"VARIUM ET MUTABILE."
"You escaped us last night, Mrs Dudley," said one of her
acquaintances next morning.
"Yes. I wanted to watch the dancing; but the salon gets so warm in
the evening, I could not stand it. We went for a stroll instead."
"Neither of you gives us too much of your company, certainly. I am
anxious to hear your husband's opinion of a leader in this morning's
_Times_."
"Here he comes, then," said Mona, as Ralph appeared with a rug over
his arm. "Captain Bruce wants to speak to you, dear. You will know
where to find me by-and-bye."
She strolled on into the woods, and ensconced herself comfortably on
a gnarled old trunk, to wait for her husband. It was not many
minutes before he joined her.
"That's right!" he said, throwing himself on the grass at her feet,
with a long sigh of content. "How you spoil one, dear, for other
people's conversation!"
"I have not had a very alarming competitor this morning," she said,
smiling.
"No; but if he had been an archangel, it would have made little
difference. Go on, lady mine, talk to me--talk to me 'at lairge.' I
want to hear your views about everything. Is not it delightful that
we know each other so little?"
Mona laughed softly and then grew very grave.
"I hope you will say twenty years hence, 'How delightful it is that
we know each other so well!'"
"I will say it now with all my heart! But it is very interesting to
live when every little event of life, every picture one sees, every
book one reads, has all the excitement of a lottery, till I hear your
opinion of it."
Mona passed her hand through his hair. "Then I hope you will still
say twenty years hence, 'How delightful it is that we know each other
so little!'"
"I think there is little doubt of that. My conception of you is like
a Gothic cathedral: its very beauty lies in the fact that one is
always adding to it, but it is never finished. Or, shall I say of
you what Kuenen says of Christianity?--'She is the most mutable of
all things; that is her special glory.'"
"_Varium et mutabile_ in fact! It is a pretty compliment, but I seem
to have heard it before."
"_Varium et mutabile semper femina,_" he repeated, smiling.
"A higher compliment was never paid to your sex. _Varium et
mutabile_--like the sea! I never know whom I shall find when I meet
you,--the high-souled philosopher, the earnest student, the brilliant
woman of the world, the tender mother-soul, the frivolous girl, or
the lovable child. I don't know which of them charms me most. And
when I want something more than any of those, before I have time to
call her, there she is,--my wife, 'strong and tender and true as
steel.'"
Mona did not answer. Her turn would come another time. They knew
each other too well to barter compliments like goods and coin across
a counter.
"I thought you were going to talk to me," he said presently. "Let us
talk about the things that can never be put into words. Imagine I am
Gretchen, sitting at your feet. '_Glaubat du an Gott?_'"
Mona smiled down on the upturned face.
"If Gretchen asked me, I hope the Good Spirit would give me words.
If my husband asked me----"
"He does. '_Glaubst du an Gott?_'"
Mona did not answer at once. She looked round at the silent eloquent
world of olive-trees, with their grand writhing Laocoon-like stems,
and their constant, ever-varying crown of leaves--those trees that
seem to have watched the whole history of man, and that sum up in
themselves all the mystery of his life, from the love of pleasure in
the midst of pain, to the worship of sorrow in a world of beauty----
"Ralph," she said, "when you ask me I cannot tell; but I worship Him
every moment of my life!"
She smiled. "You have surprised me out of my creed, and you see it
is not a creed at all."
"Be thankful for that! It seems to me that the intensest moment in
the life of a belief is when it is just on the eve of crystallising
into a creed. Don't hurry it."
"No, I am content to wait. When I go to church, I always feel
inclined to invert the words of the prayer, and say, 'Granting us in
this world life everlasting, and, in the world to come, knowledge of
Thy truth.'"