Dick and Joe and Jack and
Humphrey with his flail!’ And I suppose you’re ‘Kitty, the charming
girl, to carry the milking pail’?”
She gave his arm a delighted little squeeze.
“Fancy you knowing that dear old song!” she exclaimed. “Oh! And you
_such_ a learned man! I should have thought it so much beneath you!”
He stroked down his moustache to hide a smile.
“Dear child!” he said, with mock-parental gravity. “I trust I am not yet
out of all sympathy with the colt-like gambols of the young and foolish!
I _may_ be bordering on the sere and yellow leaf, but I still look upon
the tender sprouting green of unformed minds with indulgence and
compassion!”
She tried to pull her arm away, but he held it firmly.
“Now, now!” he remonstrated. “Don’t hurt yourself. Whatever my faults
and failings are, my muscular strength is unquestionably superior to
yours!”
She looked at him appealingly.
“Oh, how can you talk as you do!” she said. “Such nonsense!”
“I suit myself to your temperament!” he said, with a grand air. “You are
full of infantile sentiment,--I try to meet it half way.”
“How good of you!” she said, and this time she succeeded in withdrawing
her arm from his hold. “Is the effort exhausting?”
“Very!” And the moustache drooped over a whimsical but rather attractive
smile.
She stood for a moment with her eyes downcast.
“Then why do you do it?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“Try to meet me half way?”
“I thought it might make it easier for you,” he said. “Don’t you see?
Easier for you to--”
“Rise to your height!” she suggested.
“Or sink to my level,” he answered, meekly--“whichever you prefer!”
“I would rather rise to your height,” she said. “A man is always
superior to a woman.”
“Oh, specious flattery!” exclaimed the Philosopher. “Are you not a
Suffragette?”
Her eyes flashed.
“I? A Suffragette? How dare you suggest such a thing!”
The Philosopher linked his arm in hers again without being repulsed.
“Thank Heaven for all its mercies!” he ejaculated, piously. “You are
neither a Suffragette nor a Nagger--you are--what are you?”
“Whatever you choose to call me,” she answered, laughingly.
“These things take time,” he said. “I will consider. You are--you
are--let me see--a woman! That is unfortunate.”
“You think so!” And her eyes were full of dancing merriment.
“Yes--I think so. Unfortunate for yourself, I mean. Not unfortunate for
_me_.”
“Oh! Not unfortunate for you?”
“Not exactly. Sometimes I feel it might perhaps have been better had you
been a man--there are occasions--”
He paused.
“My pipe is not quite smoked out,” he said, pathetically. “Would you put
your hand in my pocket--the one nearest to you--I don’t want to move my
arm--and give it to me?”
She obeyed.
He sighed.
“I must move my arm after all!” he said, drearily. “What a bore! You
don’t mind?”
“Mind? Certainly not!”
She stood apart from him while he went through the usual business of
rekindling his tobacco.
“A pipe,” he murmured, “is such a convenient thing! It fills in awkward
lapses of conversation--when--when one feels one can get no further.”
She smiled demurely, and walked slowly on.
“You see,” he said, moving easily beside her, “if you were a man it
would be different.”
“It would certainly!” she agreed.
“A man would not want any attention,” he said.
“Nor do I!” she said. “You give it without being asked for it.”
“Do I?” He appeared mildly surprised. “Now that’s curious,--v-e-r-y
curious!”
He seemed quite entranced in the contemplation of this novel phase of
his own conduct. He glanced at her sideways when she was not looking at
him.
“Delicious!” he murmured.
She turned her head quickly.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“I? Nothing!” He puffed at his pipe enjoyingly, then he went on after a
pause--“What I was _going_ to say is, that if you were a man you
wouldn’t mind my looking at the scenery instead of at you!”
She laughed outright.
“Oh, my good sir! _Do_ I mind?”
“You _must_ mind!” he said, argumentatively. “Being a woman you are
compelled to mind! No woman can forgive a man for looking at trees and
skies instead of looking at _her_. She feels she should be the centre of
his thoughts. She _is_ very often.”
“Is she?”
“There!” And the Philosopher sighed. “I _knew_ you would ask that
question! Yes,--if you _will_ have it, she is. But a centre implies a
surrounding--and if a woman _does_ happen to be the centre of a man’s
thoughts she should realise that she is only the pin’s point round which
the mightier forces of life revolve. Round which the mightier forces of
life revolve!” The Philosopher took the pipe out of his mouth in order
to let this sentence roll over his tongue like a luscious jujube or
chocolate cream. “_Do_ you understand?”
“Quite!” she replied.
He gave her an oblique glance in which there was something of fun
mingled with fire.
“Well, you are a very good girl!” he said, suddenly. “You may do what
you like now!” And he slipped his arm through hers again--“I have had a
slight attack of gout. I need a little support.”
She turned her face towards his, dimpling with smiles.
“Are you sure it’s gout?” she asked.
“Quite sure!” he answered, gravely. “It was the death of my father, and
my grandfather, and my great-grandfather. It will be the death of me.”
Her brows clouded. Then catching the humorous gleam in his eyes, she
laughed.
“I believe you’re joking!” she said. “You want to make me anxious.”
“_Would_ you be anxious?” he asked. “Not really?”
She was silent.
“If I had the gout,” he resumed; “if I were laid up with a burning toe,
would you be sorry?”
“Of course I should!” she answered, promptly. “I’m always sorry for a
man who is ill: he gets so easily frightened and bears it so badly.”
“_That_ all?” he exclaimed. “You would only feel sorry if I was
frightened! Not because I suffered? Well! You women beat everything!”
“Your fright would be worse than your suffering in any case!” she said,
firmly. “I know it would! If you were laid up with a burning big toe, as
you say, you would at once imagine that the trouble in the toe was bound
to fly to the head--then you would turn up some dreadful medical book
which would coldly inform you that gout in the head is always
fatal--then you would begin to tremble inwardly,--you would pass
sleepless nights thinking it out till you pictured your last end
in the blackest colours--you would almost see the undertaker
arriving--you would, as it were, witness your own procession to the
grave--and--and--and perhaps you might feel the grief of all your
friends--”
Here she turned her head, and the Philosopher heard a curious little
_tremolo_ sound--he would have almost sworn it was a suppressed sob if
he had not made up his mind that it was nothing but laughter. Stimulated
by sudden interest he put his hand under her chin and moved her head
gently round till the blue eyes looked straight into his own. A very
slight smile lifted the corners of his lips.
“You have really caught a bad cold!” he said, softly. “Your eyes are
quite wet!”
She lowered them promptly till he could only see glistening lashes on
flushed cheeks.
“Why,” he asked, almost coaxingly, “should you think me such an absurd
idiot as to be capable of imagining all those things about myself?”
She gave him a fleeting glance in which a smile danced like a sunbeam.
“Why? Because--because you are a Philosopher!” she answered. “Philosophy
is all very well in theory--but in practice--oh, the mockery of it!”
He still kept his hand under her chin.
“‘Adversity’s sweet milk, Philosophy!’” he quoted, musingly. “That’s
Shakespeare! Can you give me the lines which follow?”
She made no answer. He smiled again.
“Perhaps you haven’t a very good memory,” he said, patiently. “Now
listen:
‘Hang up Philosophy!
Unless Philosophy can make a Juliet!’ etc., etc.
That’s the kind of thing _you women_ like! The learning of the ages, the
equipoise of the mind, the balance and calm reasoning powers of the
brain, these all go for nothing--”
“In an attack of the gout?” she suggested.
He laughed and loosed his hold of her little white chin.
“Dry your eyes!” he said, masterfully. “I’m not dead yet! And in our
instructive walk of to-day I have discovered one thing,--that you would
be rather sorry if I were! _That’s_ curious! And not altogether
unpleasing! Now I wonder why--”
“And I wonder,” she interrupted, quickly, “whether you would be sorry
if--”
“Now, now! Take care!” he exclaimed. “There are certain subjects I will
not have mentioned--subjects which you women love to harp upon! I know
exactly what you are going to say. Would I be sorry if you were resolved
into your original exquisite atoms of matter? Yes--I should be sorry,
because there would be a blank--” Here he suddenly stopped in his walk
and looked up at the fair sky with its fleecy clouds lazily sailing
along the blue. “There would be a decided blank,” he repeated slowly,
“where there is just now a very great centre of interest--a subject for
study and--er--contemplation--and--er--considerable entertainment!”
Their glances met, but flashed away from each other instantly,--and they
continued their walk through the fields, leaving the buttercups and
daisies in a glistening trail of gold and silver behind them as they
passed.