EVEN COLONEL MORLEY, (KNOWING EVERYBODY AND EVERYTHING), IS PUZZLED
WHEN IT COMES TO THE PLAIN QUESTION--“WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?”
“I am delighted with Vance,” said Darrell, when he and the Colonel were
again walking arm-in-arm. “His is not one of those meagre intellects
which have nothing to spare out of the professional line. He has humour.
Humour--strength’s rich superfluity.”
“I like your definition,” said the Colonel. “And humour in Vance, though
fantastic, is not without subtlety. There was much real kindness in his
obvious design to quiz Lionel out of that silly enthusiasm for--”
“For a pretty child, reared up to be a strolling player,” interrupted
Darrell. “Don’t call it silly enthusiasm. I call it chivalrous
compassion. Were it other than compassion, it would not be
enthusiasm--it would be degradation. But do you believe, then, that
Vance’s confession of first love, and its cure, was but a whimsical
invention?”
COLONEL MORLEY.--“Not so. Many a grave truth is spoken jestingly. I
have no doubt that, allowing for the pardonable exaggeration of a
_raconteur_, Vance was narrating an episode in his own life.”
DARRELL.--“Do you think that a grown man, who has ever really felt love,
can make a jest of it, and to mere acquaintances?”
COLONEL MORLEY.--“Yes; if he be so thoroughly cured, that he has made a
jest of it to himself. And the more lightly he speaks of it, perhaps
the more solemnly at one time he felt it. Levity is his revenge on the
passion that fooled him.”
DARRELL.--“You are evidently an experienced philosopher in the lore of
such folly. ‘_Consultas insapientis sapientiae_.’ Yet I can scarcely
believe that you have ever been in love.”
“Yes, I have,” said the Colonel bluntly, “and very often! Everybody
at my age has--except yourself. So like a man’s observation, that,”
continued the Colonel with much tartness. “No man ever thinks another
man capable of a profound and romantic sentiment!”
DARRELL.--“True; I own my shallow fault, and beg you ten thousand
pardons. So then you really believe, from your own experience, that
there is much in Vance’s theory and your own very happy illustration?
Could we, after many years, turn back to the romance at the page at
which we left off, we should--”
COLONEL MORLEY.--“Not care a straw to read on! Certainly, half the
peculiar charm of a person beloved must be ascribed to locality and
circumstance.”
DARRELL.--“I don’t quite understand you.”
COLONEL MORLEY.--“Then, as you liked my former illustration, I will
explain myself by another one more homely. In a room to which you are
accustomed there is a piece of furniture, or an ornament, which so
exactly suits the place that you say: ‘The prettiest thing I ever saw!’
You go away--you return--the piece of furniture or the ornament has been
moved into another room. You see it there, and you say: ‘Bless me,
is that the thing I so much admired!’ The strange room does not suit
it--losing its old associations and accessories, it has lost its charm.
So it is with human beings--seen in one place, the place would be
nothing without them; seen in another, the place without them would be
all the better!”
DARRELL (musingly)--“There are some puzzles in life which resemble the
riddles a child asks you to solve. Your imagination cannot descend low
enough for the right guess. Yet, when you are told, you are obliged to
say, ‘How clever!’ Man lives to learn.”
“Since you have arrived at that conviction,” replied Colonel Morley,
amused by his friend’s gravity, “I hope that you will rest satisfied
with the experiences of Vance and myself; and that if you have a mind
to propose to one of the young ladies whose merits we have already
discussed, you will not deem it necessary to try what effect a prolonged
absence might produce on your good resolution.”
“No!” said Darrell, with sudden animation. “Before three days are over
my mind shall be made up.” “Bravo!--as to whom of the three you would
ask in marriage?”
“Or as to the idea of ever marrying again. Adieu, I am going to knock at
that door.”
“Mr. Vyvyan’s! Ah, is it so, indeed? Verily, you are a true Dare-all.”
“Do not be alarmed. I go afterwards to an exhibition with Lady Adela,
and I dine with the Carr Viponts. My choice is not yet made, and my hand
still free.”
“His hand still free!” muttered the Colonel, pursuing his walk alone.
“Yes--but three days hence--O--What will he do with it?”