Love,—and the Philosopher: A Study in Sentiment

“You are not as kind to me as you used to be! In fact you are cold!”

She smiled.

“It is cold!” she answered.

Here was a sort of five-barred gate, over which the ambling mule of the Philosopher’s philosophy could not easily jump. He thought a moment.

“Have I been so unfortunate as to displease you?” he asked, in his gentlest tone.

She was quite startled at the question and her sewing dropped from her hands.

“Displease me? Oh, no!—pray do not think such a thing! I am so sorry if I give you such an idea—you must not imagine—”

He watched her as he would have watched a butterfly writhing on a pin.

“I do not imagine,” he said. “Imagination is a kind of hysteria. I know there is something on your mind against me. Surely I may know what it is?”

She hesitated a moment,—then raised her eyes, blue and steady in their wistful, half-tender expression.

“It is nothing against you,” she said, quietly. “It is only sorrow that you who have lived so long and seen so much, and studied such deep and clever things, should be so hard and unfeeling for poor humanity. You show such indifference to the sufferings of the men in this terrible war—you never seem to consider the heart-break and agony of the women left at home—the mothers, the wives, the sweethearts—and so—you see”—she paused, with a slight tremble in her voice—“I am disappointed, because when I heard you were considered a very great man in your own line of learning, I thought you would probably be great in other things as well.”

He looked at her in a kind of quizzical amusement.

“Dear child, that does not follow by any means!” he said. “Most unfortunately for yourself you are an idealist, which means that you put your own mind’s colour on a world’s common grey canvas. When the colour comes off and the dull grey is seen, you are disappointed, and you feel you will not try putting on the same tint again. I’m afraid your life will be a repetition of this tiresome experience! And I’m sorry—yes, very sorry, you have attempted to idealise me, for I couldn’t live up to it!”

He rose from his chair and stood with his back to the fire, pipe in hand.

“You find me indifferent to the war,” he went on. “I am. I freely confess it. The war is a result of arrogance and stupidity—two human defects for which I have unbounded contempt. The war also exhibits in the most glaring manner the sheep-like tendency of men—they follow where they are led without seeking to know the reason why. If every male creature in every country flatly refused to be a soldier, tyrants and governments would be at a loss for material wherewith to fall upon each other—they could not coerce a whole world that had once made up its mind. It is because there is no strength of will in the blind majority that war is allowed still to exist—and you are right—I have no sympathy with it. To me the ‘roll of honour’ is all bunkum!—and I have no patience with people who smirk their thanks for a medal from the king in exchange for the life of a slaughtered man. Pooh! Talk of the car of the Juggernaut! The abbatoir in Flanders is a thousand times worse, because we are supposed to be a civilised, not a savage, people, though to my notion we are more savage than the primal men who broke each other’s skulls with stone hatchets. I can see no improvement—we are the same old blood-thirsty, greedy race!”

He spoke with a fervour that was almost eloquence, and knocking the ashes of his pipe out, he placed it on the mantel-shelf. Then bending his eyes on the Sentimentalist, he smiled.

“There! Now you know!” he said. “I am perfectly indifferent to the war. I don’t care how many fools kill each other! I haven’t the least sympathy with men who go to have themselves hacked about and disfigured for life, or blown into atoms by shells. They would have shown much better sense by treating the members of their stupid Governments to the same sort of fate.”

“But”—and here the Sentimentalist plucked up courage to speak—“if we did not fight, Germany would dominate the world!”

“And why didn’t we see that before?” he demanded. “Germany was dominating the world in every corner of trade—‘peaceful penetration’ as it was called,—and if the stagey Kaiser hadn’t jumped up like a jack-in-the-box, under the demented notion that he was a new sort of Charlemagne she would have dominated it. And we should have gone on in our comfortable idleness and luxury, getting lazier and lazier, and allowing Germany to do everything for us, because it’s so much trouble to do anything for ourselves—except—play tennis and football!”

She looked at him with a flash of indignation.

“Then what a good thing for us that we’ve been shaken up out of our ‘laze’!” she said.

“Perhaps—and perhaps not,” rejoined the Philosopher. “I never accept things as ‘good’ till they prove not to be entirely bad.”

“And with all these pessimistic ideas of yours, are you happy?” she asked.

“Entirely so!” And the Philosopher smiled. “Much happier than you are, my dear child! For you expect so much from everybody and everything!—and I expect—nothing! So I am never disappointed. You are!”

“Yes, I am!” she agreed, and her sweet mouth trembled. “I am very greatly disappointed!”

“And you always will be!” he said, pleasantly. Then reaching for his pipe, he filled it. “The wind seems to have abated a little—I’ll go for a walk before dinner.”

He paused an instant, wondering if he should say anything else?—a word of tenderness?—or endearment? No, he thought not! An arm round the waist was out of the question. He could whistle rather well, so prodding his pipe, he lighted it, and whistled ‘Home they brought her warrior dead,’ to which lively accompaniment he walked out of the room.

She sprang up when he had gone, indignantly conscious that tears were in her eyes.

“I think—I really do think I hate him!” she said to the silence. “And I used to be almost fond of him! Oh, he makes all life a blank for me! There seems nothing worth doing, nothing worth living for!” She paced up and down the room. “Sneer,—sneer!—nothing but sneer! And he’s supposed to be so clever! Oh, I’d rather be human!—twenty times rather! And yet—when he first came to stay with Dad he seemed so charming and kindly! I thought he would be such a splendid friend to have!—but I don’t believe he cares a rap for anybody but himself!”

In this she was perfectly right. But nothing is so difficult to a Sentimentalist as to believe in the existence of an incurable Egotist.

CHAPTER VIII

“Worries him? Oh, by Jove! What has he got to worry about?”

“Nothing, really! But that’s just why he worries!”

They were now in the leafless rosery, walking side by side under intertwined boughs of thorns. Jack gave a quick comprehensive glance around him.

“Looks rather different to what it did in summer,” he said.

The fair woman at his side looked up quickly.

“Ah, yes!” she murmured. “Everything is changed!”

“No, it isn’t!” he replied briskly. “You’re not changed—and I’m not changed! You’ve got a touch of the ‘blues,’ dear little lady! It’s that old V.A.D. commandant, I bet!”

“Oh, no! No, indeed; I don’t mind her snappy ways a bit! The wounded boys make up to me for all her tantrums!”

“I should hope they did!” said Jack, approvingly. “I say! If I get wounded I’ll try and get sent here, and you’ll nurse me!”

She smiled, but there was a rising of tears in her throat and she could not speak. Jack saw just how she felt, and bravely repressed his own emotion.

“You won’t mind seeing my father now and then?” he went on. “He said the other day that he would take it kindly if you’d look in at the cottage sometimes—”

“I will, certainly!” she interrupted, eagerly. “But is he really going to stay down here all winter?”

“I think so! He’s a queer old chap and likes his own way of living,” and Jack smiled. “But his heart’s in the right place! He said the other day, ‘I’d rather feed the robins here, than dine at the Savoy!’ That’s him all over!”

“Is he—is he sorry you’re going?” she asked.

“If he is, he doesn’t show it!” Here the young fellow laughed cheerily. “Oh, he’s game, I can tell you! He told me he was giving me away like a pound of tea!—thoughts running on the American war of independence, I suppose!”

He laughed again, but she was very silent and serious. They had left the rosery, now the thornery, and were walking in a thick little coppice of fir-trees, where occasional gleams of the near river shone through. On a sudden impulse he stopped, and taking her face between his two hands turned it up to him.

“Dear little ‘rose-lady,’” he said, huskily, “say ‘God bless you, Jack!’ before I go!”

“Oh, I do say it!” she answered, sobbingly. “I do say it, and I pray it every night and morning! Jack, dear, believe me I do!”

Somehow or other he had his arms round her,—he had none of the Philosopher’s doubts or hesitations,—and he drew her fondly to him.

“You dear!” he whispered. “But I won’t have you cry! No tears!—or you’ll make a real coward of me! And just now I want to be a hero—for I think, I really do think you care for me,—just a little!”

She was silent, but she put the tiniest little flutter of a kiss on the hand that was nearest to her lips. He thrilled to that caress with all the warm ardour of a Romeo, and releasing her from his hold, drew himself up with an air of joy and pride.

“Now I’m worth twice what I was a minute ago!” he said. “And if I were a sneak, I should ask you to engage yourself to me straight away! But I won’t. You shall not be bound to a man who may be marked down by a Boche sniper before the month is out. No, dear! But you know I love you!—and you know I want to marry you!—when the war is over!”

“And you’ll wait till then?” she asked, suddenly with the prettiest air of pique and wonder.

He looked at her, and his heart beat quickly.

“I’ll try to!” he answered. “Unless you tempt me too far!”

Some further development of this situation might have occurred had not the sudden apparition of a misshaped “Homburg” hat and weedy-looking overcoat startled them away several paces from each other.

“Don’t let me intrude!”—and the Philosopher, slowly approaching, spoke in the mildest and most mellifluous of accents—“I have been taking a stroll by the river,—and you—dear me, yes!—it is you!” Here he surveyed Jack with a kind of quizzical tolerance—“I should hardly have known you in khaki had I met you by chance anywhere else!”

“I daresay not!” replied Jack airily. “It makes a fellow so much better-looking.”

The Philosopher smiled.

“You think so? Ah! Well,—possibly our ideas do not coincide. I cannot admit that mud-colour is becoming to any face or figure. And when are you off?”

“This week.” The reply was brief and blunt.

The Philosopher nodded blandly.

“So soon? And no doubt you are full of pleasurable anticipation? When one is young and has nothing very important to do, the idea of killing Germans must be more thrilling than an invitation to a grouse moor!”

The Sentimentalist looked pained and vexed—she was about to speak, but a glance from Jack silenced her.

“Quite so!” he agreed, amicably. “I’d rather kill Germans than grouse any day!”

“I envy you your humane ideas!” said the Philosopher, smiling. “Allow me to wish you a safe journey to France and all the excitement you want when you get there! It’s a great thing to be a defender of the Empire—a ve-ry great thing!—for those who consider the Empire worth defending! To a scholar and student of history, all empires are alike,—one is no worse and no better than the other, and the well-balanced man would as soon fight for Germany as Britain. Both are arrogant powers,—and it entirely depends on which sort of arrogance one prefers—military or commercial. But I forgot!—you are not British—you are American! Being so, I rather wonder you should fight at all!”

“It is curious, isn’t it!” and Jack treated him to a broad smile and a glance which took in the battered “Homburg” hat, the weedy coat, and the large boots of the learned man. “But—it amuses me!”

Something in the flash of the young man’s eyes—a lightning gleam of boldness and mirth—struck with an unusual force through the leathery consciousness of the Philosopher and made him feel uncomfortable just for a moment. He knew well enough what this voluntary soldier was prepared to meet,—the roar of guns, the crash of shells, the flying bombs, each instrument carrying death where it fell—and the light dismissal of danger in the phrase “It amuses me”—did for a brief interval move the student of many books to a sense of reluctant admiration as well as regret that he, too, was not young enough to fling a defiance at the hurling blows of the enemy. But, as a matter of fact, he had never been truly “young”—for even as a boy his utter self-absorption had set him apart from his fellows. At college, his aloofness had gained him many a “ragging,” though certain dry-as-dust professors thought they foresaw the ripening of “genius” in his unnatural self-satisfaction,—a mistake of course, and not the first by any means that dry-as-dust professors have made in their estimation of their students. There was not a touch of “genius” in him,—there was only a very great ability, chiefly shown in the absorption of other people’s ideas. Just now he took a couple of minutes to recover from the slight rap Jack had unconsciously given to his carefully balanced mentality—then he said, suavely and graciously—

“It is fortunate for the country that it can find young men who are willing to be ‘amused’ by fighting for a cause which is not their own,” and a small, grim smile furrowed his features. “In fact, I consider the war a positive godsend to the youth of both sexes—a godsend, I tell you! It makes a clearance of the useless under the name of ‘patriotism’ and it gives the idle—especially idle women—something to do.”

“Do you know any idle women?” Jack asked. “I’ve never met one.”

The Philosopher glared at him.

“Never met one?” he echoed, ironically. “Good heavens, where have you lived? Idle women swarm in every town and village—positively swarm—”

“No, they don’t,” interrupted Jack brusquely. “I’d just like you, sir, to do one day of a woman’s house-work!—you would not have much time for thought! Rich or poor she’s on the go and the grind all through!—especially if she has a husband and children to look after. And if not,—why, my spinster aunt out in California hasn’t an idle moment!”

“Wonderful!” and the Philosopher looked like a fluffy owl in the rain with its head on one side. “What does she—the spinster aunt—do, for example?”

Jack laughed, happily.

“What does she not do!” he exclaimed. “She makes all the preserves and sweets—mends the stockings—works in the garden—nurses sick neighbours—looks after orphan children—but there!—you wouldn’t be interested!”

“No, I’m afraid not!” and the Philosopher shook his head, gravely. “Preserves and sweets do appeal to me—but I prefer them manufactured rather than home produced,—and as for the rest of her energies, I think they might be better employed. However, we will not argue! I take off my hat to you”—here he suited the action to the word—“as a remarkable young man who has never met an idle woman! And I hope you will have all the amusement you expect in France!”

He made a kind of salute which comprehensively included the Sentimentalist as well as Jack and paced slowly on his way. Not till he was well out of hearing did Jack give vent to his feelings. He caught the little hand of the “rose-lady” conveniently near his own and give it an ardent squeeze.

“Promise me!” he said. “You have promised me;—but promise me again that you will not marry that cynical, selfish, mocking, old brute! He hasn’t an ounce of real feeling in his composition!”

She smiled rather sadly.

“Dear Jack, I shall not marry anybody!” she answered. “Certainly not this ‘clever’ man! I’m afraid you’re right—he has no feeling—only the other day he heard of the death of one of his oldest friends and all he said was, ‘Dear me! I shall miss him rather when I want a game at bowls!’”

“Don’t say you won’t marry anybody,” said Jack, “because, please heaven, you’ll marry me! Won’t you? But there!—I won’t bind you!”

She said nothing; only her blue eyes had wells of sweetness in them in which a poet might ask love to drown. He held her hand a little closer—and drew himself up straightly with a resolute air.

“I must go now,” he said. “Good-bye, dear! I won’t bother you to think of me or write to me—or any trouble of that sort—”

“Oh, Jack! It won’t be a trouble!”

“It might be!” and he set his lips hard. “The only thing I do ask is that you go and see my old Dad sometimes and let him come to see you. He’ll have all my news—field service post cards and everything—”

He paused. The winsome face of the Sentimentalist was uplifted—her lips were parted and tremulous—there were tears on her golden-brown lashes. In a reckless moment, not thinking of anything but carried away by the emotion of his soul, he caught her to his heart and kissed her once, twice, thrice, passionately.

“Forgive me!” he whispered. “I can’t help it! God bless you, dear! Good-bye!”

He turned with almost lightning suddenness, plunged through the brushwood by the river and disappeared.

“Jack!” she called, plaintively.

There was no answer. He had gone. She stood for a moment,—pained, bewildered, and yet thrilled by the fervour of that lover’s kiss,—the first she had ever known. How abruptly he had left her!—it was perhaps the best way—and yet,—would she ever see him again. The tears welled up suddenly and fell down her cheeks.

“Oh, Jack!” she murmured, brokenly. “It is hard! You need not go really!—it is your own choice!—and I—I am so lonely!”

CHAPTER IX

“Well, I never, Miss!” observed that young woman. “If your Pa were in his ’e’lth he ought to order that old curmudgeon out of the house! Call ’im a friend! The cheek of ’im!”

The Sentimentalist could not answer. As mistress of the house she smarted under the rudeness this “clever” man had inflicted upon her at her own table. If the mutton was tough, she felt that he considered the fault to be hers, though she, poor little woman, was neither the butcher nor the cook. Moreover, the bad manners displayed in finding fault with the food provided at a hospitable board on which he had “sponged” for weeks together, proved, to her regret that though he might be a distinguished University “light of learning,” he was not a gentleman. This reflection calmed the hurry of her nerves—she re-entered the dining-room and resumed her place, ignoring the quizzical and enquiring look of the Philosopher as she did so.

“What did you go out of the room like that for?” grumbled her father. “Anything important?”

She smiled.

“Yes—important to me. I had an order to give.”

“Oh! Couldn’t you have given it here?”

“No.”

Silence followed.

The Philosopher became aware that she was “queening” it. He tried to start a subject of conversation—but his efforts fell flat. She neither looked at him nor seemed to hear him. He therefore addressed himself solely to his host, who replied somewhat disjointedly to his remarks. Both men were made distinctly uncomfortable by the quiet air of sovereign indifference maintained in the attitude and expression of the charming mistress of the house, and though he was as adamant in his own egoism the Philosopher for once wished he had controlled his emotions concerning tough mutton.

Dessert and coffee served, the Sentimentalist left the “gentlemen” to themselves, and, retiring to her own room began to think, and to wonder how long the Philosopher like another “Old Man of the Sea” purposed riding on the back of her little household.

“It seems very hard!” she mused. “I can’t imagine why Dad finds him so necessary!—or why that awful book should be compiled at all!”

Then she looked back to the time when the Philosopher had been first invited to come and stay—how ardently she had looked forward to meeting this “clever” man,—how she had pictured the charming and intellectual talks they might have together,—what a friend he would be to “Dad”—such a brilliant, learned and—yes!—surely kind-hearted man! For the Sentimentalist had a very erroneous notion fixed in her little head,—and this was that men who were rich in knowledge must be likewise rich in heart; because having learnt many things they would be sure to have wise tolerance and pity for the mistakes and follies of the ignorant,—so she thought. She was wrong of course—and she had to discover the sad fact that many so-called “great” men are amazingly small of character and petty in disposition. She blushed for very shame now as she remembered that she had almost—not quite!—but almost imagined herself growing attached to the Philosopher—“Yes!” she said to her own soul, indignantly—“I actually did come near loving him for a day or two!—when he was nice—and he can be nice when he likes!—and of course I felt he was trying to make love to me!—and I thought it such an honour! But, oh!”—here she gave herself a little shake—“What an awful, awful husband he would make!—what tempers he would have!—and what nasty sarcastical things he would say if he felt like saying them! He wouldn’t care how he hurt one!—no, not he! He likes to hurt people—positively enjoys it!”

She gave herself another little shake,—then murmured irrelevantly,—

“Poor Jack!”

A sigh escaped her, and she went on talking to herself.

“Poor Jack! He’s not clever—no!—he often says the stupidest things!—but—ah!—he wouldn’t hurt any one for all the world! I think—yes, I’m sure!—I’d rather have a kind husband than a clever one!”

She lost herself in meditation for a while. All at once she heard a tap at her door.

“Come in!” she said.

And the Philosopher made his appearance.

“Where’s my pipe?” he asked.

Amazed at his cool effrontery she looked at him, hardly knowing whether to laugh, or to order him out of the room.

“Come, come!” he went on testily. “You know where everything is in the house and if anything is mislaid you can generally find it. I’ve lost my pipe—it’s not in my coat pocket and I don’t think I left it on the seat by the river this afternoon—I might have done so—”

“Perhaps you had better go and look,” she said, frigidly. “I believe there’s a moon.”

“Or I can take a lantern,” he replied. “But do you mean to say you haven’t seen it?”

“I certainly have not!”

“You are generally so kind!” he mumbled, in querulous tones. “Whenever you see it lying about you put it where I can find it—”

“But I haven’t seen it lying about this time,” she said. “You had better ask the servants.”

He stood on the threshold peering into the room.

“You have a nice little bower here,” he remarked, condescendingly. “Is this where you play at housekeeping and settle domestic quarrels?”

She made no answer.

“I see you are on your high horse!” he went on. “A tall and stalking quadruped! Can’t I assist you to alight?”

“I don’t know what you mean!” she said, looking full at him. “Please explain!”

“You know very well what I mean,” he proceeded affably. “You resent my recent observations on tough mutton for dinner. And you have mounted your high horse accordingly.”

She bit her lips to avoid laughing. He was so absolute, so obstinate in his own view of every incident, however trifling!

“I admit,” he went on, “that I was not polite. I might have expressed myself less bluntly. I also admit that I was conscious of considerable irritation. I—I apologise!”

She made a slight deprecating movement of her hand.

“Please say nothing more about it!” and her voice though soft, was very cold in tone. “I wish to forget the incident.”

He leaned against the doorpost in a drooping and dejected attitude.

“But you accept my apology?”

“Oh, certainly!”

There was a pause.

“I wish,” he then said, mournfully, “I wish I could find my pipe!”

The mirthful side of her disposition was touched, and she laughed,—a bright little laugh like that of a happy child. The Philosopher straightened himself.

“That’s right!” he said, approvingly. “I like to hear you laugh! So much better than prancing on your high horse!”

She laughed again.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” she exclaimed. “For such a learned man, you are really very funny!”

“I hope so!” he answered. “Though ‘funny’ is scarcely the word—‘amusing’ would be more accurate. Learned men ought to be amusing; if they are not so they are invariably dull. Now I am never dull. My worst enemy could not accuse me of dulness,—if I had a wife she would find me an amusing husband.”

“Really!”

The Sentimentalist’s blue eyes were still twinkling with merriment.

“Yes,—really. And that is a great thing—for husbands, like wives, too often become monotonous. I wish”—here his voice sank again to plaintiveness—“I do wish I could find my pipe! Your father wants a game of billiards—”

“Where did you last have the pipe?” and the Sentimentalist rose from her chair and prepared to leave the room on a search for the mislaid “briar,” which was what the Philosopher wanted. “Have you looked in the pocket of your overcoat?”

“No,” here the Philosopher laid a detaining hand on her arm; “but I remember I had the overcoat on this morning when I met you and that young man in khaki. And you are not on your high horse any more?”

She drew herself gently away.

“No.”

She went towards the billiard-room. He followed slowly, with a sense that he had been worsted somehow in a mutual clashing of tempers, but in what way he could not quite determine. But she was not a “plum” to be easily gathered.

The most casual glance here and there sufficed to locate the missing pipe; it was on a table in the hall. One might have imagined that the Philosopher had purposely left it there. When it was handed to him he accepted it dubiously as though it had belonged to somebody else. He prodded the ash in its bowl with his little finger and looked at the Sentimentalist.

“You’re coming, aren’t you?” he queried.

“Into the billiard-room? I think not,” she replied. “The game doesn’t interest me.”

“A pity it doesn’t,” he retorted. “Sureness of eye, skill of hand,—these are things a woman should learn.”

“No doubt!” and with this brief response she moved away.

The Philosopher, still prodding his pipe, ruminated. It would never do!—he said within himself—she would never do! As a wife she would be “impossible.” It never occurred to him to think that as a husband he might equally be “impossible.” And yet—she was really very attractive! And she would have money:—and the comfortable old manor house would be hers. He pictured himself settled for life—waited upon by a charming woman, warming his feet by the great log-fire, with nothing to do but write an occasional ponderous essay or article for one of the heavy reviews, just to keep up the press-clique reputation he had managed to obtain through his club acquaintances.

“I’ll try if I can make a dash for it,” he thought. “Give her one or two days to get over the departure of that fool of a young man Jack—and then I’ll see what can be done.”

He strolled into the billiard-room where his host was impatiently awaiting him, and very soon the monotonous click-clack of the billiard balls was the only sound that disturbed the silence.

Some mornings later a little old gentleman in a brown frieze suit called to see the Sentimentalist, who welcomed him with a frank delight to which he was not commonly accustomed.

“It’s because I’m Jack’s father!” he said, inwardly, with a chuckle—and he was right. Jack’s father! That was it! The Sentimentalist had never shown herself to better advantage—her eyes had never sparkled more brightly or her smile been more winning than for this wizened old personage who was reported to be the hardest, most close-fisted curmudgeon alive.

“Well!” he said, after the first ordinary greetings were over. “Jack went off all right—as chirpy as a cricket!”

“Yes? I’m so glad!” murmured the Sentimentalist. “I know he feels he is doing the right thing!”

“Well!” and the ejaculation was repeated again with a strong American drawl. “It may be so! I don’t know! He does what he likes so long as he don’t spend much money—and the army has taken him off my hands for the present, which is all to the good. Boys like fighting, and I s’pose he’ll get some!”

The Sentimentalist said nothing. She had known Jack’s father intermittently for some months, and she was aware that his disposition seemed to be more curious than kindly. And while she kept silence, his small keen eyes studied her critically, and the shadow of a smile lurked under his fuzzy white moustache.

“How is the Papa?” he enquired.

“About the same,” she answered, cheerfully. “Rather gouty, and always busy with his book.”

“Oh! And is the old chap with him still?”

“You mean the Philosopher? Oh, yes! He is here—but I believe he’s going to Oxford next week for—for a while.”

“Only for a while? Why don’t he stay there?”

“Well, you see he’s a great help to father—”

“Yes—yes! Jack told me. But the book will be finished some time, won’t it?—say a month before the Judgment Day?”

She laughed.

“Oh, I hope so! But of course it’s heavy work, and takes a lot of time and patience—”

“Wasted labour!” growled Jack’s father. “Like all the great useless books packed up in big libraries; nobody reads them except a few old curiosity hunters, and nobody wants to read them either—”

“As reference books,” suggested the Sentimentalist, “they are perhaps necessary. You see”—and she sighed—“people cannot live on romance and poetry.”

“No, they can’t, but lots of them try to!” and the old gentleman treated her to a very wide smile and very narrow wink. “You, for instance—you live on romance and poetry!”

Her blue eyes filled with amazement.

“I? Oh, no! Indeed, no! I like to think of beautiful things more than of ugly ones—that’s all!”

“I’m afraid your thoughts run in a mistaken direction,” said Jack’s father, rubbing his nose violently with a multi-coloured silk handkerchief. “Beautiful things are rare,—ugly things are of every day. Look at me for instance! I’m an ugly thing—”

She made a pretty gesture of smiling protest.

“I am!” he persisted. “But that Oxford chap is uglier!”

She laughed outright—then made a warning sign with a small uplifted finger, as just then the Philosopher strolled into the room. Jack’s father eyed him up and down.

“Good-morning, sir!” he said.

“Good-morning!” returned the Philosopher, condescendingly. “I think I saw you engaged in the gentle piscatorial art during the summer,—in short, fishing from a boat on the river—but I have not the pleasure—”

The Sentimentalist hastened to explain. He was the father of Jack. Oh, indeed! That was it? This little, lean, gimlet-eyed old man was Jack’s father! The Philosopher became cheerful—almost jocose.

“I congratulate you,” he said, “on the departure of your son for France. It must be very gratifying to you!”

“It is!” and the sharp American glance “sized him up” as it were in a second. “He’s my only—and I’m glad he’s got grit in him.”

The Philosopher winced. The expression “got grit” wounded his sensitive ears. It was so rough—so unscholarly.

“Grit,” he remarked suavely, “I suppose implies the spirit which impels a man to fight for a country not his own and to kill as many men as he can of a nation which has never done him any personal harm.”

“You can put it that way,” said Jack’s father, “if you like! There’s all sorts of ways of saying a thing—and that’s your way.”

He gave vent to a sound between a chuckle and a snort. It might have meant amusement or contempt, or both.

The Philosopher eyed him meditatively.

“Yes, that is my way,” he agreed. “I confess I have no sympathy with the war fever. I dislike sheep tendencies in men. I do not admire their blind obedience to the order of a possibly stupid government. It shows that there is no originality of thought or character among them. A few bold and independent men could stop war altogether.”

“Well, I differ from you, sir,” said Jack’s father. “I don’t think all the saints that were ever calendared could prevent war. Why, everything in nature fights, from birth to death! It’s all a battle. Birds, beasts, insects,—even trees fight for room to expand. A good struggle against wind and tide makes the voyage worth while.”

The Sentimentalist smiled.

“I think so too!” she gently ventured to say. “Life would be so dull and monotonous without some sort of contest and opposition.”

The Philosopher bent an indulgent glance upon her.

“You can afford to say that because you have never had either contest or opposition,” he remarked, pleasantly. “You are a little lady accustomed to have her own way in everything. And yet, you do not find it dull—or monotonous! As long as the roses bloom and the butterflies dance, you will be perfectly satisfied!”

His voice was quite musical,—his expression kind—and Jack’s father began almost to like him. Certainly the Philosopher had his good points like other people, though they were not often apparent. The conversation now took another turn with the entrance of the master of the house,—the author of “The Deterioration of Language Invariably Perceived”—who very soon mounted on his hobby-horse and was not altogether uninteresting in his discourse.

“You Americans,” he said, addressing Jack’s father, “are not nearly so much to blame as we are in the spoiling of the English language. You often use, quite unconsciously, very good old English words and expressions which were common in Tudor times and are now fallen into oblivion. But we are at one in the general crime of slang. The vulgar exclamation ‘ripping’ uttered by men and women alike is a disgrace to speech. Some person writing ‘society’ twaddle in one of the pictorials, uses the lowest slang as profusely as a farm labourer scatters manure,—creating a positive stink in the nostrils of any lover of good English—yet she—it is a woman of course!—is admired for her ‘style’! ‘Style’!” and the old gentleman grunted his contempt. “‘Style’ perished with Addison and Macaulay. If my daughter dared to use the word ‘ripping’ in my presence I’d—I’d disown her!”

And, pulling out a red handkerchief, he rubbed his nose violently, while the Sentimentalist laughingly put her arm round him.

“Would you, Dad?” she asked. “Really and truly?”

He peered at her fair face and tender eyes, with a relenting smile.

“Well, perhaps not quite” he admitted. “But nearly!”

The Philosopher looked on and listened. He thought the Sentimentalist charming in her pretty attitude of coaxing tolerance for her father,—he wished she would put her arm round his neck in the same sort of way. But she never would—of that he felt pretty sure! And it was all the fault of that confounded Jack!—or was it the affair of the mutton? He was not clear as to which obstacle had arisen in the way of his very dilatory wooing—but he found himself considering that after all there might be a certain satisfaction in “caring about some one”—as his club friend had once suggested, or rather, having some one to care about yourself. He withdrew his interest from the general conversation as was his habit when he was not the centre of it, and went to a corner table where he pretended to write a letter. And he was surprised and not very pleased to hear the lively talk and laughter which ensued on his retreat. Even the gouty author of “The Deterioration of Language” made merry! Jack’s father told good stories and evidently had the keenest sense of humour. The old gentleman stayed a considerable time, and when ready to go, asked the Sentimentalist to walk home with him, to which proposition she readily assented. They left the room together, having apparently forgotten all about the Philosopher or his presence in the room. This was somewhat galling; especially as his host seemed likewise to have forgotten him, for he trotted slowly away back to his library, whistling as he went. An uncomfortable sense of emptiness was in the air,—and just for once in his self-absorbed existence the Philosopher felt he was “not wanted.” He was mentally placed outside the gates of a little family paradise where he plainly saw a notice put up—“No Philosophers need apply.” And he found himself growing inwardly sad and angry. Sitting down by the cheerful log fire he began to ask questions of his intellectual ego,—as, for example, did much learning add to the sum of human happiness? When one knew the scientific causes of every happening, did such knowledge make sorrow easier to bear, or life more tolerable? The answer, as certain leaders of the House of Commons would say, was in the negative. And yet, on the other hand, love, or what is called love, was, so the Philosopher asserted, only for very young people.

“Like a teddy-bear for a baby!” he mused, grimly. “And how soon the baby tires of the teddy-bear!”

Comfort,—physical and material comfort in life—that was, in his opinion, the chief thing to aim at.

“And I doubt—I very much doubt,” he thought, “whether she”—here he alluded to the Sentimentalist—“would be a comfort. She would more likely be a worry and an embarrassment. She is charming, but erratic. She has ideals—and they are absurd. She has feelings—equally absurd. She would shed tears if her husband forgot to kiss her. More absurd than absurdity itself! She would resent neglect. And I believe she has a temper. Now a wife, to be satisfactory, should be docile and submissive—she should keep her ‘feelings’ in the background, attend to her household and be—well, yes!—a well-trained automaton. Then there would be peace, and a well-ordered establishment, which I should not object to. But a woman such as She is, with eyes that smile one moment and weep the next, and emotions as changeful as the wind—she would be a handful to manage!—if she could be managed, which is open to serious question! If that young ass Jack comes home and marries her I shall be sorry for him!—yes, I shall be very sorry for him! But”—here he settled himself more comfortably in his chair—“in all probability he will not survive! He is just the kind of headstrong fool to make himself a target for the German guns!”

And with this reflection, which moved him to smile quite pleasantly, he composed himself for a quiet nap before luncheon.

CHAPTER X

“Amanda,” he went on, “is the name of a feeble heroine in an old, very old and very stupid novel called ‘The Children of the Forest.’ She was a young person who was for ever weeping, or, when not weeping, fainting in the arms of a man. There was a villain in the piece who always pursued her—(why, no sane creature can imagine) and never, thanks to a kindly Providence, succeeded in winning her. Then there was the ‘noble’ lover of course!—a pattern of all the virtues, and an unmitigated nuisance—a fellow who shed tears with his Amanda and drew a useless sword on the smallest provocation—altogether a sickly rhodomontade of sickly sentiment and twaddle—”

“Why did you read it?” she asked.

“I was very young,” he replied with a brief snort of contempt for his unsophisticated past. “Terribly young! But quite old enough to find ‘Amanda’ a bore!”

She smiled.

“Well, I’m not Amanda!” she said, gaily. “Nobody thought of giving me that name! But I’m sorry you don’t like the name of Sylvia!—I rather fancy it myself!”

The Philosopher made no further comment just then. This conversation had taken place in the very early days of his acquaintance with the Sentimentalist, and he was careful of his ground. Greatly as he admired his own rudeness (which he considered clever and amusing) he knew it was not advisable to display his inherent bad manners to a hostess before making himself sure of her amiable tolerance; as a more or less “distinguished” man of literary attainment he had established a convenient reputation for eccentricity which allowed him a certain latitude of behaviour,—he could say things which nobody else said, and do things nobody else did. His acrid observations on men and things were condoned because “he’s so clever, you know!” people would declare, with the foolish giggle wherewith they accept monstrosities at a country fair. And his professed objection to the name of Sylvia wore down in time, being in truth an objection that never existed at all save in the inconsistent and crotchety tendency of his own brain. Two or three times he had found occasion to sniff and snort his irritation when Jack, now happily removed for a time from the social scene, had essayed to sing “Who is Sylvia, what is she?” in a voice which was unfortunate in timbre and guiltless of training,—but he had refrained from any positive comment on that young man’s vocal efforts. And a long period had elapsed or had seemed to elapse between then and now. The mild peace of the English countryside had been harried by “alarums and excursions”;—War, the wicked—War, the barbaric—had arisen in mad ferocity like a brute beast from its lair, and its destructive force and evil influence was felt everywhere, even in the little sequestered village where the Sentimentalist had her pretty home, and where she had been accustomed to see little save the beauty of an untroubled Nature. The long white building temporarily erected as a Voluntary Aid Hospital for the wounded made its suggestive presence felt on the land where it stood sheltered by a belt of beautiful old trees,—and the Sentimentalist’s time was divided between it and the care of her father in a manner that left her little leisure to attend to the Philosopher when he came (as he persistently did) to assist in the continuance of the great philological work which was intended to propound an entirely new idea of civilisation to a waiting and expectant world. Dr. Maynard, the venerable author, was growing more and more feeble, and the gout was laying a faster grip on his weary limbs, and had it not been for the interest he took in his literary research and the patient indulgence maintained by his devoted daughter for all his whims and fancies he might have “gone under” more rapidly than was anticipated. This was indeed the reason why the Philosopher was tolerated and even encouraged,—for the poor little Sentimentalist dreaded being left entirely alone with her father, and “The Deterioration of Language.” As long as the old gentleman was kept amused and occupied the gout was partially held in check, and this desirable result was all she sought. For herself and her own happiness she had little care,—her naturally bright spirit was clouded by sorrows she could not alleviate,—sorrows wrought by the war, and coming fast one upon the other like clouds rolling up in a storm. Day after day the wounded were brought to the hospital among the trees,—day after day she saw terrible sights of suffering which she, as the little “rose-lady” of Jack’s adoration had never expected to see,—and what was worst of all to her, day after day of utter silence and suspense racked her nerves in the longing for news that never came. In the first year of the war, old John Durham, Jack’s father,—had received letters and “field cards” with tolerable regularity—his son wrote that he was “well” and “in fine form”—and Sylvia had a card or two expressed with the usual military reticence. But after a while and all suddenly a great silence fell, and enquiries at the War Office only elicited the ominous word “Missing.” The blow was a heavy one to the father of the cheery young fellow who had so gallantly resolved to risk his life in the service of a country not his own, and he crept about more or less feebly, with bent head and drooping shoulders, only bracing himself up whenever he saw Sylvia, who made it one of her special duties to look after him as much as possible—“for Jack’s sake” as she would whisper to herself sadly when alone. Not that she ever gave up hope. No,—the word “Missing” held out fair promise to her pure and prayerful soul. She was sure—yes, quite sure, that Jack was not killed—that he would return just the same joyous-hearted Jack as ever! So she told his father—her sweet, loving, blue eyes sparkling with tears, as she spoke;—and he,—well!—somehow he found it difficult to speak, and only pressed her little hand till it was almost crushed in his own rough palm.

Among these characters and influences one would have thought the Philosopher—the learned Walter Craig, F.R.S.A., LL.D., and as many other letters of the alphabet as various Universities can tack on to one small mortal name—would have found himself out of place. In strict accordance with his own theories he ought to have been “bored”—but he wasn’t. As a matter of fact after young Jack Durham had been reported as “Missing” he had experienced a greater interest in the whole situation. There was nothing to disturb his general equanimity. His work with the querulous and ailing old Dr. Maynard was intricate and more or less amusing; he had comfortable quarters in a pretty and well-ordered house—and he had no twinges of conscience in performing the part of a “sponge,” because he felt (and in this he was right) that in keeping his invalid host occupied with his “great work” he was performing a real service, for which he might justly claim board and lodging. And as the war was going on and things were very uncomfortable in London, he took his chance of ease and safety as long as he could get it. The only fly in his amber was old John Durham. With all his heart he detested this wiry wizened American with eyes as sharp as gimlets and a face like a nut-cracker. He grudged the affectionate solicitude with which Sentimentalist Sylvia regarded him—the anxiety she evinced concerning his health and general well-being all, forsooth!—because he was Jack’s father, and Jack himself was “Missing.” To him there was nothing pathetic in the gradual droop of the old man’s physical frame, or the lines of sorrow and suspense that delved themselves round his whole countenance,—all that he saw was that Sylvia rather allowed herself to be monopolised by him in the intervals when she was not in attendance on her father or working at the Hospital; and one day the startling notion seized him that perhaps,—Jack being “missing,”—his father might “make tracks” (an expression old Durham often used) for Sylvia himself! This idea buzzed in his brain like a persistent bumblebee on a window-pane.

“Old men marry young women every day—” he argued with himself. “Especially when they feel lonely. Then, from all I can gather, this American has got money, and she may not be indifferent to that! Of course his great asset is that he’s ‘Jack’s father’!” Here the Philosopher snorted contempt. “Little goose as she is!—little sentimental goose! I wonder if Maynard has any suspicion of the intentions of this ancient courtier—”

Here another brilliant suggestion struck illumination on his brain.

“I’m not as old as Durham,—certainly not!” he thought. “Ah!—not by a good six or seven years! Then why—”

His meditations here began to gallop along strange and unaccustomed routes,—stray reflections of couleur de rose wavered across the grey monotony of his learned mentality, and almost he was conscious of a faint sense of returning youth.

“I’m not as old as Durham!” he repeated, with a kind of inward jubilation. “Then why should not I take a bold step? My peace of mind would probably be destroyed, and I should have to put up with many annoyances and small absurdities—still, take her for what she is, there’s a charm about her rather rare to find nowadays among modern women. I know what I’ll do! I’ll give a gentle hint—quite gentle,—to Maynard himself. He might be glad to have his daughter’s future safely assured—it would make him easier in his mind.”

But—for the moment—none of his ideas or resolutions matured into action. The days went on,—each day bringing its dreadful toll of young brave lives crushed out on the fields of Flanders,—and in the pretty old Manor-house the famous “Deterioration of Language” also went on as relentlessly as the war. Quietly the Sentimentalist performed all her rounds of duty, growing visibly paler and thinner, but making no complaint. Only when she was alone in her bedroom at night and when she looked out of its quaint latticed window at the thick battalions of stars in the dark space, did she weep a little and wonder at the cruelty of men to one another,—at the selfishness of statesmen who make war—and at the solemn silence of that vast Ruling Power to whom all the generations of mankind have in turn appealed in various forms,—apparently in vain! Was it wicked to think that it was “in vain”—she questioned herself? To pursue such an enquiry was futile, for she constantly pictured to herself the helpless, stiffening forms of brave boys stretched out on the sodden battlefield, whose lives might have been the joy and pride of their parents; and in these sad reflections she failed to see anything but the direct injustice, nor could she admit that there was a “divine Providence” in the ordainment of such disaster. She recognised clearly enough that the mischief was the work of man and man only, but in a simple, blind way she would think that if indeed a good God ruled the world He might have stopped it in the beginning. And she prayed to be forgiven if her thought was wrong.

One quiet evening when an unusually glorious sunset had showered its glowing crimson on the river and woods and had shed a warm and tender light on the pile of books and manuscript on the table in Dr. Maynard’s library where he and the Philosopher sat at work, the author of the “Deterioration of Language” showed signs of fatigue and irritation, whereat the Philosopher suggested a break in their studies.

“Let’s talk!” he said, affably, as he assisted in pushing Dr. Maynard’s chair nearer the window from which could be seen a charming peep of the garden. “We’ve done enough hard work for to-day. You’re tired.”

“I’m always tired,” replied the old gentleman, querulously. “This infernal gout is killing me!”

“No doubt!” agreed the Philosopher, suavely. “But it’s doing it quite gently! Twinges of the toe—yes!—of course. Still things might be worse. You might have had cancer!”

“That’s no consolation!” growled old Maynard. “What I might have had doesn’t matter. It’s what I’ve got!”

The distinguished Walter Craig, LL.D., F.S.A., nodded his head blandly.

“My dear fellow, I know that! It’s what you’ve got! True! But we all ‘get’ something, sooner or later, otherwise we should never grow old and never die. The latest science tells us there’s no such thing as ‘natural’ death. We ‘get’ something that is unnatural which forces our exit when we would rather stay where we find ourselves.”

“What do you expect to ‘get’?” Maynard demanded.

“Much the same as yourself,” the Philosopher replied, with smiling equanimity. “Gout. It is an aristocratic illness,—it comes down to one like one’s coat-of-arms. It’s a case of the sins of the fathers. What the fathers did for me I don’t quite know—but they left me their disease in the most generous way. It has not affected me much yet—but it will.”

“It will—you may depend on that!” and Dr. Maynard’s voice had quite a ring of cheerfulness as he spoke. “It never lets go its prey! I fought it off for years—but I’ve had to give in.” Here he peered anxiously through the window across the garden. “I wonder where Sylvia is? She’s always out of the way when I want her!”

The Philosopher glanced at the clock.

“It’s not quite the time for her to return from the Hospital—” he said.

“Hospital? Hospital? It’s always the Hospital! I’m sure I ought to be there, attended to and looked after quite as well as half of those strong young men with a bit of shell in their legs, or an arm off, or something of that kind! Such a fuss about nothing! God bless my soul! In Nelson’s time the fighting fellows cut their own limbs off and stuck their stumps into boiling tar! That was something like hospital stuff! No molly-coddling there!” The old gentleman chuckled with a curiously malevolent pleasure. “But now we have all the girls and women bandaging, poulticing and feeding every young man with a scratch—and the better-looking the young man happens to be, the longer the scratch takes to heal!” Here he chuckled again. “That girl of mine passes nearly all her time at the Hospital—I can’t imagine what she’ll do without it when the war’s over.”

“Ah!” And the Philosopher stroked his moustache meditatively. “Has it ever occurred to you to think what she will do without you when you are over?”

Old Maynard’s face grew suddenly pale, and a cowering fear gleamed in his eyes.

“What do you mean?” he queried half angrily. “I’m not over yet! And I don’t intend to be ‘over’!”

“Good! Quite good!” and the Philosopher smiled amicably. “But—you know—l’homme propose et Dieu dispose! It is always well to prepare for emergencies. I consider that you should make sure of your daughter’s future comfort in this world before you leave it.”

“Future comfort? God bless my soul!” snapped Maynard testily. “Do you suppose I’m a man to neglect the care of my own child? Future comfort? She’ll have everything I possess—and that’s more than anybody knows of I can tell you!”

Craig, F.S.A., LL.D., listened complacently. He was right in his surmise,—the girl would have plenty of money! Plenty of money! He almost smacked his lips as he thought of that friend of his who had secured a “Plum” in the matrimonial orchard—a “Plum” that had “dropped into his mouth with a bang!” Sylvia would not “drop” so—but she might be gathered gently off the parent tree with a careful hand. He thought a little before speaking again. Then he said:

“She’s a charming girl. She ought to marry.”

“Why?” And a twinge of pain caused the old Doctor to make a wry face as he put the question. “Why should she take up a husband to worry her for the rest of her life? She’s perfectly happy as she is.”

The Philosopher assumed a grave and considerate air.

“A woman—especially a pretty woman,” he said, “needs protection and support in this world. Without a man’s care and guardianship she is invariably misjudged, slandered and suspected of some moral drawback—”

“Is she though!” and Dr. Maynard sniffed scornful incredulity. “Nowadays she seems to me to run amok more thoroughly when she’s married than when she’s single! She gets tired of her husband in six months or he gets tired of her—and the whole thing turns out a ghastly failure.”

“You are thinking of extreme cases,” said the Philosopher, mildly. “Yet I presume your own marriage was a success?”

A sudden smile of tenderness gave extraordinary light to the old man’s furrowed countenance.

“It was!” he answered. “But that was in the old days! My wife was ‘old-fashioned.’ Home and love, husband and child were all the world to her—she never wanted anything else, bless her dear heart! Ah! The sunshine has never seemed quite so bright to me since she died.”

The Philosopher was silent for a few minutes. There was a quiet pathos and simplicity in Maynard’s words that had an effect even on the india-rubber toughness of his academic disposition.

“Your daughter is probably like her mother in nature and tastes,” he observed, presently. “And if so, this is all the more reason why she should not be deprived of a life that would be suited to her, apart altogether from the security and status of marriage.”

Maynard grew a trifle restive under the searching gaze of the Philosopher’s eyes seen through rather unbecoming spectacles.

“It’s all very well to talk!” he grumbled. “Who’s to marry the girl? There’s nobody in this village to suit her. They’re all ‘butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers’ here—very small tradesmen all round. There’s the county Squire—he’s a widower with an idiot son who had to be put away in an asylum—and there’s a miserable little curate with a chronic cough. Of course there are a lot of wounded chaps at the Hospital,—mostly Tommies—I don’t think she’s likely to fancy one of them—”

“What about old John Durham?” suddenly suggested the Philosopher, the corners of his moustache going up in a little quizzical smile.

“Old John Durham!” exclaimed Maynard. “Why he might be her grandfather! Now if you had said young John Durham,—Jack—there might be something in it—though he was always a silly ass—but he’s gone—‘missing,’ they say—”

“Dead without a doubt,” said the Philosopher, pleasantly. “Killed in Flanders, quite needlessly. He was not called upon to fight at all—but being an American he was bound to indulge in a bit of braggadocio and offer to do battle for the ‘old country,’ and he’s had his way. It has struck me that his father, being left solitary, might think of marrying again. Rumour says he is a wealthy man—and Sylvia is a little creature who is accustomed to comfort, not to say luxury—”

“Of course she is!” and Dr. Maynard got flushed and excited. “Why shouldn’t she be? She’s always had plenty of money—she’ll always have it! She’s not obliged to marry an old sallow face like Durham to live like a princess if she wants to! God bless my soul, Craig—what are you driving at?”

The Philosopher smiled soothingly.

“My dear fellow, don’t lose your self-control over a trifling suggestion! All I have said is in the way of friendship and—and admiration for your young daughter. I think it would be very sad for her if at some time or other—far distant let us hope!—she were left alone in the world—even with plenty of money—having no one to advise her or to guard her interests. And I repeat that she ought to marry.” Here he paused—then added, “I am very fond of her myself!”

Dr. Maynard turned slowly round in his chair and surveyed him with a fixed stare of wonder.

“You?”

The Philosopher did not flinch.

“Yes. I!”

And then the old gentleman began to laugh,—a deep half-suppressed laugh of thorough enjoyment,—a laugh that shook his shoulders and wrinkled up his eyes in all sorts of curious deep furrows.

“May and December!” he chuckled. “Or December and May! She might as well take old Durham and have done with it!”

The Philosopher maintained equanimity. He smiled,—and as people often noticed, there was something very attractive in his smile,—a flash of youth and humour.

“I think,” he said, mildly, “you would find Sylvia likely to prefer me to old Durham. I think so!—of course I cannot be sure!”

Dr. Maynard lifted himself in his chair, gripping its sides with both hands, and surveyed his friend and literary coadjutor for a couple of minutes in silence.