Love,—and the Philosopher: A Study in Sentiment

“Now look here, Craig,” he said. “You don’t mean to insinuate that my little girl is in love with you? Why, man, she couldn’t be such a fool!”

The Philosopher winced, and Maynard went on rather heatedly.

“She’s a clever child and would make a good wife for a clever man, but you’re too clever! Too obstinate—too ‘set’ in your own way—and you’re too old to change your habits. You’re a splendid scholar, but you’re deep in the ruts of learning—no wife could ever pull you out! You’ve no sentiment—and Sylvia is all sentiment from head to heels!—full of fancies and romantic notions. You’d have to be young to understand her—and I don’t believe you ever were young!”

“Thank you!” murmured the Philosopher. “Let us drop the subject! I spoke in a friendly desire to ease your mind of a possible anxiety as to your daughter’s future,—with me as a husband and protector she would be safely guarded—”

“And happy?” There was a slight tremor in Maynard’s voice as he put the question. “Would she be happy?”

“If she were not it would be her own fault,” answered the Philosopher. “I should do my best to make her so. But let us say no more of it!”

He took up a book and turned it over with apparently sudden interest. Dr. Maynard looked at him, and a twinge of the gout affected him unpleasantly. He tried to picture the learned Walter Craig as his son-in-law,—but somehow failed in the effort. And yet!—Craig was a man of distinctive ability and reputation—he had his own special literary “clique” who called him “a Master,” and his position in the world of letters was unassailable—numbers of people were proud to know him. His wife—if he had a wife—would occupy a position of honour and some dignity. But Sylvia!—little Sylvia as Mrs. Walter Craig!—Even the compiler of “The Deterioriation of Language” could not forbear a passing thought as to “The Deterioration of a Woman’s Life!” He fidgeted on his chair and cast an appealing glance at the Philosopher.

“Craig,” he faltered, nervously, “I believe you are thinking that I may die any time—”

“My good fellow, of course you may!” blandly replied the Philosopher. “And so may I. My gout is not so ripe and well advanced as yours, but as Shakespeare’s Mercutio observed, ‘’Twill serve!’ Should it finish you off before me your daughter will be left comparatively unprotected. She has no relatives, so you once told me, but a divorced aunt. A divorced aunt is hardly a suitable companion. Now if I become her husband she at once steps to a platform of safety, and I can look after her till my own time comes; she will be then old enough and experienced enough to manage her own affairs.”

Maynard listened, with something of a distressed foreboding in his mind. There was truth, harsh truth, and cold reason in the Philosopher’s plain view of the possible circumstances—but, at the same time a cloud of depression darkened the poor old scholar’s soul. Almost he could have whimpered, like a hurt child. At last he summoned up a show of resolution.

“Have you ever spoken to Sylvia on—on—this subject?” he asked, tremulously.

“Never!” And the Philosopher assumed a truly “noble” aspect. “Can you imagine it! I should not dream of doing so without your permission.”

The old Doctor sighed.

“Thank you!” he said, meekly.

A pause ensued.

Then came the sound of a light step on the gravel path outside the window, and both men looked through the vista of shrubs and flowers to see the Sentimentalist returning from her hospital work. She moved quickly, checking the wild gambols of a rough Airedale terrier to whom her presence was the acme of all earthly bliss,—but there was a little indefinable air of lassitude and fatigue about her which had not been any part of her aspect before the “silly ass” Jack Durham was known to be “missing.” Her father looked at her wistfully as she went past the window; then suddenly laid his hand on the Philosopher’s arm.

“I want her to be happy!” he said, pathetically. “She is a sensitive little creature! I want her to be loved and understood! There are too many wretched martyrs of married life in the world!—Heaven forbid the child should be one of them! But—if she has any affection for you—(it would be very strange!)—but if she has, I won’t stand in the way! You must find it out for yourself,—you can speak to her if you like, and put all the pros and cons before her. No one can beat you at that sort of thing! Tell her she’ll be lonesome when her old Dad dies”—he paused to swallow a lump in his throat—“and that you’ll try to take his place! Tell her that you will love her and make a pet of her!—that she’ll never hear a word of unkindness—tell her you love her now—that is, if you do! A woman will do anything to be loved!—it’s the nature of the creature. I should never have thought that you could love anybody!—but the strangest things happen oftenest—and the notion of your falling in love with my girl is one of those strangest things! I have said—and I repeat it—I won’t stand in the way!”

The Philosopher shrank a little from the pressure of his friend’s hand on his arm. Maynard was taking too sentimental a view of the case—much too sentimental a view! Because he had not really “fallen in love” with Sylvia—such a notion was absurd! quite absurd as applied to him, the Philosopher. Nevertheless he recognised the futility of argument on so delicate a matter, especially as he had gained his point in so far that he had permission to speak to Sylvia. He hummed and hawed a little—his ugly cough threatened explosion, but he restrained it.

“Thanks very much!” he said, reservedly. “You must not over-rate my—my—sense of attraction for—or attachment to—your daughter. My emotions are well under control—and when I speak to her on what I consider this very vital subject I shall take care to ground my approach on a strong basis of reason as well as—as affection. I am not in the flush of youth—”

“No, that you’re not!” interpolated Dr. Maynard, with a shake of his head. “That’s a rosy colour we’ve both done with!”

“I am not in the flush of youth,” repeated the Philosopher, laboriously. “But I have experience, patience and sound common sense. And from all I hear and read, it seems to me that these are valuable attributes in a husband. They are seldom evidenced by a wife. Wherefore I argue that a man possessing experience, patience and common sense is the proper guardian for a charming but inexperienced woman whose errors are all on the side of sentiment. Pretty sentiment—delightful sentiment!—still Sentiment—and Sentiment is a dangerous guide—”

“Well, leave it at that!” said Dr. Maynard,—and a whimsical smile brightened his worn features. “Leave it at that! It won’t guide you anywhere too fast or too far!”

CHAPTER XI

SUNDAY was always the pleasantest day in the week for the Sentimentalist. She loved the peace of it,—the hush that seemed to fall on all the traffic and business of the world,—the slow, soft chiming of the village church bells at the morning and afternoon hours of service, and the comparative respite from her work at the hospital, which she never attended on Sundays, except when, moved by her own sympathies, she went to read to the wounded for an hour or so, or write letters for them to their homes. But, for the most part she spent the day at home, after attending church in the morning, devoting herself chiefly to her father, with whom she chatted cheerfully on the smaller affairs of the time, avoiding as much as possible all distressful subjects, and almost allowing him to think with the old farmer in “Punch”—“There ain’t no war!” She generally found time on this “holy” day to run down to the quaint old cottage rented by John Durham for his pet “sport” of fishing, and see for herself how “Jack’s father” was getting on, for it pained her beyond all words to notice his “broken” air, and the evident mental suffering he was undergoing, though he bravely repressed all outward sign of it. Concerning the Philosopher she troubled herself little. She had convinced herself that he was of that singularly strong and leathery constitution which is the frequent accompaniment of all persons who are well seasoned in selfishness, and that he required no particular attention beyond what he was an adept in securing for himself. So long as he was a companionable literary assistant to her father she had nothing to say either for or against him, albeit she was disappointed that her former notions concerning him as a distinguished writer and would-be instructor of less advanced mankind, were hopelessly dispelled. Sometimes she turned for reference to one or two books he had written,—books that were admired by press “cliques” and pushed into the reluctant notice of the public without any successful result,—and she marvelled at the lofty utterances and didactic phrases which inculcated so much, from the pen of a man who never attempted to practise what he preached. And her meditations on this incongruity generally ended in a little shake of her fair head and a whimsical smile at her own folly for having imagined—once upon a time!—that such a man could have a heart for the sorrows or joys of his fellow-men.

Sunday, as already stated, was her peaceful day;—her “stay-at-home” day, when she allowed herself some rest,—when, if the weather was fine, she would sit in the garden among the roses—the very roses where “Jack” was accustomed to look for some special bud which he thought fitting for the adornment of the “rose-lady,” and where the Philosopher had scratched his hand, to the imminent danger (according to his own diagnosis) of blood-poisoning. Just now the pretty “bosquet” was a sad place—there were no roses out, and though the sun shone, the wind was cold. Nevertheless she went there with a book, moved to distract her thoughts from sickness and wounds and death, if only for a brief interval. From the window of the drawing-room the Philosopher saw her,—and, first of all filling his pipe and putting a box of matches in his pocket, strolled slowly out to make her aware of his presence. He was in an agreeable mood, and his smile was a pleasant one.

“You are reading,” he said. “Am I in the way?”

She looked up.

“Oh, no!” she replied, gently. “I am not reading seriously—it is only what I call a ‘peep-in’ book.”

He took it from her hand.

“Verse, I see!” he remarked. “Selections from the productions of various verse-mongers. Well!... and you ‘peep in’ at the general show! Not a bad expression that!—a ‘peep-in’ book. Most books merit no more than a ‘peep-in.’” Here he turned over the pages. “Dear, dear! It is astonishing that so much rhymed rubbish still goes on being printed! Dear, dear!

Bulwer’s twaddle!—Lytton Bulwer or Bulwer Lytton! Curious person!—How he could reconcile his conscience to rhyming ‘ever’ with ‘river’ I cannot imagine! And of course his soul didn’t ‘rush in tumult’ to any one. He was the worst husband in the world,—Rosina Lady Lytton led a miserable life with him.”

Sentimentalist Sylvia smiled.

“I quite believe it!” she said. “Poets are all the same—they write about love because they don’t feel it. If they felt it, they couldn’t write about it.”

“Wise child!” And the Philosopher, with his most attractively kindly glance, closed the book and returned it to her. “You really say very apt things now and then!”

She was silent.

“It’s not a very pleasant day for sitting out in the garden with a book,” he went on. “Especially a book of verse. A book of verse demands rather more sunshine and a less chilly wind. Don’t you think so?”

She looked up and was pleasantly conscious of the agreeable smile which at times made him appear almost handsome.

“I haven’t thought about it,” she said. “I just came out for a little rest in the fresh air—”

“Ah, yes!—you are tired!—I can see that!” he remarked. “You do too much altogether, too much at the Hospital to begin with, and you add to your burdens by rushing down to see that old gentleman at his cottage who can very well look after himself—I mean Mr. Durham, who follows the pursuit of Izaak Walton. Why not leave him to the gods and little fishes?”

He smiled again, and spying a garden chair, brought it to her side and sat down upon it.

“Why not,” he repeated affably, “leave him to the gods and little fishes? He is not an attractive person,—and he is quite likely to occupy your time more than he should. Perhaps you imagine him to be ailing in some way—but from his general physical contour I should say he is tough as leather—tougher, possibly. He’s the perfect type of a tanned and dried American,—self-preserved in a thick dollar hide!”

A swift flush of colour swept over Sylvia’s fair face.

“You mistake him,” she said, gently. “Indeed you do! He has a very warm heart, and he is always ready to do good wherever he can. People think he is rich,—but he isn’t really.”

“Oh! You think he isn’t really?” The Philosopher pulled out his pipe and match box. “He isn’t really! Now—how do you know he isn’t?”

The Sentimentalist hesitated.

“His son told me so,” she said, at last.

There was a pause while the Philosopher lit his pipe.

“Well! A son seldom knows his father’s affairs,” he said, “not if the father is a wise man! And I should say old Durham was very wise,—almost cunning! That is, if I am anything of a judge of character.”

The pretty Sylvia looked at him sideways, wondering whether he considered himself such a “judge.” He had all the air of a clever man, and just at the moment his rather worn features had an expression of benevolence and kindly interest which rendered them more than usually pleasing.

“He can be quite nice and charming if he likes,” she thought. “But how seldom he does like!”

“I should not wonder,” resumed the Philosopher, “if he were to marry.”

Sylvia laughed.

“Marry? Mr. Durham?—What an impossible idea!”

“Nothing is impossible,” said the Philosopher, “to a man if he makes up his mind. Americans in particular are notorious for their habit of doing so-called ‘impossible’ things. From rolling over Niagara Falls in a barrel to reaching the moon by rocket, they assert and assume capability for creating and overcoming difficulties. In affairs of marriage they tie and untie the knot with a celerity which can only be compared to the skill of the Davenport brothers. You have heard of those worthies? They used to allow themselves to be bound hand and foot inside a cupboard—members of their audience would tie the cords in the most frightfully exhausting manner,—and then when they had been fastened up as tightly as possible and the cupboard shut upon them, in one minute they stepped out untied and at liberty. An American marriage is just like that,—you take your man and woman, tie them up and shut them in a cupboard—and lo!—before you know where you are they have stepped out, separated and free! Amazingly clever!—and one can seldom see how the trick is done!”

The Sentimentalist was amused.

“All that may be very true,” she said, “but it has nothing to do with poor old Mr. Durham. The idea of his marrying! Whatever put such a thing into your head?”

“Common sense and reason combined,” replied the Philosopher, blandly. “I do not want to touch upon a painful subject—but Mr. Durham is at the present time conscious of solitude,—loneliness—”

“Ah, yes!” sighed Sylvia. “He is very lonely.”

“Exactly! Now loneliness, though welcome and desirable to a man of intellectual ability, is not always so to persons whose intelligence appears limited to the sport of fishing. It is possible to grow weary of rod and line if nothing else presents itself on the mental horizon. Even the crazed creatures who play golf or tennis all day and every day do so in a certain radius of companionship. Mr. Durham appears to have no acquaintances except your father and yourself.”

Sylvia thought a moment.

“No,—he is rather mistrustful of society,” she said, at last. “I have often heard him say he would rather have no friends at all than pretended ones. He is very blunt—and he hates anybody or anything that seems insincere or hypocritical.”

Walter Craig, F.S.A., took to his favourite amusement of puffing round O’s in smoke from his mouth as he enjoyed his pipe.

“Well, then, very naturally he is left to himself,” he said, “because there are no human beings in the world who are sincere,—nobody can afford to be honest. To satisfy social convention you must be a hypocrite. Otherwise you get yourself disliked.”

She gave a little shrug of her shoulders.

“Does it matter?”

“To get yourself disliked? Well, that depends upon circumstances. Some people get on all the better for being disliked—others do not. For instance, I am a plain-dealing man,—I speak the brutal truth,—therefore I am disliked.”

She laughed a little.

“Oh, how can you say so? Have you not often told me that you are amusing and clever, and that you are sought after because you can tell good stories and are witty?”

He puffed out a very large and successful O.

“Have I told you as much as that? All about myself? Dear me!” He seemed blandly surprised. “I have really gone very far in my confidences! But I don’t retract. I am amusing,—when I like. No one can be more so. I am never dull. Occasionally I am sleepy—that is, when I am bored. I find myself in that condition when Mr. Durham is here. I am never at my best in his company.”

“I’m sorry!” said the Sentimentalist, gently. “He is really such a kind old man!”

The philosopher nodded tolerantly.

“Naturally! To you he would appear a kind old man. To me kind old men no longer appeal. I have nothing to give them. I shake my head at them and say ‘Go away.’”

She smiled.

“You really are very funny!” she said. “Nothing seems quite to please you!”

“Why, no!—of course not!” he rejoined. “To be ‘quite’ pleased at anything, or with anybody, implies a bovine spirit—a kind of animal chewing-of-the-cud—which eliminates the brain and is concentrated on the stomach. I was never of that disposition. As for the kind old man, Durham, I am certainly not ‘quite’ pleased with him because I consider him too ‘quite’ pleased with you!”

She started and the book of verse she held fell from her hand.

“With me?” she exclaimed.

He stooped to pick up the book, and returned it to her.

“With you,” he repeated. “I will not say that his ‘soul rushes ever in tumult to thee,’ because I imagine his soul has long ago done with tumult—but I think he is very fond of you.”

She suddenly perceived his drift, and her expression grew cold, with a touch of hauteur.

“I hope he is!” she said, quietly. “I wish him to be fond of me!”

The Philosopher felt himself to be on rather dangerous ground.

“Do you, really?” he murmured placidly. “Well! I’m sure your wish is realised!” He paused—then, with an elephantine effort at playfulness he added, “After all, who would not be fond of you! Even I am fond of you!”

She laughed merrily.

“Even!” she echoed. “Even you!”

“It’s a great concession for me to make—” he said, slowly—and his whimsical smile lighted up his whole face in an attractive manner. “But I make it freely! I find you a very lovable, charming little lady—wilful certainly, yet not unpleasantly so. Sometimes you and I have disagreed—have nearly quarrelled, in fact—but this has given zest to my feelings, and deepened your own charm. Dear me! My pipe has gone out!” He fumbled for his matches, found them, and re-lit his malodorous briar. “Yes—er!—what was I saying?—Deepened your own charm,—yes!—quite true. Therefore you must not be surprised if I rather object to your wasting so much of your sweetness on the desert air,—the desert air being a figure of speech for the dry and dusty personality of Mr. Durham,—and find him distinctly in the way.”

A mischievous twinkle sparkled in Sylvia’s eyes. She pointed a small finger at him.

“You are jealous!” she said.

“Jealous?” He ruminated. “You think so? I have never, to my knowledge, experienced the sensation,—but you may be right! It would be curious and—er—interesting! You may perhaps recall that once—once upon a time—in this very garden—you asked me if I would like you to marry Jack Durham,—and I believe I answered, ‘Not just yet.’ You were very kind to me in those days—much kinder than you are now. I suppose you had not perceived my bad points. Anyhow, when I said ‘Not just yet’—as applied to young Durham, I would say the same again, only more emphatically, with regard to old Durham—”

She rose from her chair amazed.

“Mr. Craig!” Her voice thrilled with vexation and hurt. “How can you imagine—”

“That old Durham might wish to marry you and leave you the vast fortune he is rumoured to possess?” finished the Philosopher, placidly. “Nothing more natural and simple, his son being dead—”

She put up her hands to her ears.

“No,” she exclaimed, with quick intensity. “He is not dead! I am sure of it! Please do not say that word again!”

“I will not if you find it objectionable—” he said, gently. “But here again you allow your sentiment to run away with you. You imagine—or let us say you hope for, news that you are not likely to hear. I am—yes, I admit I am rather surprised that you concern yourself so much with that ‘missing’ young man.”

She said nothing.

“Anyway,” he resumed with a patiently resigned air, “you must own that Papa Durham is very attentive, and there is no doubt he is extremely fond of you. I also am very attentive—surely you notice that?—and I am very fond of you too!—so really you have nothing to complain of. Now, have you?”

A little wistful smile quivered on her lips.

“No!” she answered. “I should be sorry to complain.”

“That’s right! You know”—here he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and prepared to fill it afresh—“you know—or you might try to understand that I really want to be nice to you—”

Her eyes sparkled mischievously.

“Do you? Really and truly?”

“Of course I do! Naturally I have my own ways of being nice; and they are not like the ways of ordinary people. I have seen life, and I know that it is rather difficult to live it,—with satisfaction to one’s self. For a solitary man it is hard,—but for a solitary woman it is harder.”

“Yes?” There was the slightest inflection of doubt in her voice as she put the query.

“Yes? Certainly, yes! Very much yes! A woman alone in the world occupies a perplexing and awkward position,—people don’t know what to make of her;—she is an anomaly,—neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring. Her solitude implies that she has either left some man or been left by him—there’s no alternative—not in the opinion of society.”

“Poor society!” she said. “Its opinion is always very stupid and erroneous—not worth considering. I have heard you say so often.”

“True!” He stroked his moustache thoughtfully with one hand, holding his pipe in the other and gazing at it as though it were a long way off. “But a literary man—a scholar—may say and may think things which do not meet with general acceptance. He can defy convention,—a woman cannot. Now, suppose you are left alone in the world, have you ever thought what you are going to do with yourself?”

She looked startled—the colour rushed to her face, then ebbed away, leaving her very pale.

“You mean—if Dad should die,” she said, in a low, sad tone. “No—I have never thought—I do not want to think—”

“So like a woman!” declared the Philosopher, almost triumphantly. “Doesn’t want to think! Of course not! But you should think! You should always be ready for any event—any disagreeable emergency—”

“Are you?” she asked.

He was for a moment taken a little aback.

“I—I think so,” he answered, slowly. “I generally prepare my way to a goal of some sort and foresee possible obstacles—”

Suddenly, much to his surprise, she laughed—one of her prettiest little laughs, clear and sweet as a silver bell.

“I quite understand!” she said, while enchanting little dimples of mirth danced about her cheeks and chin. “You are preparing your way now, and you foresee possible obstacles! Yes!—you know you do! You are just wonderful!—and I want to be nice to you just as you want to be nice to me! But”—here she laid a little soft white hand on the amazed Philosopher’s coat-sleeve—“we won’t go on with it just at present, will we? There’s not any time! Dad will be expecting me to give him his medicine—and then—then I have other things to do!” Her bright face was radiant with its happy smile. “But I’m sure you mean to be kind and pleasant,—and—and—oh, do take ever so long preparing your way!—you must, you know!—in case—in case you should overlook some obstacle that might upset you very much!”

Here she rose from her garden-chair, holding the condemned “book of verse” close to her breast. “It might be ‘the flight of a river’—or a ‘soul tumult’!—who can tell—!”

He stopped her light “badinage” with a look, and in a sudden masterful manner, laid his hands on hers.

“You are playing!” he said. “And you can play as long as you like. I don’t mind! But I happen—for once in my life—to be in earnest! However—as you don’t wish it—we will not go on with the subject—shall we call it the ‘prep’? just now. It can wait. I can wait! We will return to it another day!”

He released her hands and stood aside to let her pass. She looked up at him in something of wonder, not unmixed with a novel sense of admiration. Being “in earnest” had given him quite a new expression,—some of the grim furrows in his face had for the moment disappeared—there was an unwonted light in his eyes, and he smiled—a positively winning smile, thus seeming less of a scholar, but more of a man!

CHAPTER XII

The individual who delivered himself of these oracular remarks was a certain Samuel Rikewood, locally known as “Riverside Sam”—because he was never found elsewhere than on the river or near the river, though up to the present he had escaped being in the river, which was something of a marvel. For he was wont to paddle about in a crazy old wherry, cracked in many places, and apparently out of all balance, looking more like a disused tub than a boat, and with this uneasy craft he wobbled to and fro, offering his services to such stray tourists and visitors who might seek to indulge themselves in the mild and meditative sport of fishing. In the pursuit of his chosen calling and election he made himself useful and necessary to old John Durham, who had grown to like him for the quaintness of his speech and bluntness of his manner, while “Riverside Sam” had in his turn “taken to the American man” as he expressed it, and more especially since sorrow had struck him in the uncertainty which the War Office message of “Missing” had created in his mind concerning the fate of his son. Sam had liked the cheery and good-looking young fellow who had humoured his father’s whims, showing himself always ready to fall in with his plans whatever they were, whether for fishing or taking long, rambling walks over hill and dale, and in his unexpressive way was honestly grieved at the loss of the bright boyish spirit which had brightened the dullest day, and with all his heart pitied the old man left lonely.

“It’s a bit ’ard,” he said, on one occasion, “to ’ave to go an’ die for one’s own country, but when ye gits blowed to bits for a country which ain’t yours it’s ’arder still. Now Mister Jack ’adn’t no orders to go—”

John Durham raised his hand with a silencing gesture.

“Yes, he had, Sam!” he answered. “He had orders from his own brave soul and conscience. Yes,—I knew that! And, Sam!—let me tell you this!—if you once get that kind of orders you cannot—you dare not—disobey them!”

Sam looked faintly surprised and by no means convinced. He returned doggedly to the point.

“’Merriker ’adn’t no business to come in,” he said. “’Merriker’s got enough to do with her own affairs. Why, I knows a chap that went out to ’Merriker an’ got naturalised, so he shouldn’t ’ave to fight!—an’ he’s divorced his wife that’s over ’ere an’ ain’t done nothin’ to deserve it an’ he’s livin’ the life of a free Injun with a blanket an’ a tub, an’ as many wimin as he can take on! Catch ’im fightin’!”

Durham smiled.

“Well! I suppose he’s happy in his own way,” he said. “And after all, Sam, happiness is what every man is after. It’s a kind of fly-fishing—you think you’ve got something at the end of your line, but when you pull in you find nothing! But we go on fishing all our lives long. It often seems rather a useless business!”

He sighed and passed his hand through his grey hair. Sam looked at him sympathetically.

“It do, sir, it do!” he agreed. “And there’s worse troubles than either you or I ’ave ’ad to put up with. There’s a pal o’ mine in the village wot is stiff as a poker with rheumaticks an’ ’is wife’s gone off it in a ’sylum—yet he was as straight an’ smart as you make ’em, an’ she was the merriest lass alive once on a time! Some of us do get it ’ot from the Almighty! nor knows we the reason why! That’s wot beats me! If the Lord would be pleased to speak a bit an’ say, ‘Look ’ere, Sam, you’re a no-good anyway an’ once or twice you’ve been as drunk as a profiteer an’ I’m goin’ to punish ye for all ye’re worth!’ why then I’d answer ‘Quite right too!’—an’ suffer the worst willin’ an’ joyful—but when you ain’t done nothin’ as you knows on, an’ ye gits beat black an’ blue, it’s a bit perplexin’. Perplexin’s the word—that it is now!”

Durham sighed again, and watched his garrulous companion draw in the fishing-boat to shore and fasten it to the moss-green and rickety stump which served as a sort of anchorage near his cottage. He was beginning to find his favourite sport monotonous, and his rather wearied mind was stimulated by a sudden thrill of excitement when “Riverside Sam” went on slowly:

“There’s that little lady up yonder at the Manor frettin’ ’er ’art out an’ makin’ ’er eyes red with cryin’ on the quiet, an’ we all knows wot it’s for though ’tain’t our place to say wot we thinks. But you knows as well as I knows wot’s the trouble! Ah, he wor a fine-lookin’ lad!—there, don’t mind me, sir!—I’m sorry I spoke if it ’urts ye, onny I can’t abide to think o’ that pretty soul ’avin’ to marry the old clever chap with a pipe wot’s always ’angin’ round old Doctor Maynard—”

“God bless me!” ejaculated Durham with amazing vivacity. “He marry her! Impossible! Preposterous! Where did you hear such a thing mentioned?”

Sam straightened himself and stood up in the boat he was pushing to shore.

“I ain’t heard nothing mentioned,” he said. “I onny puts two an’ two together an’ makes ’em four. T’other day the old chap comes down to the river edge an’ he sez, ‘Good-mornin’, Sam!’ ‘Good-mornin’,’ sez I. ‘Are you married?’ sez he. ‘I am,’ sez I. ‘An’ do you like it?’ sez he. ‘Wal, if I don’t like it now I never will,’ sez I. ‘I’ve been married these forty year.’ That seemed to puzzle an’ bother ’im a bit for ’e sucked at ’is pipe like a baby at its bottle, an’ ’e sez, ‘That’s a long time, Sam!’ I sez ‘It is, sir!’ ‘If I was to marry now,’ sez ’e, ‘I couldn’t manage forty year—I shouldn’t live so long.’ ‘That’s right!’ sez I. ‘So if you’re goin’ to do it you’d better lose no time!’ That seemed to strike ’im, an’ ’e stood thinkin’—then he sez, ‘All right, Sam!—I’ll take your advice!’ an’ off ’e went.”

“Well, well!” said John Durham impatiently. “All this has nothing to do with Miss Maynard—”

Sam shut up one filmy eye knowingly.

“Don’t ye be too sure o’ that!” he chuckled. “There’s onny one little bird on the ground wheer ’e is, an’ she’s worth ’avin’ a shot at! Lor’, sir! the old boys are as darin’ in matrimony as the young—more so, I’m thinkin’, special when there’s a bit of money about!”

Durham took in all this rambling talk with no real conviction, yet with a certain sense of uneasiness. Before a couple of hours had passed he started to worry himself over a number of possibilities. He knew well enough that his son—the blithe young fellow now marked as “Missing” had been deeply in love with Sylvia Maynard, and though, he, as the lad’s father, had said nothing for or against the pretty love-idyll which he saw expanding under his eyes, in his own heart he approved of it, and rejoiced that his son’s choice had fallen upon so sweet and dainty a flower of pure maidenhood. And the idea that the distinguished and erudite scholar, Walter Craig, F.S.A., LL.D., should actually entertain, even remotely, matrimonial intentions towards this selected “pearl of price” irritated him almost beyond endurance.

“I’ll speak to Maynard about it!” he resolved. “Obsessed as he is by his dictionary craze, I’ll make him give me his attention. He can’t be altogether such an old fool as to allow his only child’s life and happiness to be spoiled by such a marriage as this would be. Poor child! What a destiny for her! I’d ... yes!... I’d rather marry her myself!”

And, strengthened by this reflection, he took the earliest opportunity of paying an afternoon call on Dr. Maynard on a day when he happened to hear that the Philosopher had gone to London on one of his occasional expeditions to visit his publishers.

He found the old gentleman rather tired, rather irritable, and in a despondent humour generally, and therefore more or less pleased to see him as one to whom he could talk freely.

“It’s very good of you to come,” he said, as he rose from his chair and shook hands. “I’m all alone to-day,—that is, until Sylvia comes in. Craig is in town.”

“Ah!” commented Durham, gruffly. “Why don’t he stay there?”

Dr. Maynard looked a trifle uneasy and embarrassed, but answered nothing.

“Why don’t he stay there?” Durham repeated, with increased asperity. “That book of yours on ‘The Deterioration of Language’ ought to have been done with months ago,—only he won’t let it be done with! He’s a human sponge,—that’s what he is. You’re paying him for his work—”

“Not as much as he could demand if he liked,” interrupted the old Doctor, quickly. “He’s really giving me the benefit of his great scholarship for a mere song in regard to terms—I couldn’t afford to pay him his just price,—the price he could get anywhere—”

“But you throw in food and lodging,” said Durham. “Food of the best and lodging of the greatest comfort. You also throw in the companionship of your pretty daughter and allow him to make love to her!”

“I don’t!... I don’t!” exclaimed Maynard, excitedly. “I know he admires the child—”

“You bet he does!” and Durham wrinkled up his forehead in a saturnine frown. “And also admires the house she lives in and the fortune you are likely to leave her! You bet! He wasn’t made a sponge for nothing. His business is to soak up things. He has soaked up enough learning; and now he wants to soak up a few creature comforts for his old age! Maynard, keep your eyes open!”

“I do, I do!” exclaimed the poor old scholar, in evident distress. “But I can’t help it if Craig falls in love with the girl, can I?”

“Falls in love? He? That pragmatical, self-conscious, learned prig! He couldn’t fall in love if he tried—I don’t suppose he ever has tried, not even when he was young, if he ever was young! I could do the business better myself!”

Maynard sank back in his chair, amazed.

“You!” he murmured, faintly. “You! God bless my soul!”

Durham’s small, steely, grey eyes sparkled with a monkeyish glitter.

“Well, what now?” he demanded. “Why do you cry out ‘God bless my soul’ as if I had sent a bullet through you? I say I could do the falling in love business better than Craig—”

Dr. Maynard lifted a hand and pointed a shaking finger at him.

“That’s just what Craig told me!” he faltered. “And he said you were doing it!”

“He did, did he?” and Durham’s rather sallow countenance reddened. “Damn his impudence!”

Old Maynard looked at him protestingly.

“Don’t—don’t be violent!” he said, anxiously. “It’s bad for you! We are both old men—”

“And don’t we know it?” snapped out Durham raspily. “But we needn’t dwell on the fact! There’s a third old man who is older than either of us—”

“Not in years, if you mean Craig,” put in Maynard. “He is considered—and he considers himself—in the prime of life.”

Durham laughed—a little cross, crackling laugh.

“‘A violet in the youth of primy nature,’ I suppose!” he said. “Now, look here, Maynard! Putting all nonsense aside, do you really mean to make a miserable martyr of your daughter—your only child—by marrying her to Professor Craig?”

A little smile, half pathetic, half humorous lifted the wrinkles round the old Doctor’s eyes.

“You’d rather marry her yourself, wouldn’t you?” he said gently. “Just—for Jack’s sake!”

Impulsively Durham’s hand fell on that of Maynard—and they gripped together in a clasp more eloquent than words. Then Durham spoke in a voice which he tried to keep steady, but which now and then trembled in spite of himself.

“For Jack’s sake,” he said, “I would do a great deal! I thought it all out last night. I was always a bit hard on the boy—drove him with a bearing rein—but he never complained. I’m sorry now! I know he just worshipped your girl—and if I could save her from that old Dry-as-Dust, I’d marry her and keep her sacred like an angel in a shrine till—till Jack comes home! A sort of marriage by proxy, you know! And then—when he returns, I could easily make myself scarce—get out of the way quietly—no publicity—no fuss—just a little dose—and a long go-to-bye-bye—”

“My dear old fellow!” exclaimed Maynard, deeply moved. “Don’t talk that way! You’ve been worrying yourself, and you’re unnerved! I tell you what!—I think we are two old fools together,—in this matter we are forgetting the girl herself—Sylvia. We are disposing of her as if she had no will of her own! But I give you my word she’s not disposed of so easily! Let things take their course! She’s no more likely to marry Craig than you! Not a bit of it! God bless my soul! I don’t think I’m altogether finished yet—and I, too, have a will of my own!—”

“Have you?” interposed Durham, with a touch of cynicism, yet smiling a little. “And—if you have, do you exert it?”

“Well, well! Perhaps not, perhaps not! Perhaps I’m rather bound hand and foot by the gout—but I’m quite capable of making an effort should necessity arise. Just now, believe me, there’s no necessity. If Craig were to propose to my girl she’d refuse him point-blank. I shouldn’t mind his trying his luck....”

“You wouldn’t mind?” echoed Durham, indignantly. “You’d let him make love to her?”

A twinkling smile lit up Maynard’s old eyes.

“He couldn’t make love!” he answered. “He wouldn’t know how! And I’d let him try, because he’d make such a fool of himself! And Sylvia is the very girl to show him his folly and take the conceit out of him! That would do him good! Clever as he is there’s no doubt he’s conceited. It wouldn’t hurt him to put his pride down a peg or two!”

“Maynard,” said Durham, solemnly, “you might as soon detach the bones from a live herring as get the conceit out of that Professor of yours! Why, man, his self-satisfaction is his life!—his blood, his veins, his marrow!—and if he proposed to your girl and she refused him, it would make no more effect on him than the pressure of a finger-nail on a fossil! He would merely say that she is a fool, and he the wise man and hero of a lucky escape!”

Dr. Maynard laughed. The conversation with his American friend had roused and amused him—his interest was awakened by the movement of the little romance playing round the attractive personality of his pretty daughter, and he felt brighter, better and younger (because less absorbed in himself) than he had for many a long day.

“Very likely you are right!” he said. “We’ll leave it all at that—and—to Sylvia! She’ll settle the matter better than either you or I! And I—I—think she was fond of your son Jack!”

“Is fond,” corrected Durham. “Not was—is!”

“Is!” agreed Maynard, gently. “And if she is fond of Jack she’s not likely to change her mind—in his absence.”

Durham looked at him steadily.

“That’s true!” he said. “She’s a loyal little soul—she’s not likely to change. Not likely! Unless—”

“Unless—we will not speculate on unless!” said Maynard cheerfully. “We will hope for the best—and leave things as they are for the present—to God!—and to Sylvia!”

CHAPTER XIII

AND now the Sentimentalist became, unconsciously to herself, the central figure of a curious little drama, wherein three elderly gentlemen were the active performers, with a mystic Shadow in the background,—the shadow of a personality which, though considered as “Missing,” nevertheless remained a vital part of the play. A dreary autumn and still drearier winter had passed, and spring half-tearful, half-smiling had begun to dress the trees in tiny rosette-buds of green,—some early mating thrushes were piping their joyous love-notes among the growing greenness of copse and hedge,—and with these signs of hope came rumours of the speedy ending of the long and wicked war in a victory for England and her Allies. “Too good to be true,” was the verdict of the pessimists on these flying reports; but they had the effect of cheering depressed people and awakening renewed heart for fresh effort. Old Dr. Maynard had become wonderfully alert and vivacious of late,—his gout troubled him less, and his famous “Deterioration of Language” was positively nearing completion. Fewer wounded arrived at the V.A.D. Hospital where Sylvia gave her services, and she had much more time on her hands than she cared to have, owing to the fact that whenever he perceived her alone and at leisure the Philosopher, like the fatuous hero of “The Children of the Forest,” that ancient novel he despised, “pursued her” and seemed to consider that whenever she had nothing else to do she was bound to talk to him, or at least to allow him to talk to her. And he noticed, with a certain odd self-congratulation, that she avoided him,—quite gently, but no less decisively. He thought he knew why, and flattered himself singularly on what he imagined to be his discovery.

“She is just a little frightened,” he said to himself. “Quite natural—quite proper! It’s much better that a woman should be timid about a proposal of marriage than that she should hurl herself at it like a bull in a china shop! I can’t say she is encouraging—she doesn’t lead me on—in fact she rather puts me off! But that’s so like a woman!—always doing the very reverse of what she wishes to do!”

So he argued, in the spirit of that profound masculine egotism which is the heritage of every “lord of creation,” whether it be the rowdy of a motor char-à-bancs, or the self-contained intellectual of University honours and degrees. Every man grown to manhood is confident that he understands women,—absolutely confident even when, among his peers, he declares them to be incomprehensible. Of his power to please and subdue them he never has a doubt. The fallacy is inherited from the days of pre-historic savagery, and savagery is not by any means yet overcome by civilisation.

One rather chilly evening, when despite the melodious assurances of a thrush singing outside the window, one felt that a nip of winter had returned to provoke the sweet temper of the spring, the Philosopher found the Sentimentalist nestled in a chair by a sparkling fire in the cosy drawing-room, peacefully working at a dainty strip of floral embroidery. A branch of wild roses was visibly blossoming under the swift manipulation of her little white fingers, and the glitter of her tiny gold thimble flashed like the gleam of the sun on the growing flowers. She made a pretty picture as she sat, the flames of the fire now and again touching into more vivid colour the warm amber of her hair and the pale blue of her dress,—she was always a pretty picture, but somehow on this particular evening the Philosopher thought she made a prettier one than usual. As he approached she looked up and smiled,—she did not rise and go away as had been rather her habit of late. This was an encouraging sign,—and yet, strange to say, the distinguished man of letters became suddenly and uncomfortably conscious of “nerves.” With an effort he mastered them, and selecting an easy chair which he had frequently tried before and found satisfactory, he drew it and himself up to the fire and stretched out his legs with a sigh of deep content.

“Heigh-ho!” and he turned the sigh into something of a yawn. “This is very comfortable! There’s a detestable east wind whizzing round the house—nothing like an east wind for prying into every corner—and it’s much pleasanter inside than out. This room is the very abode of comfort!—an ‘interior’ of perfect domestic bliss!”

The pretty smile deepened and dimpled round the kissable mouth of the Sentimentalist but she said nothing. Her needle twinkled faster among the wild roses she embroidered.

“Your father seems wonderfully better,” pursued the Philosopher, thoughtfully. “He is much more mentally keen and observant. He takes greater interest in things that are purely mundane.”

She looked up.

“I’m so glad!” she said. “Poor, dear Dad! He was really too taken up with ‘The Deterioration of Language’—don’t you think so? I mean, he seemed to treat it too seriously!—because, after all, it doesn’t very much matter!”

“Doesn’t it?” The Philosopher gave her an amused, half-tolerant glance. “Not perhaps in your opinion! But you are a woman—and young—and your ideas are necessarily limited. You see nothing to deplore in the breaking-down of fine forms of speech—which are really as necessary to the status of a people as fine forms of conduct and manner—”

She stopped her sewing and listened, needle in hand.

“Fine forms of conduct and manner,” he proceeded, with an academical air. “The inroads of slang upon the splendid English used by our forefathers are rather like the vulgar rush of noisy, half-tipsy folk into a beautiful garden full of well-kept trees and flowers. Dr. Maynard is quite right in his views.”

“Oh, yes, I am sure of that!” said Sylvia quickly and eagerly. “But do you really think it is any use for him to teach, or try to teach people these higher views of life and language when they all show so plainly that they don’t want to learn?”

He bent his brows kindly upon her, with a smile.

“Well, if you come to that,” he answered. “Nothing is of any use! Neither language nor literature! I’m sorry to state the fact, but fact it is. Civilisation itself is no use. History will convince you of that. What has become of Babylon, Nineveh, Thebes? They all had language and literature doubtless,—no use! You see? If once you begin to question the uses of any learning you run up against the blank wall of positive negation!”

She looked up.

“Ah, that is only your way of looking at it!” she said. “It is your philosophy!”

“It is every man’s philosophy if he is a philosopher at all,” he replied. “Nothing can alter facts—facts which are proven and plain. A bit of Egyptian papyrus scrawled with hieroglyphs speaks more eloquently for ‘The Deterioration of Language’ than a thousand of our printed volumes.”

She drew a quick little sigh.

“Oh, dear me!” she murmured. “It is all very sad! In your outlook on life nothing seems good or commendable! What’s the good of living at all!”

He turned towards her, his eyes twinkling with unusual pleasantness.

“Dear child, I often ask myself that question!” he said. “And as yet I have found no answer. None of us asked to be born! Had I been consulted I should certainly have declined the honour! But there are certain compensations afforded us for the trouble of existence,—as I told you once before, we are allowed to experience pleasurable sensations which we call by pretty names—such as idealism, patriotism, conscience, honour, friendship, and—and love. I suppose”—here he hesitated—“I suppose love is really the most agreeable sensation of all! You remember when you quoted some lines of Keats to me on one occasion, you seemed to think so!”

“I think so still,” she replied, softly.

“I’m sure you do! You are unchanged in your sentiment—and for yourself it is a pity! But you are a woman, and it cannot be helped! Women overdo sentiment altogether—they live on it! A mistake—and yet—”

He stopped abruptly.

She looked at him.

“And yet?” she suggested.

“And yet? Well, I was about to say I should not like a woman without sentiment. For example,—if I had any sentiment for her, I should wish her to have sentiment for me!”

She laughed softly.

“Why, of course! Naturally!”

He moved a little uneasily.

“Do you think it at all possible?”

“What?”

“For a woman to have sentiment for me?”

A pretty rose-flush coloured her cheeks.

“When you are your best self, yes! Certainly!” she said with a quick frankness. “But when you are your worst self, no!”

He smiled,—he was amused.

“You can say that to every human being,” he averred. “I can say it to you! When you are on level ground, sweetly normal, you are a most engaging little lady—but when you are on your high horse—well, well! But after all, you seldom take a very long prance on that tall quadruped!”

Her blue eyes flashed,—but she made no reply.

“You object to any mention of the high horse?” he said, and his voice had a kind tone that was almost irresistible. Turning her head towards him she could not help smiling,—he had one of his attractive moods on, and his features, always intellectual, were softened and made almost good-looking by an expression of tender solicitude seldom seen upon them.

“I object to nothing you wish to say,” she answered, gently.

“How charming of you! Ah!” and he sighed. “If that were always the case—if it were only true!”

He broke off. His heart was not given to inordinate fluttering, but he felt it distinctly fluttering just then. He waited a couple of minutes to recover himself. She had resumed her swift sewing, and her little gold thimble flashed to and fro like a tiny star. The logs in the bright fire crackled and sparkled,—one of them falling into a brilliant flame. He straightened himself in his chair, and, as it were, pulled himself together.

“Returning to the subject of your father’s important work,” he said, slowly, “I think it will soon be finished.”

“Really!” she exclaimed. “How glad I shall be!”

“Will you? Yes—I suppose you will! But—I shall be sorry!”

She paused in her sewing and looked at him kindly.

“It’s nice of you to say so,” she said. “For I’m sure you must have been tired of it often! And tired of us, too! We must seem so monotonous to a clever man like you!”

He considered this observation with a thoughtful air,—then smiled.

“No,” he averred, with an air of tolerance. “No. Strange to say, though I find most things monotonous I have not found you so!” Here he laughed quite pleasantly. “Dear child, whatever your faults, sameness is not one of them! You are as variable—as—as an English summer!”

Her eyes sparkled merrily.

“Thanks ever so much!” she said. “I should hate to be always in one humour!”

“It would be dull—undoubtedly it would be dull!” admitted the Philosopher. “Safe certainly—but dull! Unalterable good temper,—what? It might be trying! After about a year of it, one might welcome a little flash—just a leetle flash of anger!”

He paused. She said nothing. Presently he resumed.

“Yes—you are very variable! Yet—at the same time you are equable. That sounds very paradoxical, doesn’t it?”

“Perhaps it does!” she admitted.

“A paradox is that which though appearing to be contradictory is nevertheless true,” he continued, amicably. “And according to that definition I myself am a paradox.”

She laughed.

“Are you?”

“I think so! I am very generally misunderstood. Even you misunderstand me.”

She laid down her work and looked at him.

“Do I? Oh, I am very sorry!”

He gave a little nervous cough.

“Thank you! I do not suppose you can help yourself—all women judge by appearances. I am not an Adonis—never was,—and I’m getting old—and I confess to an irritability of temper occasionally—”

Her tenderly sympathetic nature sprang up at once to defend him against his own indictment.

“Oh, but you are not often disagreeable!” she said, in the frankest manner. “You can be perfectly charming if you like! When you first came to stay with us and help Dad I thought you a perfectly delightful man!—so brilliant and companionable!”

“Ah, those were in the early days!” he said, with a sigh. “The golden days of first acquaintance! You were very kind to me then,—though we had our little differences! But you didn’t mind helping me to light my pipe,—do you remember?—and once we had a pleasant walk across the fields. And you talked a great deal about love—”

“That was before the war!” she interposed.

“Before the war? Of course—certainly! Everything worth having was before the war,—love, hope, confidence—before the war—the world was better to live in before the war. I grant you all that! We can, if we feel disposed to be poetical, look back and see a happy garden of Eden in England before the war—but now the gates are closed and a sword turns every way forbidding re-entrance!”

“Ah, you do think that!” she said.

“Naturally I do. And naturally I must. It does not actually surprise me, for war is a devastator of minds and morals. You thought me very harsh and unsympathetic at the time war was declared—and I know you considered me unpatriotic. Well, if it is unpatriotic to dislike the idea of men being slaughtered like animals in a meat-packer’s factory all for the pleasure of rival governments I am unpatriotic, and glory in the fact! I have no sentiment on these matters. The waving of a flag does not excite me—I don’t think any man should fight for any other man. Let each one manage his own business.”

She was silent.

“You don’t like my point of view?” he queried, after a pause.

“I think you have a great deal of right and sense on your side,” she said, slowly. “But if nations did not fight for their existence where would they be?”

“They would settle down,” said the Philosopher, complacently. “Believe me they would settle down! It’s all a repetition of the Cain and Abel story—one brother is jealous of the other and commits murder. Why should such a precedent be maintained?”

“Why, indeed?” she murmured.

“We were all happy enough and contented enough before the war,” pursued the Philosopher. “And we were immoral enough. If the war was intended to punish us for our immorality, it has failed in effect, for we are much more immoral now.”

She began to work again at her embroidery, keeping her eyes bent upon it. The Philosopher did not pursue the theme he had started; in some subtle way he was made aware that immorality was not a subject on which to engage the attention of the Sentimentalist. There are very few men who, in the presence of real purity and refinement expressed in a woman’s personality, do not hesitate to bring forward topics which however reasonable, are at the same time questionable in taste. With a mannish, smoking woman the Philosopher would have swung into brilliant diatribes concerning sex and its demands, but with this sweet, composed, dainty little lady of sentiment, he was not sure of his ground, especially in the immediate state of his own emotions. Emotions? Had he any? It seemed so,—anyway he was beginning to feel as if he had.

“Yes,” he said, deliberately. “You were very kind to me before the war. Before the war I scratched my hand among your rose-bushes, and you—you kissed the place and made it well! You may forget that generous action—”

“Oh, no!” she interrupted, laughingly. “I remember it! I would do it again!”

He straightened himself in his chair with an abrupt movement.

“You would? You would do it again?”

“Of course I would! Why shouldn’t I? Especially if you were frightened, and thought you were going to be blood-poisoned!”

He regarded her with a smile.

“I was not frightened!” he said. “I did not think I was going to be blood-poisoned! I’m not such a fool! I only wanted you to be—to be—”

Her eyes sparkled a trifle mischievously.

“To be—to be—what?” she asked.

“Kind to me!”

“Well, and was I not kind?”

“You were! And I want you to be kind to me now!”

She looked at him half-timidly, half-warningly.

“And am I not so?”

“You are—you are!” and the erudite Walter Craig, F.S.A., became all at once confused, and felt an extraordinary furnace-like heat flushing his face. “But—but—but not quite kind enough! I want you to be kinder—I want you to—to—”

She dropped her embroidery suddenly, and rising came over to him in the prettiest way imaginable and knelt beside him like a child asking a favour.

“I know—I know!” she said, softly and coaxingly. “But don’t say what you want!—like a good, kind man, don’t say it!”

His eyes opened wide in amazement. He stooped towards her and took her hand in his own.

“Don’t say it?” he echoed. “Why—why shouldn’t I say it?”

Her sweet face lightened with an expression of tenderness, regret and sympathy all commingled.

“Because it’s so much better not to!” she declared. “You are such a clever, clever man!—and I’m such a silly little woman!—but all the same let us be friends! Oh, you know what I mean!”

Yes, he knew! And his heart gave a big “dunt” in his chest, of nervous disappointment and chagrin, yet—with those frank blue eyes looking trustfully into his own, he could but respond to their confidence. He pressed the little hand he held more closely and smiled. As already hinted, his smile was particularly attractive, and just now with a touch of pathos in it was more so than ever.

“I think I do!” he replied. “But I don’t like ‘hedging.’ I’m a bit of a coward in most things,—but when the worst comes to the worst or the best to the best, I’d rather face the music than run away. I know what I want; and you know what I want. I want to marry you!”

There was a tense pause. She still knelt at his feet,—still looked sweetly up into his face, but she said nothing.

“And,” he continued, steadily, “you don’t want to marry me! There! It’s all out! Isn’t it?”

She smiled.

“Not quite!” she said. “I do know you want to marry me—and—when I first knew you—I rather fancied—yes!—I thought I should like to marry you!”

“You did?—you did?” he exclaimed, a wave of extraordinary youthfulness sweeping over him.

She held up a small warning finger.

“Yes, I did!” she averred. “You seemed so clever—and so kind! But—but—when the kindness was lost in the cleverness—then—then I thought differently!”

He withdrew his hand from hers, and a shadow darkened his features.

“You see,” she went on, in gentle coaxing accents, “when you first came here to help Dad, you were charming!—yes, perfectly charming! And I took you for walks to all the pretty places about here, and we got on so well together that I used to say to myself, what an honour it would be if such a brilliant man were to care enough for me to marry me! Yes, I really did! But when, little by little, you dropped the ‘company manners’ as children say, and showed me another side altogether, I felt then that you were too brilliant!—too clever to be always kind to a silly little woman like myself whose ‘sentiment’ always outruns her brains. And I—I think”—her voice sank softly—“that in marriage kindliness is better than cleverness.”

He did not speak. She ventured to touch his hand in a caressing way as a child might do.

“I like you very much still!” she said. “I don’t mind your sarcasm as much as I did—and when you say rough things I try to forget them. But if I were married to you I don’t think I could forget them! They would hurt! And when you are sarcastic you can be very rude! Yes, indeed! And I would not be able to stand that either! Because, as you have often said, I ‘overdo the sentiment,’ and if I loved you, and you were unkind, I should be utterly miserable! So what a fortunate thing it is that I don’t love you and wouldn’t marry you for all the world!—and that I just ‘like’ you, and admire you as a very, very clever man! For so we can always be the best of friends!”