IV

Naturally, the fact that various idle people chose to use my name in

their gossip in no sense disturbed my peace of mind. Neither had I any

particular occasion to regret it, for Mrs. Oldcastle's sake, since I

fancy that independent and high-spirited little lady took a

mischievous pleasure in spurring the rather sluggish imaginations of

those about her. I found a hint of this in her demeanour occasionally,

and could imagine her saying, as she mentally addressed her

fellow-passengers:

'There! Here's a choice crumb for you, you silly chatterers!'

With some such thought, I am assured, she occasionally took my arm

when we chanced to pace the deck late in the evening. At least, I

noted that such actions on her part came frequently when we happened

to pass a group of lady passengers in the full glare of an electric

lamp, and rarely when we were unobserved.

There is doubtless a certain forceful magic about the combined

influences of propinquity and sea air, as these are enjoyed by the

idle passengers upon a great ocean liner. They do, I think, tend to

advance intimacy and accelerate the various stages of intercourse

leading thereto, and therefrom, as nothing else does; more

particularly as affecting the relations between men and women. Whilst

unlike myself (as in most other respects) in that her social instincts

were I am sure well developed, it happened that Mrs. Oldcastle did not

feel much more drawn toward the majority of her fellow-passengers than

I did. By a more remarkable coincidence, it chanced that she had read

and been interested by several of my books. From such a starting-point,

then, it followed almost inevitably that we walked the decks

together, and sat and talked together a great deal; these being the

normal daily occupations of people so situated, if not indeed the only

available occupations for those not given over to such delights as

deck quoits.

I am very sure that Mrs. Oldcastle was never what is called a flirt,

and I believe the general tone of our conversations was sufficiently

rational. Yet I will not deny that there were times--on the balcony of

the Galle Face Hotel in Colombo, and on the _Oronta's_ promenade deck

by moonlight--when my attitude towards this charming lady was

definitely tinged by sentiment. Withal, I doubt if any raw boy could

have been more shy, in some respects, than I; for I was most

sensitively conscious during this time of the fact that I was a very

unsocial, middle-aged man, of indifferent health, and, for that

reason, unattractive appearance. Whereas, Mrs. Oldcastle had all the

charms of the best type of 'the woman of thirty,' including the

evident enjoyment of that sort of health which is the only real

preservative of youth. Being by habit a lonely and self-conscious

creature, I had even more than the average Englishman's horror of

making myself ridiculous.

We were off the coast of south-western Australia when I sat down in my

cabin one morning for the purpose of seriously reviewing my position,

with special reference to recent conversations with Mrs. Oldcastle.

Certain things I laid down as premises which could not be questioned;

as, for example, that I found this gracious little lady (Mrs.

Oldcastle was petite and softly rounded in figure; I am tall and

inclined in these days to a stooping, scraggy kind of gauntness) a

most delightful companion, admirably well-informed, vivacious, and

unusually gifted in the matter of deductive powers and the sense of

humour. Also, that (whatever the ship's chatterboxes might say) there

had been nothing in the faintest degree compromising in our relations

so far.

From such premises I began to argue with myself upon the question of

marriage. It is not very easy to get these things down in black and

white. I was perfectly sure that Mrs. Oldcastle was heartwhole. And

yet, absurdly presumptuous as it must look when I write it, I was

equally sure that it would be possible for me to woo and win her. It

may seem odd, but this charming woman did really enjoy my society. She

liked talking with me. She found my understanding of her ready and

sympathetic, and--what doubtless appealed to both of us--she found

that talk with me had a rather stimulating effect upon her; that it

drew out, in combating my point of view, the best of her excellent

qualities. Using large words for lesser things, she laughingly

asserted that I inspired her; and she added that I was the only person

she knew who never bored or wearied her. Yes, no matter how awkward

the written words may look, I know I was convinced that, if I should

set myself to do it, I could woo and win this charming woman, whose

first name, by the way, I did not then know.

I did not know Mrs. Oldcastle's precise circumstances, of course, but

there were many ways in which I gathered that she was rather rich than

poor. A young Australian among the passengers volunteered to me the

information that this lady had been the sole legatee of her late

husband, who had owned stations in South Australia and in Queensland

certainly worth some hundreds of thousands of pounds. Few men could be

less attracted than myself by a prospect of controlling a large

fortune or extensive properties. But, as against that, whilst marriage

with any one possessed of no means would have been mere folly for me,

the possession of ample means would remove the most obvious barriers

between myself and matrimony.

It was passing strange, I thought, that a woman at once so charming

and so rich should be travelling alone, and, so far from being

surrounded by a court of admirers, content to make such a man as

myself almost her sole companion. Mrs. Oldcastle had a mind at once

nimble and delicate, sensitive, and quite remarkably quick to seize

impressions, and to arrive at (mostly accurate) conclusions. She had a

vein of gentle satire, of kindly and withal truly humorous irony, most

rare I think in women, and quite delightful in a companion. I learned

that her father (now dead) had been the secretary of one of the

learned societies in London, and a writer of no mean reputation on

archaeology and kindred subjects. Her surviving relatives were few in

number, of small means, and resident, I gathered, in the west of

England. I had told her a good deal about my London life, and of the

circumstances and plans leading up to my present journey. Her comment

was:

'I think I understand perfectly, I am sure I sympathise heartily, and--I

give you one more year than your friend, Mr. Heron, allowed. I

prophesy that you will return to London within two years.'

'But, just why?' I asked. 'For what reasons will my attempted "way

out" prove no more than a way back?'

'Well, I am not sure that I can explain that. No, I don't think I can.

It may prove a good deal more than that, and yet take you back to

London within a couple of years. Though I cannot explain, I am sure.

It is not only that you have been a sedentary man all these years. You

have also been a thinker. You think intellectual society is of no

moment to you. Well, you are very tired, you see. Also, bear this in

mind: in the Old World, even for a man who lives alone on a mountain-top,

there is more of intellectuality--in the very atmosphere, in the

buildings and roads, the hedges and the ditches--than the best cities

of the New World have to offer. I suppose it is a matter of tradition

and association. The endeavours of the New World are material; a

proportion at least of the Old World's efforts are abstract and ideal.

You will see. I give you two years, or nearly. And I don't think for a

moment it will be wasted time.'

Sometimes our talk was far more suggestive of the intercourse between

two men, fellow-workers even, than that of a man and a woman. Never, I

think, was it very suggestive of what it really was: conversation

between a middle-aged, and, upon the whole, broken man, and a woman

young, beautiful, wealthy, and unattached. Love, in the passionate,

youthful sense, was not for me, of course, and never again could be. I

think I was free from illusions on that point. But I believed I might

be a tolerable companion for such a woman as Mrs. Oldcastle, and I

felt that her companionship would be a thing very delightful to me.

After all, she had presumably had her love affair, and was now a fully

matured woman. Why then should I not definitely lay aside my plans--which

even unconventional Sidney Heron thought fantastic--and ask this

altogether charming woman to be my wife? Though I could never play the

passionate lover, my aesthetic sense was far from unconscious or

unappreciative of all her purely womanly charm, her grace and beauty

of person, as apart from her delightful mental qualities.

I mused over the question through an entire morning, and when the

luncheon bugle sounded had arrived at no definite conclusion regarding

it.

That afternoon it happened that, as I sat chatting with Mrs.

Oldcastle---we were now in full view of the Australian coast, a rather

monotonous though moving picture which was occupying the attention of

most passengers--our conversation turned upon the age question; how

youth was ended in the twentieth year for some people, whilst with

others it was prolonged into the thirtieth and even the fortieth year;

and, in the case of others again, seemed to last all their lives long.

Mrs. Oldcastle had a friend in London who had placidly adopted middle

age in her twenty-fifth year; and we agreed that a white-haired,

rubicund gentleman of fully sixty years, then engaged in winning a

quoits tournament before our eyes, seemed possessed of the gift of

unending youth.

'You know, I really feel quite strongly on the point,' said Mrs.

Oldcastle. 'My friend, Betty Millen, has positively made herself a

frump at five-and-twenty. We practically quarrelled over it. I don't

think people have any right to do that sort of thing. It is not fair

to their friends. Seriously, I do regard it as an actual duty for

every one to cherish and preserve her youth.'

'And _his_ youth, too?' I asked.

'Certainly, I think there is even less excuse for men who go out half-way

to meet middle-age. That sort of middle-age really is a kind of

slow dying. Age is a sort of gradual, piecemeal death, after all. It

can be fended off, and ought to be. Men have more active and

interesting lives than women, as a rule; and so have the less excuse

for allowing age to creep upon them.'

'But surely, in a general way, the poor fellows cannot help it?'

'Oh, I don't agree. I have known men old enough to be my father, so

far as years go, who were splendidly youthful. The older a man is,

within limits of course, the more interesting he should be, and is,

unless he has weakly allowed age to benumb him before his time. Then

he becomes merely depressing, a kind of drag and lowering influence

upon his friends; and, too, a horridly ageing influence upon them.'