They dined in Soho, and when they had finished their meal, they walked
to Oxford Circus and once more climbed to the top of a 'bus that would
take them along the Bayswater Road.
"You must like me, Eleanor," he said to her, as they sat huddled
together on the back seat, "or you wouldn't come out with me as you
do!"
"Yes," she answered, "I think I do like you. It seems odd that I should
like you, and I made up my mind that I shouldn't ever like you. But I
do. You're very likeable, really. It's because you're so silly, I
suppose. And so persistent!"
"Then why can't we get married, my dear? Isn't it sickening for you to
be living in that club and me to be living at Brixton, when we might be
living in our own home? I hate this beastly separation every night.
Let's get married, Eleanor!"
"I suppose we will in the end," she said, "but I don't feel like
getting married to you. After all, John!..." She called him by his
Christian name now. "After all, John, if I were to marry you now, when
we know so little of each other, it would be very poor fun for me, if
you discovered after we were married that you did not care for me as
much as you imagined. And suppose I never fell in love with you?"
"Yes," he said gloomily.
"How awful!"
"But I'd have you. I'd have the comfort of being your husband and of
having you for my wife!"
"It mightn't be a comfort. Oh, no, it's too risky, John. We must wait.
We must know more of each other!..."
"Will you get engaged to me then?" he suggested.
"But that's a promise. No. Let's just go on as we are now, being
friends and meeting sometimes!"
"Supposing we were engaged without anybody knowing about it?" he said.
"Would that do?"
"I don't want either of us to be bound ... not yet. Oh, not yet. Do be
sensible, John!"
"I am sensible. I know that I want to marry you. That's sensible, isn't
it?"
"Yes, I suppose it is," she replied, laughing.
"Well, isn't it sensible to want to be sensible as soon as possible?
You needn't laugh. I mean it. It's just foolishness to be going on like
this. I'm as sensible as anybody, and I can't see any sense in our not
marrying at once. Get engaged to me for a while anyway!"
"But what would be the good of that?"
"All the good in the world. I just want the comfort of knowing there's
a chance of you marrying me!"
"It seems so unsatisfactory to me ... and so risky!" she protested.
"I'm willing to take the risk. I'll wait as long as you like."
"I'll think about it. But if I do get engaged to you, we won't get
married for a long time!"
"How long?"
"Oh, a long time. A very long time."
"What do you mean? Six months?"
"No, years. Oh, five years, perhaps!"
"My God Almighty!" he said. "Do you know what you're saying! Five
years? We might all be dead and buried long before then. What age will
I be in five years time. Oh, wheesht with you, Eleanor, and don't be
talking such balderdash. Five years! Holy O!"
"What does 'Holy O!' mean?" she demanded.
"I don't know. It's just a thing to say when you can't think of
anything else. Five years! Five minutes is more like it!"
"We're too young to be married yet, and in five years' time we'll know
each other much better!"
"I should think so, too," he said. "It's a lifetime, woman! Whatever
put that idea into your head!"
"If I get engaged to you at all," she replied, "and I'm not sure that I
will, it'll be for five years or not at all. You may be willing to take
risks, but I'm not. Risks are all right for men ... they can afford to
take them ... but women can't. If you don't agree to that, you'll have
to give up the idea altogether!"
"Then you'll get engaged to me?"
"No, I didn't say that. I said that if I got engaged to you at all, it
would be for five years. I'm not sure that I shall get engaged to you.
I don't think I really like you. I think I'd just get tired of saying
'No' to you!..." She could see that his face had become glum, and she
hurriedly reassured him. "Yes, I do like you! I like you quite well ...
but I'm not going to marry you ... if I ever marry you ... till I'm
sure about you!"
They descended from the 'bus and walked towards her club.
"Anyway," he said, "I consider myself engaged to you. And I'll buy you
a ring the morrow morning!"
"Indeed, you won't," she said.
"Indeed, I will," he replied. "I'll have it handy for the time you
agree to have me!"
"You won't be able to get one until you know the size, and I won't tell
you that!..."
They wrangled on the doorstep until it was late, but she would not
yield to him. He could consider himself engaged to her if he liked ...
she could not prevent him from considering anything he chose to
consider ... but she would not consider herself engaged to him nor
would she wear a ring until she was sure of her feelings.
He kissed her when they parted, and she did not resist him. It was
useless to try to resist an accomplished thing. His childlike
insistence both attracted and irritated her. She felt drawn to him
because his mind seemed to be so completely centred upon her, and
repelled by him because his own wishes appeared to be the only
considerations he had. She could not decide whether the love he had for
her ... and she believed that he loved her ... was complete devotion or
complete selfishness. Love at first sight was a perfectly credible,
though unusual thing. It was possible that he had fallen in love with
her ... her vanity was pleased by the thought that he had done so ...
but she certainly had not fallen in love with him either at first or at
second sight. She was not in love with him now. She felt certain of
that. He was likeable and kind and a very comforting person, and there
was much more pleasure to be had from a walk with him than from an
evening spent in the club!... Ugh, that club, that dreadful
conglomeration of isolated women! Oh, oh, oh! She gave little shudders
as she reflected on her club-mates. Most of them were girls like
herself, working as secretaries either in offices or in other places
... to medical men or writers ... and, like her, they had few friends
in London. Their homes were in the country. Among them were a number of
aimless spinsters, subsisting sparely on private means ... poor,
wilting women without occupation or interest. They were of an earlier
generation than Eleanor, the generation which was too genteel to work
for its living, and they had survived their friends and their families
and were left high and dry, without any obvious excuse for existing,
among young women who were profoundly contemptuous of a woman who could
not earn a living for herself. They sat about in the drawing-room and
sizzled! They knew exactly at what hour this girl came in on Monday
night, and at exactly what hour the other girl came in on Tuesday
night. They whispered things to each other! They thought it was very
peculiar behaviour for a girl to come back to the club alone with a man
at twelve o'clock ... "midnight, my dear!" they would say, as if
"midnight" had a more terrible sound than twelve o'clock ... and they
were certain that Miss Dilldall's parents should be informed of the
fact that on Saturday evening she went off in a taxi-cab with a man who
was wearing dress-clothes and a gibus-hat. Miss Dilldall publicly
boasted of the fact that she had smoked a cigarette in a restaurant in
Soho!...
Ugh! Even if John were selfish, he was preferable to these drab women,
these pitiful females herded together. Women in the mass were very
displeasing to look at, and they frightened you. They turned down the
corners of their mouths and looked coldly and condemningly at you. It
was extraordinary how unanimous the girls were in their dislike of
working under women. The woman in authority was more hateful to women
even than to men. Eleanor had done some work for an advanced woman, an
eminent suffragette, who had crept about the house in rubber-soled
shoes so that she might come unexpectedly into the room where Eleanor
was working and assure herself that she was getting value for her
money!... She was always spying and sneaking round! What an experience
that had been! How impossible it had been to work with that woman! A
girl in the club had worked for a royal princess ... not at all an
advanced woman ... and she, too, had had to seek for employment under a
man. The princess was a foolish, spoilt, utterly incompetent person who
did not know her own mind for two consecutive hours. She sneaked
around, too, and spied!... All these women in authority seemed to spend
half their day peering through keyholes.... Perhaps it was because the
club was such a dingy, cheerless hole that she liked to go out with
John. The food was meagre and poor in quality and vilely cooked.
Somehow, women living together seemed unable to feed themselves
decently. Miss Dilldall, gay little woman of the world, had solemnly
proposed that a man should be hired to _growse_ about the meals.
"We'll never get good food in this damned compound," she said, "until
we get some men into it. Bringing them as guests isn't any good.
They're too polite to their hostesses to say anything, but I'm sure
that every man who has a meal in this place goes away convinced that
the food we are content to eat is a strong argument against votes for
women! And so it is. What a hole!"
"That's really why I like going out with him," Eleanor confided to her
reflection in the looking-glass as she brushed her hair. "It's really
to escape from this dreary club! But I can't marry him for that reason.
It wouldn't be fair to him. It would be much less fair to me. Of
course, I _like_ him!... Oh, no! No, no!..."