"I shall never shake it off," said Francesca. It was six o'clock and she
had just come in from having tea with some friends.
"Shake what off?" I said.
"My Cimmerian gloom," she said. "Haven't you noticed it?"
"No," I said, "I can't say I have. Perhaps if you stood with your back
to the light--yes, there's just a _soupçon_ of it now, but nothing that
I could honestly call Cimmerian."
"Of course you'd be sure to say that. I can never get you to believe in
my headaches, and now you won't notice my Cimmerian gloom."
"Francesca," I said, "I do not like to hear you speak lightly of your
headaches. To me they are sacred institutions, and I should never dare
to tamper with them. Don't I always walk on tiptoe and speak in a
whisper when you have a headache? You know I do, even when you don't
happen to be in the room. If your gloom is the same sort of thing as
your headache----"
"It's much worse."
"If it's only as bad I'm prepared to give it a most respectful welcome.
But what is it all about?"
"It's about the War."
"God bless my soul, you don't say so. You're generally so cheerful about
it and so hopeful about our winning. What _has_ happened to give you the
hump? We've blown up any amount of mines and occupied the craters, and
we've driven down several German aeroplanes."
"Yes, I know," she said, "I admit all that; but I've just met Mrs.
Rowley."
"And a very cheery little party she is, too."
"That," said Francesca, "is just it."
"What's just what?" I said.
"Don't be so flippant."
"And don't you be so cryptic. What's Mrs. Rowley's cheerfulness done to
you?"
"I'll tell you how it happened," she said. "We met; 'twas at a tea, and
first of all we talked about committees."
"Committees!" I said. "How glorious! Are there many?"
"Yes," she said. "There's the old Relief Committee, and the Belgian
Committee, and the Soldiers' Comforts' Committee, and the Hospital
Visitors' Committee, and the Children's Meals' Committee, and the
Entertainments' Committee and the----"
"Enough," I said. "I will take the rest for granted. But isn't there a
danger that with all these committees----?"
"I know," she said; "you're going to say something about overlapping."
"Your insight," I said, "is wonderful. How did you know?"
"I've noticed," she said, "that when men form committees they always
declare that there sha'n't be any overlapping, and then, according to
their own account, they get to work and all overlap like mad. Now we
women don't worry about overlapping. Most of us don't know what it
means--I don't myself--but we appoint presidents and treasurers and
secretaries, and then we go ahead and do things. If we were only left to
ourselves we should never call a meeting of any committee after we'd
once started it. It's the men who insist on committees meeting."
"Yes, and on keeping them from breaking their rules."
"What's the use of having committees if you can't break their silly old
rules?"
"Amiable anarchist," I said, "let us abandon committees and return to
Mrs. Rowley."
"Well," she said, "we soon got on to the War."
"You might easily do that," I said. "The subject has its importance.
What does Mrs. Rowley think of it?"
"Mrs. Rowley thinks it's all perfectly splendid. She hasn't the least
doubt about anything. She knows the uncle of a man whose cousin is in
the War Office and often sees Lord KITCHENER in the corridors, and he's
quite certain----"
"Who? Lord KITCHENER?"
"No, the uncle of the man whose cousin--he's quite certain the War will
be over in our favour before next June, because there'll be a revolution
in Potsdam and thousands of Germans are being killed in bread-riots
every day, and lots of stuff of that sort."
"I understand," I said. "You began to react against it."
"Something of that kind. She was so terribly serene and so dreadfully
over-confident that I got contradictious and had to argue with
her--simply couldn't restrain myself--and then she said she was sorry I
was such a pessimist, and I said I wasn't, and here I am."
"Yes," I said, "you are, and in a state of Cimmerian gloom, naturally
enough. But you've come to the right place--no, by Jove, now that I
think of it you've come to the wrong place, the very wrongest place in
the world."
"How's that?"
"Because I met old Captain Burstall out walking, and he was miserable
about everything. According to him we haven't got a dog's chance
anywhere. The Government's rotten, the Army's rotten, the Navy's worse
and the British Empire's going to be smashed up before Easter."
"Captain Burstall's the man for my money. If I'd only met him I should
have been as cheerful as a lark."
"And that," I said, "is exactly what I am, entirely owing to a natural
spirit of contradiction. I just pulled myself together and countered him
on every point."
"I daresay you did it very well," she said; "but if you're as
cock-a-hoop as you make out I don't see how I'm ever to get rid of my
depression. I shall be starting to contradict _you_ next."
"Which," I said, "will be an entirely novel experience for both of us.
But I'll tell you a better way; let's keep silent for ten minutes and
simmer back to our usual condition of reasonable hopefulness."
"I can't promise silence," she said, "but I'll back myself against the
world as a simmerer."