And now the Sentimentalist became, unconsciously to herself, the central
figure of a curious little drama, wherein three elderly gentlemen were
the active performers, with a mystic Shadow in the background,--the
shadow of a personality which, though considered as “Missing,”
nevertheless remained a vital part of the play. A dreary autumn and
still drearier winter had passed, and spring half-tearful, half-smiling
had begun to dress the trees in tiny rosette-buds of green,--some early
mating thrushes were piping their joyous love-notes among the growing
greenness of copse and hedge,--and with these signs of hope came rumours
of the speedy ending of the long and wicked war in a victory for England
and her Allies. “Too good to be true,” was the verdict of the pessimists
on these flying reports; but they had the effect of cheering depressed
people and awakening renewed heart for fresh effort. Old Dr. Maynard had
become wonderfully alert and vivacious of late,--his gout troubled him
less, and his famous “Deterioration of Language” was positively nearing
completion. Fewer wounded arrived at the V.A.D. Hospital where Sylvia
gave her services, and she had much more time on her hands than she
cared to have, owing to the fact that whenever he perceived her alone
and at leisure the Philosopher, like the fatuous hero of “The Children
of the Forest,” that ancient novel he despised, “pursued her” and seemed
to consider that whenever she had nothing else to do she was bound to
talk to him, or at least to allow _him_ to talk to _her_. And he
noticed, with a certain odd self-congratulation, that she avoided
him,--quite gently, but no less decisively. He thought he knew why, and
flattered himself singularly on what he imagined to be his discovery.
“She is just a little frightened,” he said to himself. “Quite
natural--quite proper! It’s much better that a woman should be timid
about a proposal of marriage than that she should hurl herself at it
like a bull in a china shop! I can’t say she is encouraging--she doesn’t
lead me on--in fact she rather puts me off! But that’s so like a
woman!--always doing the very reverse of what she wishes to do!”
So he argued, in the spirit of that profound masculine egotism which is
the heritage of every “lord of creation,” whether it be the rowdy of a
motor char-à-bancs, or the self-contained intellectual of University
honours and degrees. Every man grown to manhood is confident that he
understands women,--absolutely confident even when, among his peers, he
declares them to be incomprehensible. Of his power to please and subdue
them he never has a doubt. The fallacy is inherited from the days of
pre-historic savagery, and savagery is not by any means yet overcome by
civilisation.
One rather chilly evening, when despite the melodious assurances of a
thrush singing outside the window, one felt that a nip of winter had
returned to provoke the sweet temper of the spring, the Philosopher
found the Sentimentalist nestled in a chair by a sparkling fire in the
cosy drawing-room, peacefully working at a dainty strip of floral
embroidery. A branch of wild roses was visibly blossoming under the
swift manipulation of her little white fingers, and the glitter of her
tiny gold thimble flashed like the gleam of the sun on the growing
flowers. She made a pretty picture as she sat, the flames of the fire
now and again touching into more vivid colour the warm amber of her hair
and the pale blue of her dress,--she was always a pretty picture, but
somehow on this particular evening the Philosopher thought she made a
prettier one than usual. As he approached she looked up and smiled,--she
did not rise and go away as had been rather her habit of late. This was
an encouraging sign,--and yet, strange to say, the distinguished man of
letters became suddenly and uncomfortably conscious of “nerves.” With an
effort he mastered them, and selecting an easy chair which he had
frequently tried before and found satisfactory, he drew it and himself
up to the fire and stretched out his legs with a sigh of deep content.
“Heigh-ho!” and he turned the sigh into something of a yawn. “This is
very comfortable! There’s a detestable east wind whizzing round the
house--nothing like an east wind for prying into every corner--and it’s
much pleasanter inside than out. This room is the very abode of
comfort!--an ‘interior’ of perfect domestic bliss!”
The pretty smile deepened and dimpled round the kissable mouth of the
Sentimentalist but she said nothing. Her needle twinkled faster among
the wild roses she embroidered.
“Your father seems wonderfully better,” pursued the Philosopher,
thoughtfully. “He is much more mentally keen and observant. He takes
greater interest in things that are purely mundane.”
She looked up.
“I’m so glad!” she said. “Poor, dear Dad! He was really _too_ taken up
with ‘The Deterioration of Language’--don’t you think so? I mean, he
seemed to treat it _too_ seriously!--because, after all, it doesn’t very
much matter!”
“Doesn’t it?” The Philosopher gave her an amused, half-tolerant glance.
“Not perhaps in your opinion! But you are a woman--and young--and your
ideas are necessarily limited. You see nothing to deplore in the
breaking-down of fine forms of speech--which are really as necessary to
the _status_ of a people as fine forms of conduct and manner--”
She stopped her sewing and listened, needle in hand.
“Fine forms of conduct and manner,” he proceeded, with an academical
air. “The inroads of slang upon the splendid English used by our
forefathers are rather like the vulgar rush of noisy, half-tipsy folk
into a beautiful garden full of well-kept trees and flowers. Dr. Maynard
is quite right in his views.”
“Oh, yes, I am sure of that!” said Sylvia quickly and eagerly. “But do
you really think it is any use for him to teach, or try to teach people
these higher views of life and language when they all show so plainly
that they don’t want to learn?”
He bent his brows kindly upon her, with a smile.
“Well, if you come to that,” he answered. “Nothing is of any use!
Neither language nor literature! I’m sorry to state the fact, but fact
it is. Civilisation itself is no use. History will convince you of that.
What has become of Babylon, Nineveh, Thebes? They all had language and
literature doubtless,--no use! You see? If once you begin to question
the uses of any learning you run up against the blank wall of positive
negation!”
She looked up.
“Ah, that is only your way of looking at it!” she said. “It is your
philosophy!”
“It is every man’s philosophy if he is a philosopher at all,” he
replied. “Nothing can alter facts--facts which are proven and plain. A
bit of Egyptian papyrus scrawled with hieroglyphs speaks more eloquently
for ‘The Deterioration of Language’ than a thousand of our printed
volumes.”
She drew a quick little sigh.
“Oh, dear me!” she murmured. “It is all very sad! In your outlook on
life nothing seems good or commendable! What’s the good of living at
all!”
He turned towards her, his eyes twinkling with unusual pleasantness.
“Dear child, I often ask myself that question!” he said. “And as yet I
have found no answer. None of us _asked_ to be born! Had _I_ been
consulted I should certainly have declined the honour! But there are
certain compensations afforded us for the trouble of existence,--as I
told you once before, we are allowed to experience pleasurable
sensations which we call by pretty names--such as idealism, patriotism,
conscience, honour, friendship, and--and love. I suppose”--here he
hesitated--“I suppose love is really the most agreeable sensation of
all! You remember when you quoted some lines of Keats to me on one
occasion, you seemed to think so!”
“I think so still,” she replied, softly.
“I’m sure you do! You are unchanged in your sentiment--and for yourself
it is a pity! But you are a woman, and it cannot be helped! Women overdo
sentiment altogether--they _live_ on it! A mistake--and yet--”
He stopped abruptly.
She looked at him.
“And yet?” she suggested.
“And yet? Well, I was about to say I should not like a woman _without_
sentiment. For example,--if I had any sentiment for her, I should wish
her to have sentiment for _me_!”
She laughed softly.
“Why, of course! Naturally!”
He moved a little uneasily.
“Do you think it at all possible?”
“What?”
“For a woman to have sentiment for me?”
A pretty rose-flush coloured her cheeks.
“When you are your best self, yes! Certainly!” she said with a quick
frankness. “But when you are your worst self, no!”
He smiled,--he was amused.
“You can say that to every human being,” he averred. “I can say it to
_you_! When you are on level ground, sweetly normal, you are a most
engaging little lady--but when you are on your high horse--well, well!
But after all, you seldom take a very long prance on that tall
quadruped!”
Her blue eyes flashed,--but she made no reply.
“You object to any mention of the high horse?” he said, and his voice
had a kind tone that was almost irresistible. Turning her head towards
him she could not help smiling,--he had one of his attractive moods on,
and his features, always intellectual, were softened and made almost
good-looking by an expression of tender solicitude seldom seen upon
them.
“I object to nothing you wish to say,” she answered, gently.
“How charming of you! Ah!” and he sighed. “If that were always the
case--if it were only true!”
He broke off. His heart was not given to inordinate fluttering, but he
felt it distinctly fluttering just then. He waited a couple of minutes
to recover himself. She had resumed her swift sewing, and her little
gold thimble flashed to and fro like a tiny star. The logs in the bright
fire crackled and sparkled,--one of them falling into a brilliant flame.
He straightened himself in his chair, and, as it were, pulled himself
together.
“Returning to the subject of your father’s important work,” he said,
slowly, “I think it will soon be finished.”
“Really!” she exclaimed. “How glad I shall be!”
“Will you? Yes--I suppose you will! But--I shall be sorry!”
She paused in her sewing and looked at him kindly.
“It’s nice of you to say so,” she said. “For I’m sure you must have been
tired of it often! And tired of us, too! We must seem so monotonous to a
clever man like you!”
He considered this observation with a thoughtful air,--then smiled.
“No,” he averred, with an air of tolerance. “No. Strange to say, though
I find most things monotonous I have not found _you_ so!” Here he
laughed quite pleasantly. “Dear child, whatever your faults, sameness is
not one of them! You are as variable--as--as an English summer!”
Her eyes sparkled merrily.
“Thanks ever so much!” she said. “I should hate to be always in one
humour!”
“It would be dull--undoubtedly it would be dull!” admitted the
Philosopher. “Safe certainly--but dull! Unalterable good temper,--what?
It might be trying! After about a year of it, one might welcome a little
flash--just a _leetle_ flash of anger!”
He paused. She said nothing. Presently he resumed.
“Yes--you are very variable! Yet--at the same time you are equable. That
sounds very paradoxical, doesn’t it?”
“Perhaps it does!” she admitted.
“A paradox is that which though appearing to be contradictory is
nevertheless true,” he continued, amicably. “And according to that
definition I myself am a paradox.”
She laughed.
“Are you?”
“I think so! I am very generally misunderstood. Even _you_ misunderstand
me.”
She laid down her work and looked at him.
“Do I? Oh, I am very sorry!”
He gave a little nervous cough.
“Thank you! I do not suppose you can help yourself--all women judge by
appearances. I am not an Adonis--never was,--and I’m getting old--and I
confess to an irritability of temper occasionally--”
Her tenderly sympathetic nature sprang up at once to defend him against
his own indictment.
“Oh, but you are not often disagreeable!” she said, in the frankest
manner. “You can be perfectly charming if you like! When you first came
to stay with us and help Dad I thought you a perfectly delightful
man!--so brilliant and companionable!”
“Ah, those were in the early days!” he said, with a sigh. “The golden
days of first acquaintance! You were very kind to me then,--though we
had our little differences! But you didn’t mind helping me to light my
pipe,--do you remember?--and once we had a pleasant walk across the
fields. And you talked a great deal about love--”
“That was before the war!” she interposed.
“Before the war? Of course--certainly! Everything worth having was
_before_ the war,--love, hope, confidence--_before_ the war--the world
was better to live in _before_ the war. I grant you all that! We can, if
we feel disposed to be poetical, look back and see a happy garden of
Eden in England _before_ the war--but now the gates are closed and a
sword turns every way forbidding re-entrance!”
“Ah, you _do_ think that!” she said.
“Naturally I do. And naturally I must. It does not actually surprise me,
for war is a devastator of minds and morals. You thought me very harsh
and unsympathetic at the time war was declared--and I know you
considered me unpatriotic. Well, if it is unpatriotic to dislike the
idea of men being slaughtered like animals in a meat-packer’s factory
all for the pleasure of rival governments I _am_ unpatriotic, and glory
in the fact! I have no sentiment on these matters. The waving of a flag
does not excite me--I don’t think any man should fight for any other
man. Let each one manage his own business.”
She was silent.
“You don’t like my point of view?” he queried, after a pause.
“I think you have a great deal of right and sense on your side,” she
said, slowly. “But if nations did not fight for their existence where
would they be?”
“They would settle down,” said the Philosopher, complacently. “Believe
me they would settle down! It’s all a repetition of the Cain and Abel
story--one brother is jealous of the other and commits murder. Why
should such a precedent be maintained?”
“Why, indeed?” she murmured.
“We were all happy enough and contented enough before the war,” pursued
the Philosopher. “And we were immoral enough. If the war was intended to
punish us for our immorality, it has failed in effect, for we are much
more immoral now.”
She began to work again at her embroidery, keeping her eyes bent upon
it. The Philosopher did not pursue the theme he had started; in some
subtle way he was made aware that immorality was not a subject on which
to engage the attention of the Sentimentalist. There are very few men
who, in the presence of real purity and refinement expressed in a
woman’s personality, do not hesitate to bring forward topics which
however reasonable, are at the same time questionable in taste. With a
mannish, smoking woman the Philosopher would have swung into brilliant
diatribes concerning sex and its demands, but with this sweet, composed,
dainty little lady of sentiment, he was not sure of his ground,
especially in the immediate state of his own emotions. Emotions? Had he
any? It seemed so,--anyway he was beginning to feel as if he had.
“Yes,” he said, deliberately. “You were very kind to me before the war.
Before the war I scratched my hand among your rose-bushes, and you--you
kissed the place and made it well! You may forget that generous
action--”
“Oh, no!” she interrupted, laughingly. “I remember it! I would do it
again!”
He straightened himself in his chair with an abrupt movement.
“You would? You would do it again?”
“Of course I would! Why shouldn’t I? Especially if you were frightened,
and thought you were going to be blood-poisoned!”
He regarded her with a smile.
“I was _not_ frightened!” he said. “I did _not_ think I was going to be
blood-poisoned! I’m not such a fool! I only wanted you to be--to be--”
Her eyes sparkled a trifle mischievously.
“To be--to be--what?” she asked.
“Kind to me!”
“Well, and was I not kind?”
“You were! And I want you to be kind to me now!”
She looked at him half-timidly, half-warningly.
“And am I not so?”
“You are--you are!” and the erudite Walter Craig, F.S.A., became all at
once confused, and felt an extraordinary furnace-like heat flushing his
face. “But--but--but not quite kind enough! I want you to be kinder--I
want you to--to--”
She dropped her embroidery suddenly, and rising came over to him in the
prettiest way imaginable and knelt beside him like a child asking a
favour.
“I know--I know!” she said, softly and coaxingly. “But don’t say what
you want!--like a good, kind man, don’t say it!”
His eyes opened wide in amazement. He stooped towards her and took her
hand in his own.
“Don’t say it?” he echoed. “Why--why shouldn’t I say it?”
Her sweet face lightened with an expression of tenderness, regret and
sympathy all commingled.
“Because it’s so much better not to!” she declared. “You are such a
clever, clever man!--and I’m such a silly little woman!--but all the
same let us be friends! Oh, you know what I mean!”
Yes, he knew! And his heart gave a big “dunt” in his chest, of nervous
disappointment and chagrin, yet--with those frank blue eyes looking
trustfully into his own, he could but respond to their confidence. He
pressed the little hand he held more closely and smiled. As already
hinted, his smile was particularly attractive, and just now with a touch
of pathos in it was more so than ever.
“I think I do!” he replied. “But I don’t like ‘hedging.’ I’m a bit of a
coward in most things,--but when the worst comes to the worst or the
best to the best, I’d rather face the music than run away. I know what I
want; and _you_ know what I want. I want to marry you!”
There was a tense pause. She still knelt at his feet,--still looked
sweetly up into his face, but she said nothing.
“And,” he continued, steadily, “you don’t want to marry _me_! There!
It’s all out! Isn’t it?”
She smiled.
“Not quite!” she said. “I do know you want to marry me--and--when I
first knew you--I rather fancied--yes!--I thought I should like to marry
_you_!”
“You did?--you did?” he exclaimed, a wave of extraordinary youthfulness
sweeping over him.
She held up a small warning finger.
“Yes, I did!” she averred. “You seemed so clever--and so kind!
But--but--when the kindness was lost in the cleverness--then--then I
thought differently!”
He withdrew his hand from hers, and a shadow darkened his features.
“You see,” she went on, in gentle coaxing accents, “when you first came
here to help Dad, you were charming!--yes, perfectly charming! And I
took you for walks to all the pretty places about here, and we got on so
well together that I used to say to myself, what an honour it would be
if such a brilliant man were to care enough for me to marry me! Yes, I
really did! But when, little by little, you dropped the ‘company
manners’ as children say, and showed me another side altogether, I felt
then that you were _too_ brilliant!--_too_ clever to be always kind to a
silly little woman like myself whose ‘sentiment’ always outruns her
brains. And I--I think”--her voice sank softly--“that in marriage
kindliness is better than cleverness.”
He did not speak. She ventured to touch his hand in a caressing way as a
child might do.
“I like you very much still!” she said. “I don’t mind your sarcasm as
much as I did--and when you say rough things I try to forget them. But
if I were married to you I don’t think I _could_ forget them! They would
hurt! And when you _are_ sarcastic you can be very rude! Yes, indeed!
And I would not be able to stand that either! Because, as you have
often said, I ‘overdo the sentiment,’ and if I loved you, and you were
unkind, I should be utterly miserable! So what a fortunate thing it is
that I _don’t_ love you and _wouldn’t_ marry you for all the world!--and
that I just ‘like’ you, and admire you as a very, very clever man! For
so we can always be the best of friends!”
“Cold comfort, applied with sweet eloquence!” said the Philosopher,
rousing himself from his momentary abstraction. “I understand! And you
may be right! My experience of men and things has not mellowed my
disposition--I have grown a crust upon myself, and honestly, I enjoy my
own crustiness. But you, dear child!--if you only made more allowance
for this, you would find it is all on the surface, and _only_ on the
surface. Now you have been perfectly frank with me up to a certain
point,--why do you not declare at once honestly the real obstacle that
prevents your marrying me? Why?”
She was silent. Her head drooped, and he stroked her bright hair.
“Why?” he repeated, in a tone of bland argument. “I don’t think I should
make a bad husband, I should have my ‘moods’ undoubtedly--and I should
expect them to be humoured and tolerated. And you--you would most
certainly mount your ‘high horse’ occasionally, and I should permit you
to prance upon it like a child on rockers till you were tired. You would
soon be tired, and so should I! But I would take every care of you--I am
old enough to fill your father’s place should he be taken from you, and
I could give you a position in cultured society--not the society of
American millionaires, but the society of art and letters. And I would
promise not to be ‘rude’ or ‘sarcastic’ more than I could possibly
help--”
She rose from her pretty appealing attitude at his knee, and smiling,
shook her head at him regretfully.
“Ah, you would never be able to help it!” she said. “It is your nature!
I should have fallen in love with you if it hadn’t been!”
Goaded to retort by her tone, and more or less vexed at the airy
aloofness of her figure as she stood upright now and a little apart from
him, he said:
“If it hadn’t been? You mean if it hadn’t been--for Jack!”