You see, I knew nothing of the difficulty between Hugh and Lamoir. All I
knew was that two dear friends of mine had parted from each other nine
years before. Lamoir was looking towards the sea, she was smiling. Then
she shook her head suddenly. Her hair was quite grey, and short, and
curly--you can see how attractive Lamoir was, an autumnal flower.
“Oh, no!” she said. “_I’m_ not proud, not a bit. And I don’t like proud
people.”
“I do!” I said.
She said gravely: “_You_ do, of course. But you are young, and it’s
quite right that you should like proud people and should try to be proud
yourself, though I should think your sense of humour would bother you a
little while you were trying. I think young people should be proud,
because if they are not they will put up with makeshifts and get dirty;
but elderly people and old people should not be proud, because it
prevents them from understanding anything.”
“But elderly people,” I said, “don’t they get dirty too, if they’re not
proud?”
She laughed at me, and all she said was: “I was talking about nice
elderly people.” And there the conversation ended, just nowhere. I think
it very silly in a man to go generalising about women, but if I were to
start generalising I might say that most abstract conversations between
men end nowhere, but you have a feeling that at least something
interesting has passed, while with a woman an abstract conversation ends
nowhere and you have a feeling that she has only been talking about
whatever it was just out of politeness.
I remember that what struck me most about Lamoir at that time was how
happy she was, happy and feeling safe in her happiness. That puzzled me
then, for I knew she loved Hugh.