A PROBLEM.
Trist approached Mrs. Wylie with slow and almost timid steps, yet
there was nothing apologetic in his demeanour, for he was perfectly
self-possessed, and even reposeful, with that quiet assurance which
only comes with innate good-breeding.
In his two hands he carried a fine stout salmon with a sharp snout.
Its dark lips curled upwards with an evil twist, and even in death
its eyes were full of fight.
The lady dropped her book upon her lap, and looked up with a smile.
In her eyes there was a kindly and yet scrutinizing look which was
almost motherly in its discernment. This young man was evidently
more to her than the rest of his kind. She knew his impassive face
so well that she could read where others saw an unwritten page.
'Ah,' she said, with some interest (for she was a sportsman's wife),
'that is a good fish, Theo!'
'Yes,' he acquiesced in a soft and rather monotonous voice,
harmonizing with his eyes. 'He is a fine fellow. We had a desperate
fight!'
As if to prove the severity of the struggle, he looked down at his
knees, which were muddy, and then held out his right hand, which was
streaked with blood.
'Ah, how nasty!' exclaimed Mrs. Wylie pleasantly. 'Is it yours or
his?'
'Mine, I think. Yes, it must be mine.'
Brenda had approached slowly, and was standing close to him. She
stooped a little to examine the fish, which he held towards her with
his left hand, and even deigned to poke it critically on the shoulder
with her straight white finger.
'Are you hurt?' she inquired casually, without looking up.
A slow gleam of humour lighted up Trist's soft and melancholy eyes as
he looked down at her.
'He cannot answer for himself,' he said suggestively. 'But I think I
can volunteer the information that he is not hurt now. He died the
death of a plucky fish, and did not flinch.'
'I meant _you_.'
'I? Oh no, I am not hurt, thank you. Only very dirty, very
sanguinary, and quite happy.'
At this moment the steward, a dapper and noiseless man with no
appearance of a sailor, came up and took the fish from Trist's hands.
Mrs. Wylie returned to her book, and the two young people stood
silently in front of her. Presently they moved away as if with one
accord, farther aft, beside the wheel. Here Brenda seated herself
sideways with one arm round the white awning-stanchion.
She looked up, and, as he happened to be gazing gently down at her,
their eyes met. There was no instant withdrawal, no change of
expression. These two were evidently very old friends, because a
young man and a maiden rarely look into each other's eyes for any
appreciable space of time without some slight change of expression
supervening.
Theo Trist smiled at length, and looked away for a moment. Then he
glanced down at her face again.
'Well?' he said interrogatively. 'You are going to make one of those
deep remarks which would take away the breath of some people.'
She smiled, but did not turn away in maidenly reserve. Indeed, she
continued to watch his face, wonderingly and absently.
'What a peculiar man you are, Theo!'
He bowed politely, and slipping the ends of his fingers into either
trouser-pocket, he stood defiantly before her, with his unshod feet
set well apart.
'And you, Brenda ... I have never met anyone in any way like you.'
But she had no intention--this independent little person--of being
led away thus from the original question.
'Sometimes I almost dislike you ... and at other moments I admire
your character very much.'
She was quite grave, and looked up at him anxiously, as if the
character of some third person very near and dear to them both were
under discussion.
'When do you dislike me?' he asked in his monotonous, gentle way.
To this she made no answer for some moments, but sat looking
thoughtfully across the deep-bosomed water, which was now almost
glassy, for the breeze had dropped with the setting sun. She was
frowning slightly, and leant her chin upon her hand, which action
gave additional thoughtfulness to her well-read face. She might have
been solving some great problem. Indeed, she _was_ attempting to
find an explanation to the greatest problem we have to solve. This
foolish little maiden, with all her great and mistaken learning, her
small experience and deep, searching mind, was trying to explain
human nature. Not in its entirety, but one small insignificant
example taken from the whole. She was trying to reduce this man to
an orderly classification of motives, desires, and actions; and he
stood defying her to do so. She wanted to understand Theo Trist. In
faith, she did not ask for much! An educated and refined gentleman,
an experienced and time-hardened man. A philosopher without a creed.
A soldier without a sword. A soft heart that sought bloodshed.
Brenda had undertaken a very large task. She might have begun upon
the simplest, most open-hearted sailor-man in the forecastle, and yet
I am sure that she would have failed. With Theo Trist she could do
nothing. Does any one of us understand his brother, his sister, his
mother or his wife? Scarcely, I think. This only I know, that I
have never yet _quite_ understood any human being. There are
some--indeed, there are many--whom I have been pleased to consider as
an open book before my discerning gaze, but Time has changed all
that. He has proved that I knew remarkably little about the printed
matter in that open book.
Trist repeated his question:
'When do you dislike me, Brenda?'
Her reply was somewhat indirect.
'At times,' she said, without looking towards him, 'you attempt
wilfully to misrepresent yourself, and I cannot quite see why you
should wish to do so. You said just now that you were very
sanguinary and quite happy. You meant to convey a deeper meaning, I
know, because you glanced involuntarily towards me to see if I had
caught it. Now, why _should_ you pretend to be a hard-hearted, cruel
and cold-blooded man? That is what I do not understand.'
She shook her small head despairingly, and looked up at him with a
very shadowy smile. There was no question implied in the tone of her
voice. She showed clearly that she expected no answer. It was
merely her recital of a difficulty encountered in the study of a
problem. This problem was the character of the man standing before
her, the only man of her own age, and among her friends, to whose
intellect her own was content to bow. To him she talked of many
strange undiscussed matters, and together they had waded very deeply
into questions which were opened centuries ago, and are now no nearer
their solution. It was not that Theo Trist was a supernaturally
grave man, but Brenda felt instinctively that he would never laugh at
her. He was a good and careful listener; moreover, she had never yet
propounded a question, in her vague, half-wistful way, about which he
did not know something; upon which he could not put forward, in his
gentle and suggestive way, an opinion which was either the result of
his own thoughts or of those of other men.
'Everything is a matter of habit,' said the mild-eyed sportsman
vaguely.
He knew that she was not thinking about salmon-fishing and its
cruelty at all, but of the strange incongruity of his profession. He
was well aware that Brenda Gilholme, in her brave little heart,
disapproved of his calling. Of war and its horrors she rarely spoke,
for she felt that his existence was necessarily bound to such things.
It was a gift vouchsafed with a reckless disregard for incongruity
which could only be providential--this gift of a warlike pen. He
stood alone, far above his compeers, the one man who could write, in
French and English alike, of war; and while respecting his undoubted
intellect, she would fain have brought all the force of her will to
bear upon him and urge him from the exercise of it on the field of
battle. She was influenced by the strong horror of a refined and
gentle woman for all things akin to violence and bloodshed, and she
could not believe that in his heart of hearts the soft-eyed, quiet
man loved the sight of blood and the smoky grime of battle.
'Yes,' she answered. 'Endurance may be a matter of habit, but why
seek that which requires endurance?'
He attempted to keep the question within the bounds of a sporting
matter.
'Every living thing in creation is by the laws of creation expected
to prey upon some other living thing. By a merciful provision we men
cannot quite look at the question from the salmon's point of view.
It is a fight--an unfair fight, I admit--but still there is no wanton
cruelty in killing salmon.'
He ceased abruptly, and held up his arm, looking at it critically.
There was a deep scratch across the wrist from which the blood had
trickled in several rivulets and congealed upon the back of his slim
brown hand. Looking up, he saw that she was gazing at the wounded
limb, and with a slight apologetic smile he put it behind his back so
as to conceal it from her eyes.
'The actual sight of blood,' he continued, 'whether it be cold from
the salmon or warm from one's own veins, is a mere technical
unpleasantness which soon loses its horror ... for men.'
'I was not thinking of salmon-fishing.'
'Nor I,' he replied with cool audacity.
There was another long pause, during which neither moved. It was
noteworthy that Trist, who had been on his legs in rough water, and
over rocky country, since early morning, showed no sign of fatigue.
If he had so desired, it would have been easy enough for him to bring
forward one of the low chairs standing near the skylight, but he
appeared to prefer standing.
'But in losing that sense of horror,' asked Brenda presently, 'do not
men become brutalized?'
He shrugged his shoulders perceptibly.
'Do you think so?' he inquired significantly.
The question was cleverly thrown back upon her, but Brenda intended
to get her answer. She looked up with a passing smile, and made him
a little pout with her pretty lips.
'You are no criterion. You are different altogether. I was speaking
generally.'
'Speaking generally, I should still be of opinion that men are not
affected in any harmful way by seeing ... unpleasant sights.'
'From a sportsman's point of view only?'
'No.'
'From a war-correspondent's point of view?' she persisted.
'Yes.'
'And if anybody on earth should know,' she murmured half to herself,
'I think you should.'
He turned away a little, and then looked down in an absently
interested manner at the wet impression of his own waders on the
white deck.
'Yes,' he acquiesced with a little checked sigh; 'if anybody on earth
should know, I am the man.'
'I wonder why you do it, Theo?'
'Who knows? I suppose it is because I cannot help it. I am a
vulture, Brenda! The smell of ... of battle draws irresistibly.'
'It is a fault in your character,' she said judicially.
This he denied by a shake of his head.
'It is a fault in human nature.'
She said nothing, but expressed her desire to differ by an
incredulous look. Her knowledge of mankind was very limited, after
all, or she would never have doubted the truth of his assertion. She
did not know then (how should she so soon?) that men are naturally
cruel, that women are naturally crueller. In her innocence she
imagined that the majority of us are brave but gentle, strong but
forbearing, kind, chivalrous, unselfish. While speaking in
generalities she was making the common foolish mistake we make every
day. She fondly imagined that her thoughts were general, whereas
they were lamentably individual. Human nature--the broad
classification so glibly falling from her lips--was nothing more
important, nothing wider in its compass, than the two words Theo
Trist.
'You will admit,' he argued, 'that war is a necessary evil.'
'Yes.'
'Then, so am I. After my name I ought by rights to put the two
letters N.E.--Theo Trist, necessary evil.'
'But,' she said with unconscious flattery, 'you make it something
more than a necessary evil. You turn it into a glorious thing. You
teach that fighting is the noblest calling a man can take up. You
make men into soldiers against their will, and ... and you make women
long to be men that they might be soldiers.'
A strange look came into the gentle eyes that watched her then--a
look that was almost pain; but it vanished again instantly, and the
bland face was cold and impassive at once. She was so desperately in
earnest that there was a little thrilling catch in her voice. She
seemed to be half ashamed of her own sincerity, and did not raise her
eyes.
'I am afraid,' he said, after a short pause, 'that I consider
soldiering the finest life a man can lead.'
'And yet,' she answered with unerring memory, 'you once wrote that a
man is never quite the same again when he has once been under fire.'
Trist moved restlessly. Whenever she made mention of his work, that
dull restlessness seemed to come over him. The knowledge that his
writing had remained engraved upon her memory seemed to work some
subtle change in the man. It would only have been natural for him to
feel some pride in this fact whenever she betrayed it; but this was
not pride: it was nearer akin to pain or regret.
'Yes,' he admitted; 'but I did not insinuate that the change was one
for the worse. In many cases the effect is distinctly beneficial; in
a few it is brutalizing. In all it is saddening. A man who has seen
much war is hardly an acquisition in a drawing-room.'
He moved away a few paces, and leaning out beneath the awning, looked
towards the head of the fjord, where the river came bowling down the
valley past Nielsen's house.
'There is the Admiral,' he said, 'coming off in Nielsen's boat. I
wonder what sport he has had.'
Brenda also left her seat upon the rail and looked across the water.
In doing so she came nearer to her companion, and her dress touched
his wounded hand.
'Are you sure,' she said, as if reminded of his mishap, 'that you are
not hurt? Shall I sponge your hand? I am not afraid of ... of it.'
He laughed in a pleasant and heartless way.
'Oh no, thanks! I will wash it in the ordinary way. It is only a
scratch; I ought to have washed it before presenting myself to you.'
She looked at him speculatively, and made a little hopeless movement
with her shoulders.
'You are sometimes most aggravatingly independent.'
'Yes,' he answered, in a hard, practical way. 'Independence is a
necessity. If I have the gift of it, I cannot cultivate it too
assiduously. Without independence I should be nowhere.'
'And yet it can be carried to undue excess. A man should sometimes
pretend, I think, to be a trifle dependent upon others, and
especially upon women. It is the least he can do for them,
possessing, as he does, the advantage in existence. One could almost
tell from your little ways and habits of thought, Theo, that your
mother died long ago.'
'You mean that we should ask our women-folk to do little things for
us which we know quite well we could do better ourselves.'
'Yes.'
'And thus,' he suggested, 'satisfy their personal vanity.'
Brenda did not answer him at once. The question required
consideration.
'Yes,' she replied at length, 'and thus satisfy their personal
vanity. There is no object to be gained by concealing the fact that
our happiness in life is merely a question of satisfied vanity, from
the very beginning to the very end.'
'From a new pair of woollen boots to a long funeral procession of
empty carriages?' added Trist, with meek interrogation.
'Women do not as a rule go to their graves before a number of bored
coachmen and empty broughams.'
'Most of them would like to.'
'Yes; I am afraid you are right. But we seem to take it for granted
that men allow us a monopoly of vanity.'
'Oh no!' Trist hastened to correct; 'you only possess the monopoly of
one description. Yours is a thirsty vanity which knows no slaking;
ours is satisfied. Of the two, yours, mademoiselle, is less
objectionable. I suppose independence or self-dependence is my pet
vanity.'
'Yes, Theo, it is.'
'And yours?'
'I am all vanity.'
Trist laughed derisively--a laugh, however, which was inaudible
across the deck.
She turned and walked slowly forward to meet the Admiral, whose boat
was dropping alongside.
'Don't laugh,' she said, almost angrily; 'it is true.'
'Then,' he said gravely, 'I will endeavour to satisfy you by asking
you to sew on the very next button that comes off.'
For a moment she lost her gravity, and was a simple, sweetly
coquettish girl.
'And I will refuse flatly,' she observed saucily.