"Why shouldn't I be happy? That other thing is all over!"
It was, in fact, years since the name of Hilda had ever been mentioned
between them. Why should he not be happy? There was nothing to prevent
her from being happy. His father's illness could not endure for ever.
One day soon he would be free in theory as well as in practice. With no
tie and no duty (Maggie was negligible) he would have both money and
position. What might his life not be with a woman like Janet,
brilliant, beautiful, elegant, and faithful? He pictured that life, and
even the vision of it dazzled him. Janet his! Janet always there,
presiding over a home which was his home, wearing hats that he had paid
for, appealing constantly to his judgement, and meaning _him_ when she
said, `My husband.' He saw her in the close and tender intimacy of
marriage, acquiescent, exquisite, yielding, calmly accustomed to him,
modest, but with a different modesty! It was a vision surpassing
visions. And there she was on the other side of the net!
With her he could be his finest self. He would not have to hide his
finest self from ridicule, as often now, among his own family.
She was a fine woman! He watched the free movement of her waist, and
the curvings and flyings of her short tennis skirt. And there was
something strangely feminine about the neck of her blouse, now that he
examined it.
"Your game!" she cried. "That's four double faults I've served. I
can't play! I really don't think I can. There's something the matter
with me! Or else it's the net that's too high. Those boys will keep
screwing it up!"
She had a pouting, capricious air, and it delighted him. Never had he
seen her so enchantingly girlish as, by a curious hazard, he saw her
now. Why should he not he happy? Why should he not wake up out of his
nightmare and begin to live? In a momentary flash he seemed to see his
past in a true perspective, as it really was, as some well-balanced
person not himself would have seen it. Mere morbidity to say, as he had
been saying privately for years, that marriage was not for him!
Marriage emphatically was for him, if only because he had fine ideals of
it. Most people who married were too stupid to get the value of their
adventure. Celibacy was grotesque, cowardly, and pitiful--no matter how
intellectual the celibate--and it was no use pretending the contrary.
A masculine gesture, an advance, a bracing of the male in him ...
probably nothing else was needed.
"Well," he said boldly, "if you don't want to play, let's sit down and
rest." And then he gave a nervous little laugh.
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