KENELM might have reached Oxford that night, for he was a rapid and
untirable pedestrian; but he halted a little after the moon rose, and
laid himself down to rest beneath a new-mown haystack, not very far
from the high road.
He did not sleep. Meditatingly propped on his elbow, he said to
himself,--
"It is long since I have wondered at nothing. I wonder now: can this
be love,--really love,--unmistakably love? Pooh! it is impossible;
the very last person in the world to be in love with. Let us reason
upon it,--you, myself, and I. To begin with,--face! What is face?
In a few years the most beautiful face may be very plain. Take the
Venus at Florence. Animate her; see her ten years after; a chignon,
front teeth (blue or artificially white), mottled complexion, double
chin,--all that sort of plump prettiness goes into double chin. Face,
bah! What man of sense--what pupil of Welby, the realist--can fall in
love with a face? and even if I were simpleton enough to do so, pretty
faces are as common as daisies. Cecilia Travers has more regular
features; Jessie Wiles a richer colouring. I was not in love with
them,--not a bit of it. Myself, you have nothing to say there. Well,
then, mind? Talk of mind, indeed! a creature whose favourite
companionship is that of butterflies, and who tells me that
butterflies are the souls of infants unbaptized. What an article for
'The Londoner,' on the culture of young women! What a girl for Miss
Garrett and Miss Emily Faithfull! Put aside Mind as we have done
Face. What rests?--the Frenchman's ideal of happy marriage? congenial
circumstance of birth, fortune, tastes, habits. Worse still. Myself,
answer honestly, are you not floored?"
Whereon "Myself" took up the parable and answered, "O thou fool! why
wert thou so ineffably blessed in one presence? Why, in quitting that
presence, did Duty become so grim? Why dost thou address to me those
inept pedantic questionings, under the light of yon moon, which has
suddenly ceased to be to thy thoughts an astronomical body and has
become, forever and forever, identified in thy heart's dreams with
romance and poesy and first love? Why, instead of gazing on that
uncomfortable orb, art thou not quickening thy steps towards a cozy
inn and a good supper at Oxford? Kenelm, my friend, thou art in for
it. No disguising the fact: thou art in love!"
"I'll be hanged if I am," said the Second in the Dualism of Kenelm's
mind; and therewith he shifted his knapsack into a pillow, turned his
eyes from the moon, and still could not sleep. The face of Lily still
haunted his eyes; the voice of Lily still rang in his ears.
Oh, my reader! dost thou here ask me to tell thee what Lily was
like?--was she dark? was she fair? was she tall? was she short? Never
shalt thou learn these secrets from me. Imagine to thyself the being
to which thine whole of life, body and mind and soul, moved
irresistibly as the needle to the pole. Let her be tall or short,
dark or fair, she is that which out of all womankind has suddenly
become the one woman for thee. Fortunate art thou, my reader, if thou
chance to have heard the popular song of "My Queen" sung by the one
lady who alone can sing it with expression worthy the verse of the
poetess and the music of the composition, by the sister of the
exquisite songstress. But if thou hast not heard the verse thus sung,
to an accompaniment thus composed, still the words themselves are, or
ought to be, familiar to thee, if thou art, as I take for granted, a
lover of the true lyrical muse. Recall then the words supposed to be
uttered by him who knows himself destined to do homage to one he has
not yet beheld:--
"She is standing somewhere,--she I shall honour,
She that I wait for, my queen, my queen;
Whether her hair be golden or raven,
Whether her eyes be hazel or blue,
I know not now, it will be engraven
Some day hence as my loveliest hue.
She may be humble or proud, my lady,
Or that sweet calm which is just between;
But whenever she comes, she will find me ready
To do her homage, my queen, my queen."
Was it possible that the cruel boy-god "who sharpens his arrows on the
whetstone of the human heart" had found the moment to avenge himself
for the neglect of his altars and the scorn of his power? Must that
redoubted knight-errant, the hero of this tale, despite the Three
Fishes on his charmed shield, at last veil the crest and bow the knee,
and murmur to himself, "She has come, my queen"?