I have heard it maintained that the man has yet to be born, who, in
his heart of hearts, if he comes to think the matter over, won't find
himself at something of a loss to conceive why any given woman should
experience the passion of love for any other man; that a woman's
choice, to all men save the chosen, is, by its very nature, as
incomprehensible as the postulates of Hegel. But, in Nina's case,
even when I regard it from this distance of time, I still feel, as we
all felt then, that the mystery was more than ordinarily obscure. We
had fancied ourselves prepared for anything; the only thing we weren't
prepared for was the thing that befell. We had expected 'him' to be
offensive, and he wasn't. He was, quite simply, insignificant. He was
a South American, a Brazilian, a member of the School of Mines: a
poor, undersized, pale, spiritless, apologetic creature, with rather a
Teutonic-looking name, Ernest Mayer. His father, or uncle, was
Minister of Agriculture, or Commerce, or something, in his native
land; and he himself was attached in some nominal capacity to the
Brazilian Legation, in the Rue de Téhéran, whence, on state occasions,
he enjoyed the privilege of enveloping his meagre little person in a
very gorgeous diplomatic uniform. He was beardless, with vague
features, timid, light-blue eyes, and a bluish, anæmic skin. In manner
he was nervous, tremulous, deprecatory--perpetually bowing, wriggling,
stepping back to let you pass, waving his hands, palms outward, as if
to protest against giving you trouble. And in speech--upon my word, I
don't think I ever heard him compromise himself by any more dangerous
assertion than that the weather was fine, or he wished you good-day.
For the most part he listened mutely, with a nickering, perfunctory
smile. From time to time, with an air of casting fear behind him and
dashing into the imminent, deadly breach, he would hazard an 'Ah,
oui,' or a 'Pas mal.' For the rest, he played the piano prettily
enough, wrote colourless, correct French verse, and was reputed to be
an industrious if not a brilliant student--what we called _un
sérieux_.
It was hard to believe that beautiful, sumptuous Nina Childe, with her
wit, her humour, her imagination, loved this neutral little fellow;
yet she made no secret of doing so. We tried to frame a theory that
would account for it. 'It's the maternal instinct,' suggested one.
'It's her chivalry,' said another; 'she's the sort of woman who could
never be very violently interested by a man of her own size. She would
need one she could look up to, or else one she could protect and pat
on the head.' '"God be thanked, the meanest of His creatures boasts
two soul-sides, one to face the world with, one to show a woman when
he loves her,"' quoted a third. 'Perhaps Coco'--we had nicknamed him
Coco--'has luminous qualities that we don't dream of, to which he
gives the rein when they're _à deux_.'
Anyhow, if we were mortified that she should have preferred such a one
to us, we were relieved to think that she hadn't fallen into the
clutches of a blackguard, as we had feared she would. That Coco was a
blackguard we never guessed. We made the best of him, because we had
to choose between doing that and seeing less of Nina: in time, I am
afraid--such is the influence of habit--we rather got to like him, as
one gets to like any innocuous, customary thing. And if we did not
like the situation--for none of us, whatever might have been our
practice, shared Nina's hereditary theories anent the sexual
conventions--we recognised that we couldn't alter it, and we shrugged
our shoulders resignedly, trusting it might be no worse.
And then, one day, she announced, 'Ernest and I are going to be
married.' And when we cried out why, she explained that--despite her
own conviction that marriage was a barbarous institution--she felt, in
the present state of public opinion, people owed legitimacy to their
children. So Ernest, who, according to both French and Brazilian law,
could not, at his age, marry without his parents' consent, was going
home to procure it. He would sail next week; he would be back before
three months. Ernest sailed from Lisbon; and the post, a day or two
after he was safe at sea, brought Nina a letter from him. It was a
wild, hysterical, remorseful letter, in which he called himself every
sort of name. He said his parents would never dream of letting him
marry her. They were Catholics, they were very devout, they had
prejudices, they had old-fashioned notions. Besides, he had been as
good as affianced to a lady of their election ever since he was born.
He was going home to marry his second cousin.