If only I might gleam and shine, if only I might palpitate with youth
and beauty and stand twixt sky and earth a thing of loveliness! But I
knew that no one would stand and stare if I stood where Grace Gilpin had
stood a moment before; they would only say: "There's a girl bathing--but
she'll find it pretty fresh."
Cheneston was speaking.
"Life isn't fair. One does a thing in pique or temper, or because one's
pride is hurt; one thinks the effects will only last a minute, and they
last for months and years--they are far-reaching, they involve other
people, till sometimes it seems one cannot light a match or perform the
most trivial office without involving other destinies and lives. Kid--I
never guessed, that night, that all this would happen."
"In a way we're sort of pawns," I said. "It isn't any good fussing, is
it? You'll be sent out with this battery for sure, and then things will
settle themselves--won't they? I ought to go home to mother and tell
her that father went off quite cheerily. She knows, because Mrs. Gilpin
went back to her."
I went home. It seems all singularly lacking in tenseness and emotion,
it seems common-place--it seems as if I had skipped the great moment and
hurried on with the "afterwards"; but there was no great moment, it was
all afterwards-ish.
Things went on the same as usual, Cheneston, Grace Gilpin, and I went
about together; she had a new man in place of Mr. Markham, a man called
Dickie Wontner. The only change I find is in myself.
Oh! I get so angry when people talk of the "peace of love"--there is no
peace in it. Maybe there is when you are married, I don't know and
probably I never shall; but love is revolutionary, it robs you of your
power of concentration--it may only be that you dust the same thing
twice, or you put things down and can't remember where you put them, or
you forget to take an interest in your friends and lose them without
knowing it; but the fact remains that you are only living with half of
yourself, the other and more vital half is continually padding round
after the beloved like a little invisible dog.
I love Cheneston. I write it honestly. It is almost the only thing in
my life I am proud of. Sometimes I feel that my love is compounded of
blue sky and sunshine, and everything that is big and honest and
glittering in nature.
He does not care one little scrap for me.
He loves Grace Gilpin.
I want them to be happy together, but I do not wish to sit in the front
pew at their wedding, or watch them fashion life together afterwards--I
want to run right away then, to the utter-most corner of the earth.
I don't believe the world is round; I believe that somewhere there are
little corners for lovers who are not loved, and there neither
moonshine, nor sunshine, nor star shine shall worry them, neither the
scent of flowers nor the dear, shrill, heart-plucking songs of birds;
there shall be no memory of the quivering, glowing _beauty_ and _wonder_
of life, which is not for them, but there shall be work--useful, honest
work--in which to find forgetfulness and fresh courage.