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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/461-h.zip b/461-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..29de5b1 --- /dev/null +++ b/461-h.zip diff --git a/461-h/461-h.htm b/461-h/461-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6d97875 --- /dev/null +++ b/461-h/461-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8814 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of The Quest of the Golden Girl, +by Richard le Gallienne +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.finis { text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Quest of the Golden Girl, by Richard le Gallienne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Quest of the Golden Girl + +Author: Richard le Gallienne + +Posting Date: September 13, 2008 [EBook #461] +Release Date: March, 1996 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN GIRL *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Keller. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN GIRL +</H1> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +A ROMANCE +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +RICHARD LE GALLIENNE +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> + TO<BR> + PRIOR AND LOUISE CHRISTIAN,<BR> + WITH AFFECTION.<BR> +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK I +</H3> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="100%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%">CHAPTER</TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="90%"> </TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0101">AN OLD HOUSE AND ITS BACHELOR</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0102">IN WHICH I DECIDE TO GO ON PILGRIMAGE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0103">AN INDICTMENT OF SPRING</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0104">IN WHICH I EAT AND DREAM</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0105">CONCERNING THE PERFECT WOMAN, AND THEREFORE CONCERNING ALL FEMININE READERS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0106">IN WHICH THE AUTHOR ANTICIPATES DISCONTENT ON THE PART OF HIS READER</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0107">PRANDIAL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0108">STILL PRANDIAL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0109">THE LEGEND OF HEBE, OR THE HEAVENLY HOUSEMAID</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0110">AGAIN ON FOOT-THE GIRLS THAT NEVER CAN BE MINE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0111">AN OLD MAN OF THE HILLS, AND THE SCHOOLMASTER'S STORY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0112">THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GIPSIES</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0113">A STRANGE WEDDING</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0114">THE MYSTERIOUS PETTICOAT</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0115">STILL OCCUPIED WITH THE PETTICOAT</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0116">CLEARS UP MY MYSTERIOUS BEHAVIOUR OF THE LAST CHAPTER</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0117">THE NAME UPON THE PETTICOAT</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0118">IN WHICH THE NAME OF A GREAT POET IS CRIED OUT IN A SOLITARY PLACE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0119">WHY THE STRANGER WOULD NOT LOSE HIS SHELLEY FOR THE WORLD</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK II +</H3> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="100%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="90%"> +<A HREF="#chap0201">IN WHICH I DECIDE TO BE YOUNG AGAIN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0202">AT THE SIGN OF THE SINGING STREAM</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0203">IN WHICH I SAVE A USEFUL LIFE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0204">'T IS OF NICOLETE AND HER BOWER IN THE WILDWOOD</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0205">'T IS OF AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0206">A FAIRY TALE AND ITS FAIRY TAILORS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0207">FROM THE MORNING STAR TO THE MOON</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0208">THE KIND OF THING THAT HAPPENS IN THE MOON</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0209">WRITTEN BY MOONLIGHT</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0210">HOW ONE MAKES LOVE AT THIRTY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0211">HOW ONE PLAYS THE HERO AT THIRTY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0212">IN WHICH I REVIEW MY ACTIONS AND RENEW MY RESOLUTIONS</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK III +</H3> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="100%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="90%"> +<A HREF="#chap0301">IN WHICH I RETURN TO MY RIGHT AGE AND ENCOUNTER A COMMON OBJECT OF THE COUNTRY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0302">IN WHICH I HEAL A BICYCLE AND COME TO THE WHEEL OF PLEASURE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0303">TWO TOWN MICE AT A COUNTRY INN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0304">MARRIAGE A LA MODE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0305">CONCERNING THE HAVEN OF YELLOW SANDS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0306">THE MOORLAND OF THE APOCALYPSE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0307">"COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS!"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0308">THE TWELVE GOLDEN-HAIRED BAR-MAIDS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0309">SYLVIA JOY</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0310">IN WHICH ONCE MORE I BECOME OCCUPIED IN MY OWN AFFAIRS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0311">"THE HOUR FOR WHICH THE YEARS FOR WHICH I DID SIGH"</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0312">AT THE CAFE DE LA PAIX</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0313">THE INNOCENCE OF PARIS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0314">END OF BOOK THREE</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE POSTSCRIPT TO A PILGRIMAGE +</H3> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="100%"> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="10%">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="90%"> +<A HREF="#chap0401">SIX YEARS AFTER</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0402">GRACE O' GOD</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap0403">THE GOLDEN GIRL</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Gennem de Mange til En! +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0101"></A> +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK I +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AN OLD HOUSE AND ITS BACHELOR +</H3> + +<P> +When the knell of my thirtieth birthday sounded, I suddenly realised, +with a desolate feeling at the heart, that I was alone in the world. +It was true I had many and good friends, and I was blessed with +interests and occupations which I had often declared sufficient to +satisfy any not too exacting human being. Moreover, a small but +sufficient competency was mine, allowing me reasonable comforts, and +the luxuries of a small but choice library, and a small but choice +garden. These heavenly blessings had seemed mere than enough for +nearly five years, during which the good sister and I had kept house +together, leading a life of tranquil happy days. Friends and books and +flowers! It was, we said, a good world, and I, simpleton,—pretty and +dainty as Margaret was,—deemed it would go on forever. But, alas! one +day came a Faust into our garden,—a good Faust, with no friend +Mephistopheles,—and took Margaret from me. It is but a month since +they were married, and the rice still lingers in the crevices of the +pathway down to the quaint old iron-work gate. Yes! they have gone off +to spend their honeymoon, and Margaret has written to me twice to say +how happy they are together in the Hesperides. Dear happiness! +Selfish, indeed, were he who would envy you one petal of that wonderful +rose—Rosa Mundi—God has given you to gather. +</P> + +<P> +But, all the same, the reader will admit that it must be lonely for me, +and not another sister left to take pity on me, all somewhere happily +settled down in the Fortunate Isles. +</P> + +<P> +Poor lonely old house! do you, too, miss the light step of your +mistress? No longer shall her little silken figure flit up and down +your quiet staircases, no more deck out your silent rooms with flowers, +humming the while some happy little song. +</P> + +<P> +The little piano is dumb night after night, its candles unlighted, and +there is no one to play Chopin to us now as the day dies, and the +shadows stoop out of their corners to listen in vain. Old house, old +house! We are alone, quite alone,—there is no mistake about +that,—and the soul has gone out of both of us. And as for the garden, +there is no company there; that is loneliest of all. The very sunlight +looks desolation, falling through the thick-blossoming apple-trees as +through the chinks and crevices of deserted Egyptian cities. +</P> + +<P> +While as for the books—well, never talk to me again about the +companionship of books! For just when one needs them most of all they +seem suddenly to have grown dull and unsympathetic, not a word of +comfort, not a charm anywhere in them to make us forget the slow-moving +hours; whereas, when Margaret was here—but it is of no use to say any +more! Everything was quite different when Margaret was here: that is +enough. Margaret has gone away to the Fortunate Isles. Of course +she'll come to see us now and again; but it won't be the same thing. +Yes! old echoing silent House of Joy that is Gone, we are quite alone. +Now, what is to be done? +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0102"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH I DECIDE TO GO ON PILGRIMAGE +</H3> + +<P> +Though I have this bad habit of soliloquising, and indeed am absurd +enough to attempt conversation with a house, yet the reader must +realise from the beginning that I am still quite a young man. I talked +a little just now as though I were an octogenarian. Actually, as I +said, I am but just gone thirty, and I may reasonably regard life, as +the saying is, all before me. I was a little down-hearted when I wrote +yesterday. Besides, I wrote at the end of the afternoon, a melancholy +time. The morning is the time to write. We are all—that is, those of +us who sleep well—optimists in the morning. And the world is sad +enough without our writing books to make it sadder. The rest of this +book, I promise you, shall be written of a morning. This book! oh, +yes, I forgot!—I am going to write a book. A book about what? Well, +that must be as God wills. But listen! As I lay in bed this morning +between sleeping and waking, an idea came riding on a sunbeam into my +room,—a mad, whimsical idea, but one that suits my mood; and put +briefly, it is this: how is it that I, a not unpresentable young man, a +man not without accomplishments or experience, should have gone all +these years without finding that +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Not impossible she<BR> + Who shall command my heart and me,"—<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +without meeting at some turning of the way the mystical Golden +Girl,—without, in short, finding a wife? +</P> + +<P> +"Then," suggested the idea, with a blush for its own absurdity, "why +not go on pilgrimage and seek her? I don't believe you'll find her. +She isn't usually found after thirty. But you'll no doubt have good +fun by the way, and fall in with many pleasant adventures." +</P> + +<P> +"A brave idea, indeed!" I cried. "By Heaven, I will take stick and +knapsack and walk right away from my own front door, right away where +the road leads, and see what happens." And now, if the reader please, +we will make a start. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0103"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AN INDICTMENT OF SPRING +</H3> + +<P> +"Marry! an odd adventure!" I said to myself, as I stepped along in the +spring morning air; for, being a pilgrim, I was involuntarily in a +mediaeval frame of mind, and "Marry! an odd adventure!" came to my lips +as though I had been one of that famous company that once started from +the Tabard on a day in spring. +</P> + +<P> +It had been the spring, it will be remembered, that had prompted them +to go on pilgrimage; and me, too, the spring was filling with strange, +undefinable longings, and though I flattered myself that I had set out +in pursuance of a definitely taken resolve, I had really no more +freedom in the matter than the children who followed at the heels of +the mad piper. +</P> + +<P> +A mad piper, indeed, this spring, with his wonderful lying music,—ever +lying, yet ever convincing, for when was Spring known to keep his word? +Yet year after year we give eager belief to his promises. He may have +consistently broken them for fifty years, yet this year he will keep +them. This year the dream will come true, the ship come home. This +year the very dead we have loved shall come back to us again: for +Spring can even lie like that. There is nothing he will not promise +the poor hungry human heart, with his innocent-looking daisies and +those practised liars the birds. Why, one branch of hawthorn against +the sky promises more than all the summers of time can pay, and a pond +ablaze with yellow lilies awakens such answering splendours and +enchantments in mortal bosoms,—blazons, it would seem, so august a +message from the hidden heart of the world,—that ever afterwards, for +one who has looked upon it, the most fortunate human existence must +seem a disappointment. +</P> + +<P> +So I, too, with the rest of the world, was following in the wake of the +magical music. The lie it was drawing me by is perhaps Spring's oldest, +commonest lie,—the lying promise of the Perfect Woman, the Quite +Impossible She. Who has not dreamed of her,—who that can dream at +all? I suppose that the dreams of our modern youth are entirely +commercial. In the morning of life they are rapt by intoxicating +visions of some great haberdashery business, beckoned to by the +voluptuous enticements of the legal profession, or maybe the Holy Grail +they forswear all else to seek is a snug editorial chair. These quests +and dreams were not for me. Since I was man I have had but one +dream,—namely, Woman. Alas! till this my thirtieth year I have found +only women. No! that is disloyal, disloyal to my First Love; for this +is sadly true,—that we always find the Golden Girl in our first love, +and lose her in our second. +</P> + +<P> +I wonder if the reader would care to hear about my First Love, of whom +I am naturally thinking a good deal this morning, under the +demoralising influences of the fresh air, blue sky, and various birds +and flowers. More potent intoxicants these than any that need licenses +for their purveyance, responsible—see the poets—for no end of human +foolishness. +</P> + +<P> +I was about to tell the story of my First Love, but on second thoughts +I decide not. It will keep, and I feel hungry, and yonder seems a +dingle where I can lie and open my knapsack, eat, drink, and doze among +the sun-flecked shadows. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0104"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH I EAT AND DREAM +</H3> + +<P> +The girl we go to meet is the girl we have met before. I evolved this +sage reflection, as, lost deep down in the green alleys of the dingle, +having fortified the romantic side of my nature with sandwiches and +sherry, I lazily put the question to myself as to what manner of girl I +expected the Golden Girl to be. A man who goes seeking should have +some notion of what he goes out to seek. Had I any ideal by which to +test and measure the damsels of the world who were to pass before my +critical choosing eye? Had I ever met any girl in the past who would +serve approximately as a model,—any girl, in fact, I would very much +like to meet again? I was very sleepy, and while trying to make up my +mind I fell asleep; and lo! the sandwiches and sherry brought me a +dream that I could not but consider of good omen. And this was the +dream. +</P> + +<P> +I thought my quest had brought me into a strange old haunted forest, +and that I had thrown myself down to rest at the gnarled mossy root of +a great oak-tree, while all about me was nought but fantastic shapes +and capricious groups of gold-green bole and bough, wondrous alleys +ending in mysterious coverts, and green lanes of exquisite turf that +seemed to have been laid down in expectation of some milk-white queen +or goddess passing that way. +</P> + +<P> +And so still the forest was you could have heard an acorn drop or a +bird call from one end of it to the other. The exquisite silence was +evidently waiting for the exquisite voice, that presently not so much +broke as mingled with it, like a swan swimming through a lake. +</P> + +<P> +"Whom seek you?" said, or rather sung, a planetary voice right at my +shoulder. But three short unmusical Saxon words, yet it was as though +a mystical strain of music had passed through the wood. +</P> + +<P> +"Whom seek you?" and again the lovely speech flowered upon the +silence, as white water-lilies on the surface of some shaded pool. +</P> + +<P> +"The Golden Girl," I answered simply, turning my head, and looking half +sideways and half upwards; and behold! the tree at whose foot I lay had +opened its rocky side, and in the cleft, like a long lily-bud sliding +from its green sheath, stood a dryad, and my speech failed and my +breath went as I looked upon her beauty, for which mortality has no +simile. Yet was there something about her of the earth-sweetness that +clings even to the loveliest, star-ambitious, earth-born thing. She +was not all immortal, as man is not all mortal. She was the sweetness +of the strength of the oak, the soul born of the sun kissing its green +leaves in the still Memnonian mornings, of moon and stars kissing its +green leaves in the still Trophonian nights. +</P> + +<P> +"The maid you seek," said she, and again she broke the silence like the +moon breaking through the clouds, "what manner of maid is she? For a +maid abides in this wood, maybe it is she whom you seek. Is she but a +lovely face you seek? Is she but a lofty mind? Is she but a beautiful +soul?" +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe she is all these, though no one only, and more besides," I +answered. +</P> + +<P> +"It is well," she replied, "but have you in your heart no image of her +you seek? Else how should you know her should you some day come to meet +her?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have no image of her," I said. "I cannot picture her; but I shall +know her, know her inerrably as these your wood children find out each +other untaught, as the butterfly that has never seen his kindred knows +his painted mate, passing on the wing all others by. Only when the +lark shall mate with the nightingale, and the honey-bee and the +clock-beetle keep house together, shall I wed another maid. Fair maybe +she will not be, though fair to me. Wise maybe she will not be, though +wise to me. For riches I care not, and of her kindred I have no care. +All I know is that just to sit by her will be bliss, just to touch her +bliss, just to hear her speak bliss beyond all mortal telling." +</P> + +<P> +Thereat the Sweetness of the Strength of the Oak smiled upon me and +said,— +</P> + +<P> +"Follow yonder green path till it leads you into a little grassy glade, +where is a crystal well and a hut of woven boughs hard by, and you +shall see her whom you seek." +</P> + +<P> +And as she spoke she faded suddenly, and the side of the oak was once +more as the solid rock. With hot heart I took the green winding path, +and presently came the little grassy glade, and the bubbling crystal +well, and the hut of wattled boughs, and, looking through the open door +of the hut, I saw a lovely girl lying asleep in her golden hair. She +smiled sweetly in her sleep, and stretched out her arms softly, as +though to enfold the dear head of her lover. And, ere I knew, I was +bending over her, and as her sweet breath came and went I whispered: +"Grace o' God, I am here. I have sought you through the world, and +found you at last. Grace o' God, I have come." +</P> + +<P> +And then I thought her great eyes opened, as when the sun sweeps clear +blue spaces in the morning sky. "Flower o' Men," then said she, low +and sweet,—"Flower o' Men, is it you indeed? As you have sought, so +have I waited, waited..." And thereat her arms stole round my neck, +and I awoke, and Grace o' God was suddenly no more than a pretty name +that my dream had given me. +</P> + +<P> +"A pretty dream," said my soul, "though a little boyish for thirty." +"And a most excellent sherry," added my body. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0105"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CONCERNING THE PERFECT WOMAN, AND THEREFORE <BR> +CONCERNING ALL FEMININE READERS +</H3> + +<P> +As I once more got under way, my thoughts slowly loitered back to the +theme which had been occupying them before I dropped asleep. What was +my working hypothesis of the Perfect Woman, towards whom I was thus +leisurely strolling? She might be defined, I reflected, as The Woman +Who Is Worthy Of Us; but the improbability which every healthily +conceited young man must feel of ever finding such a one made the +definition seem a little unserviceable. Or, if you prefer, since we +seem to be dealing with impossibles, we might turn about and more truly +define her as The Woman of Whom We are Worthy, for who dare say that +she exists? If, again, she were defined as the Woman our More +Fortunate Friend Marries, her unapproachableness would rob the +definition of any practical value. Other generalisations proving +equally unprofitable, I began scientifically to consider in detail the +attributes of the supposititious paragon,—attributes of body and mind +and heart. This was soon done; but again, as I thus conned all those +virtues which I was to expect united in one unhappy woman, the result +was still unsatisfying, for I began to perceive that it was really not +perfection that I was in search of. As I added virtue after virtue to +the female monster in my mind, and the result remained still inanimate +and unalluring, I realised that the lack I was conscious of was not any +new perfection, but just one or two honest human imperfections. And +this, try as I would, was just what I could not imagine. +</P> + +<P> +For, if you reflect a moment, you will see that, while it is easy to +choose what virtues we would have our wife possess, it is all but +impossible to imagine those faults we would desire in her, which I +think most lovers would admit add piquancy to the loved one, that +fascinating wayward imperfection which paradoxically makes her perfect. +</P> + +<P> +Faults in the abstract are each and all so uninviting, not to say +alarming, but, associated with certain eyes and hair and tender little +gowns, it is curious how they lose their terrors; and, as with vice in +the poet's image, we end by embracing what we began by dreading. You +see the fault becomes a virtue when it is hers, the treason prospers; +wherefore, no doubt, the impossibility of imagining it. What +particular fault will suit a particular unknown girl is obviously as +difficult to determine as in what colours she will look her best. +</P> + +<P> +So, I say, I plied my brains in vain for that becoming fault. It was +the same whether I considered her beauty, her heart, or her mind. A +charming old Italian writer has laid down the canons of perfect +feminine beauty with much nicety in a delicious discourse, which, as he +delivered it in a sixteenth-century Florentine garden to an audience of +beautiful and noble ladies, an audience not too large to be intimate +and not too small to be embarrassing, it was his delightful good +fortune and privilege to illustrate by pretty and sly references to the +characteristic beauties of the several ladies seated like a ring of +roses around him. Thus he would refer to the shape of Madonna +Lampiada's sumptuous eyelids, and to her shell-like ears, to the +correct length and shape of Madonna Amororrisca's nose, to the lily +tower of Madonna Verdespina's throat; nor would the unabashed old +Florentine shrink from calling attention to the unfairness of Madonna +Selvaggia's covering up her dainty bosom, just as he was about to +discourse upon "those two hills of snow and of roses with two little +crowns of fine rubies on their peaks." How could a man lecture if his +diagrams were going to behave like that! Then, feigning a tiff, he +would close his manuscript, and all the ladies with their birdlike +voices would beseech him with "Oh, no, Messer Firenzuola, please go on +again; it's SO charming!" while, as if by accident, Madonna Selvaggia's +moonlike bosom would once more slip out its heavenly silver, perceiving +which, Messer Firenzuola would open his manuscript again and proceed +with his sweet learning. +</P> + +<P> +Happy Firenzuola! Oh, days that are no more! +</P> + +<P> +By selecting for his illustrations one feature from one lady and +another from another, Messer Firenzuola builds up an ideal of the +Beautiful Woman, which, were she to be possible, would probably be as +faultily faultless as the Perfect Woman, were she possible. +</P> + +<P> +Moreover, much about the same time as Firenzuola was writing, +Botticelli's blonde, angular, retrousse women were breaking every one +of that beauty-master's canons, perfect in beauty none the less; and +lovers then, and perhaps particularly now, have found the perfect +beauty in faces to which Messer Firenzuola would have denied the name +of face at all, by virtue of a quality which indeed he has tabulated, +but which is far too elusive and undefinable, too spiritual for him +truly to have understood,—a quality which nowadays we are tardily +recognising as the first and last of all beauty, either of nature or +art,—the supreme, truly divine, because materialistically +unaccountable, quality of Charm! +</P> + +<P> +"Beauty that makes holy earth and heaven May have faults from head to +feet." +</P> + +<P> +O loveliest and best-loved face that ever hallowed the eyes that now +seek for you in vain! Such was your strange lunar magic, such the +light not even death could dim. And such may be the loveliest and +best-loved face for you who are reading these pages,—faces little +understood on earth because they belong to heaven. +</P> + +<P> +There is indeed only one law of beauty on which we may rely,—that it +invariably breaks all the laws laid down for it by the professors of +aesthetics. All the beauty that has ever been in the world has broken +the laws of all previous beauty, and unwillingly dictated laws to the +beauty that succeeded it,—laws which that beauty has no less +spiritedly broken, to prove in turn dictator to its successor. +</P> + +<P> +The immortal sculptors, painters, and poets have always done exactly +what their critics forbade them to do. The obedient in art are always +the forgotten. +</P> + +<P> +Likewise beautiful women have always been a law unto themselves. Who +could have prophesied in what way any of these inspired law-breakers +would break the law, what new type of perfect imperfection they would +create? +</P> + +<P> +So we return to the Perfect Woman, having gained this much knowledge of +her,—that her perfection is nothing more or less than her unique, +individual, charming imperfection, and that she is simply the woman we +love and who is fool enough to love us. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0106"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH THE AUTHOR ANTICIPATES DISCONTENT<BR>ON THE PART OF HIS READER +</H3> + +<P> +"But come," I imagine some reader complaining, "isn't it high time for +something to happen?" No doubt it is, but what am I to do? I am no +less discontented. Is it not even more to my interest than to the +reader's for something to happen? Here have I been tramping along +since breakfast-time, and now it is late in the afternoon, but never a +feather of her dove's wings, never a flutter of her angel's robes have +I seen. It is disheartening, for one naturally expects to find +anything we seek a few minutes after starting out to seek it, and I +confess that I expected to find my golden mistress within a very few +hours of leaving home. However, had that been the case, there would +have been no story, as the novelists say, and I trust, as he goes on, +the reader may feel with me that that would have been a pity. Besides, +with that prevision given to an author, I am strongly of opinion that +something will happen before long. And if the worst comes to the +worst, there is always that story of my First Love wherewith to fill +the time. Meanwhile I am approaching a decorative old Surrey town, +little more than a cluster of ripe old inns, to one of which I have +much pleasure in inviting the reader to dinner. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0107"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PRANDIAL +</H3> + +<P> +Dinner! +</P> + +<P> +Is there a more beautiful word in the language? +</P> + +<P> +Dinner! +</P> + +<P> +Let the beautiful word come as a refrain to and fro this chapter. +</P> + +<P> +Dinner! +</P> + +<P> +Just eating and drinking, nothing more, but so much! +</P> + +<P> +Drinking, indeed, has had its laureates. Yet would I offer my mite of +prose in its honour. And when I say "drinking," I speak not of +smuggled gin or of brandy bottles held fiercely by the neck till they +are empty. +</P> + +<P> +Nay, but of that lonely glass in the social solitude of the +tavern,—alone, but not alone, for the glass is sure to bring a dream +to bear it company, and it is a poor dream that cannot raise a song. +And what greater felicity than to be alone in a tavern with your last +new song, just born and yet still a tingling part of you. +</P> + +<P> +Drinking has indeed been sung, but why, I have heard it asked, have we +no "Eating Songs?"—for eating is, surely, a fine pleasure. Many +practise it already, and it is becoming more general every day. +</P> + +<P> +I speak not of the finicking joy of the gourmet, but the joy of an +honest appetite in ecstasy, the elemental joy of absorbing quantities +of fresh simple food,—mere roast lamb, new potatoes, and peas of +living green. +</P> + +<P> +It is, indeed, an absorbing pleasure. It needs all our attention. You +must eat as you kiss, so exacting are the joys of the mouth,—talking, +for example. The quiet eye may be allowed to participate, and +sometimes the ear, where the music is played upon a violin, and that a +Stradivarius. A well-kept lawn, with six-hundred-years-old cedars and +a twenty-feet yew hedge, will add distinction to the meal. Nor should +one ever eat without a seventeenth-century poet in an old yellow-leaved +edition upon the table, not to be read, of course, any more than the +flowers are to be eaten, but just to make music of association very +softly to our thoughts. +</P> + +<P> +Some diners have wine too upon the table, and in the pauses of thinking +what a divine mystery dinner is, they eat. +</P> + +<P> +For dinner IS a mystery,—a mystery of which even the greatest chef +knows but little, as a poet knows not, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "with all his lore,<BR> + Wherefore he sang,<BR> + or whence the mandate sped."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Even our digestion is governed by angels," said Blake; and if you will +resist the trivial inclination to substitute "bad angels," is there +really any greater mystery than the process by which beef is turned +into brains, and beer into beauty? Every beautiful woman we see has +been made out of beefsteaks. It is a solemn thought,—and the finest +poem that was ever written came out of a grey pulpy mass such as we +make brain sauce of. +</P> + +<P> +And with these grave thoughts for grace let us sit down to dinner. +</P> + +<P> +Dinner! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0108"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +STILL PRANDIAL +</H3> + +<P> +What wine shall we have? I confess I am no judge of wines, except when +they are bad. To-night I feel inclined to allow my choice to be +directed by sentiment; and as we are on so pretty a pilgrimage, would +it not be appropriate to drink Liebfraumilch? +</P> + +<P> +Hock is full of fancy, and all wines are by their very nature full of +reminiscence, the golden tears and red blood of summers that are gone. +</P> + +<P> +Forgive me, therefore, if I grow reminiscent. Indeed, I fear that the +hour for the story of my First Love has come. But first, notice the +waitress. I confess, whether beautiful or plain,—not too +plain,—women who earn their own living have a peculiar attraction for +me. +</P> + +<P> +I hope the Golden Girl will not turn out to be a duchess. As old +Campion sings,— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "I care not for those ladies<BR> + Who must be wooed and prayed;<BR> + Give me kind Amaryllis,<BR> + The wanton country-maid."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Town-maids too of the same pattern. Whether in town or country, give me +the girls that work. The Girls That Work! But evidently it is high +time woe began a new chapter. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0109"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE LEGEND OF HEBE, OR THE HEAVENLY HOUSEMAID +</H3> + +<P> +Yes, I blush to admit it, my First Love was a housemaid. So was she +known on this dull earth of ours, but in heaven—in the heaven of my +imagination, at all events—she was, of course, a goddess. How she +managed to keep her disguise I never could understand. To me she was so +obviously dea certe. The nimbus was so apparent. Yet no one seemed to +see it but me. I have heard her scolded as though she were any +ordinary earthly housemaid, and I have seen the butcher's boy trying to +flirt with her without a touch of reverence. +</P> + +<P> +Maybe I understood because I saw her in that early hour of the morning +when even the stony Memnon sings, in that mystical light of the young +day when divine exiled things, condemned to rough bondage through the +noon, are for a short magical hour their own celestial selves, their +unearthly glory as yet unhidden by any earthly disguise. +</P> + +<P> +Neither fairies nor fauns, dryads nor nymphs of the forest pools, have +really passed away from the world. You have only to get up early +enough to meet them in the meadows. They rarely venture abroad after +six. All day long they hide in uncouth enchanted forms. They change +maybe to a field of turnips, and I have seen a farmer priding himself +on a flock of sheep that I knew were really a most merry company of +dryads and fauns in disguise. I had but to make the sign of the cross, +sprinkle some holy water upon them, and call them by their sweet secret +names, and the whole rout had been off to the woods, with mad gambol +and song, before the eyes of the astonished farmer. +</P> + +<P> +It was so with Hebe. She was really a little gold-haired blue-eyed +dryad, whose true home was a wild white cherry-tree that grew in some +scattered woodland behind the old country-house of my boyhood. In +spring-time how that naughty tree used to flash its silver nakedness of +blossom for miles across the furze and scattered birches! +</P> + +<P> +I might have known it was Hebe. +</P> + +<P> +Alas! it no longer bares its bosom with so dazzling a prodigality, for +it is many a day since it was uprooted. The little dryad long since +fled away weeping,—fled away, said evil tongues, fled away to the town. +</P> + +<P> +Well do I remember our last meeting. Returning home one evening, I met +her at the lodge-gate hurrying away. Our loves had been discovered, +and my mother had shuddered to think that so pagan a thing had lived so +long in a Christian house. I vowed—ah! what did I not vow?—and then +we stole sadly together to comfort our aching hearts under cover of the +woodland. For the last time the wild cherry-tree bloomed,—wonderful +blossom, glittering with tears, and gloriously radiant with stormy +lights of wild passion and wilder hopes. +</P> + +<P> +My faith lived valiantly till the next spring. It was Hebe who was +faithless. The cherry-tree was dead, for its dryad had gone,—fled, +said evil tongues, fled away to the town! +</P> + +<P> +But as yet, in the time to which my thoughts return, our sweet secret +mornings were known only to ourselves. It was my custom then to rise +early, to read Latin authors,—thanks to Hebe, still unread. I used to +light my fire and make tea for myself, till one rapturous morning I +discovered that Hebe was fond of rising early too, and that she would +like to light my fire and make my tea. After a time she began to +sweeten it for me. And then she would sit on my knee, and we would +translate Catullus together,—into English kisses; for she was +curiously interested in the learned tongue. +</P> + +<P> +How lovely she used to look with the morning sun turning her hair to +golden mist, and dancing in the blue deeps of her eyes; and once when +by chance she had forgotten to fasten her gown, I caught glimpses of a +bosom that was like two happy handfuls of wonderful white cherries... +</P> + +<P> +She wore a marvellous little printed gown. And here I may say that I +have never to this day understood objections which were afterwards +raised against my early attachment to print. The only legitimate +attachment to print stuff, I was told, was to print stuff in the form +of blouse, tennis, or boating costume. Yet, thought I, I would rather +smuggle one of those little print gowns into my berth than all the +silks a sea-faring friend of mine takes the trouble to smuggle from far +Cathay. However, every one to his taste; for me, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + No silken madam, by your leave,<BR> + Though wondrous, wondrous she be,<BR> + Can lure this heart—upon my sleeve—<BR> + From little pink-print Hebe.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +For I found beneath that pretty print such a heart as seldom beats +beneath your satin, warm and wild as a bird's. I used to put my ear to +it sometimes to listen if it beat right. Ah, reader, it was like +putting your ear to the gate of heaven. +</P> + +<P> +And once I made a song for her, which ran like this:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + There grew twin apples high on a bough<BR> + Within an orchard fair;<BR> + The tree was all of gold, I vow,<BR> + And the apples of silver were.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + And whoso kisseth those apples high,<BR> + Who kisseth once is a king,<BR> + Who kisseth twice shall never die,<BR> + Who kisseth thrice—oh, were it I!—<BR> + May ask for anything.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Hebe blushed, and for answer whispered something too sweet to tell. +</P> + +<P> +</P> + +<P> +"Dear little head sunning over with curls," were I to meet you now, +what would happen? Ah! to meet you now were too painfully to measure +the remnant of my youth. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0110"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AGAIN ON FOOT—THE GIRLS THAT NEVER CAN BE MINE +</H3> + +<P> +Next morning I was afoot early, bent on my quest in right good earnest; +for I had a remorseful feeling that I had not been sufficiently +diligent the day before, had spent too much time in dreaming and +moralising, in which opinion I am afraid the reader will agree. +</P> + +<P> +So I was up and out of the town while as yet most of the inhabitants +were in the throes of getting up. Somewhere too SHE, the Golden One, +the White Woman, was drowsily tossing the night-clothes from her limbs +and rubbing her sleepy eyes. William Morris's lovely song came into my +mind,— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + 'And midst them all, perchance, my love<BR> + Is waking, and doth gently move<BR> + And stretch her soft arms out to me,<BR> + Forgetting thousand leagues of sea."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Perhaps she was in the very town I was leaving behind. Perhaps we had +slept within a few houses of each other. Who could tell? +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Looking back at the old town, with its one steep street climbing the +white face of the chalk hill, I remembered what wonderful exotic women +Thomas Hardy had found eating their hearts out behind the windows of +dull country high streets, through which hung waving no banners of +romance, outwardly as unpromising of adventure as the windows of the +town I had left. And then turning my steps across a wide common, which +ran with gorse and whortleberry bushes away on every side to distant +hilly horizons, swarthy with pines, and dotted here and there with +stone granges and white villages, I thought of all the women within +that circle, any one of whom might prove the woman I sought,—from +milkmaids crossing the meadows, their strong shoulders straining with +the weight of heavy pails, to fine ladies dying of ennui in their +country-houses; pretty farmers' daughters surreptitiously reading +novels, and longing for London and "life;" passionate young farmers' +wives already weary of their doltish lords; bright-eyed bar-maids +buried alive in country inns, and wondering "whatever possessed them" +to leave Manchester,—for bar-maids seem always to come from +Manchester,—all longing modestly, said I, to set eyes on a man like +me, a man of romance, a man of feeling, a man, if you like, to run away +with. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +My heart flooded over with tender pity for these poor sweet +women—though perhaps chiefly for my own sad lot in not encountering +them,—and I conceived a great comprehensive love-poem to be entitled +"The Girls that never can be Mine." Perhaps before the end of our tramp +together, I shall have a few verses of it to submit to the elegant +taste of the reader, but at present I have not advanced beyond the +title. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0111"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AN OLD MAN OF THE HILLS, AND THE SCHOOLMASTER'S STORY +</H3> + +<P> +While occupying myself with these no doubt wanton reflections on the +unfair division of opportunities in human life, I was leisurely +crossing the common, and presently I came up with a pedestrian who, +though I had little suspected it as I caught sight of him ahead, was +destined by a kind providence to make more entertaining talk for me in +half an hour than most people provide in a lifetime. +</P> + +<P> +He was an oldish man, turned sixty, one would say, and belonging, to +judge from his dress and general appearance, to what one might call the +upper labouring class. He wore a decent square felt hat, a shabby +respectable overcoat, a workman's knitted waistcoat, and workman's +corduroys, and he carried an umbrella. His upper part might have +belonged to a small well-to-do tradesman, while his lower bore marks of +recent bricklaying. Without its being remarkable, he had what one calls +a good face, somewhat aquiline in character, with a refined forehead +and nose. +</P> + +<P> +His cheeks were shaved, and his whitening beard and moustache were worn +somewhat after the fashion of Charles Dickens. This gave a slight +touch of severity to a face that was full of quiet strength. +</P> + +<P> +Passing the time of day to each other, we were soon in conversation, I +asking him this and that question about the neighbouring country-side, +of which I gathered he was an old inhabitant. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he said presently, "I was the first to put stick or stone on +Whortleberry Common yonder. Fifteen years ago I built my own wood +cottage there, and now I'm rebuilding it of good Surrey stone." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mean that you are building it yourself, with your own hands, no +one to help you?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Not so much as to carry a pail of water," he replied. "I'm my own +contractor, my own carpenter, and my own bricklayer, and I shall be +sixty-seven come Michaelmas," he added, by no means irrelevantly. +</P> + +<P> +There was pride in his voice,—pardonable pride, I thought, for who of +us would not be proud to be able to build his own house from floor to +chimney? +</P> + +<P> +"Sixty-seven,—a man can see and do a good deal in that time," I said, +not flattering myself on the originality of the remark, but desiring to +set him talking. In the country, as elsewhere, we must forego +profundity if we wish to be understood. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir," he said, "I have been about a good deal in my time. I have +seen pretty well all of the world there is to see, and sailed as far as +ship could take me." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed, you have been a sailor too?" +</P> + +<P> +"Twenty-two thousand miles of sea," he continued, without directly +answering my remark. "Yes, Vancouver's about as far as any vessel need +want to go; and then I have caught seals off the coast of Labrador, and +walked my way through the raspberry plains at the back of the White +Mountains." +</P> + +<P> +"Vancouver," "Labrador," "The White Mountains," the very names, thus +casually mentioned on a Surrey heath, seemed full of the sounding sea. +Like talismans they whisked one away to strange lands, across vast +distances of space imagination refused to span. Strange to think that +the shabby little man at my side had them all fast locked, pictures +upon pictures, in his brain, and as we were talking was back again in +goodness knows what remote latitude. +</P> + +<P> +I kept looking at him and saying, "Twenty-two thousand miles of sea! +sixty-seven! and builds his own cottage!" +</P> + +<P> +In addition to all this he had found time to be twenty-one years a +policeman, and to beget and rear successfully twelve children. He was +now, I gathered, living partly on his pension, and spoke of this +daughter married, this daughter in service here, and that daughter in +service there, one son settled in London and another in the States, +with something of a patriarchal pride, with the independent air too of +a man who could honestly say to himself that, with few advantages from +fortune, having had, so to say, to work his passage, every foot and +hour of it, across those twenty-two thousand miles and those +sixty-seven years, he had made a thoroughly creditable job of his life. +</P> + +<P> +As we walked along I caught glimpses in his vivid and ever-varying talk +of the qualities that had made his success possible. They are always +the same qualities! +</P> + +<P> +A little pile of half-hewn stones, the remains of a ruined wall, +scattered by the roadside caught his eye. +</P> + +<P> +"I've seen the time when I wouldn't have left them stones lying out +there," he said, and presently, "Why, God bless you, I've made my own +boots before to-day. Give me the tops and I'll soon rig up a pair +still." +</P> + +<P> +And with all his success, and his evident satisfaction with his lot, +the man was neither a prig nor a teetotaller. He had probably seen too +much of the world to be either. Yet he had, he said, been too busy all +his life to spend much time in public-houses, as we drank a pint of ale +together in the inn which stood at the end of the common. +</P> + +<P> +"No, it's all well enough in its way, but it swallows time," he +remarked. "You see, my wife and I have our own pin at home, and when +I'm a bit tired, I just draw a glass for myself, and smoke a pipe, and +there's no time wasted coming and going, and drinking first with this +and then with the other." +</P> + +<P> +A little way past the inn we came upon a notice-board whereon the lord +of the manor warned all wayfarers against trespassing on the common by +making encampments, lighting fires or cutting firewood thereon, and to +this fortunate circumstance I owe the most interesting story my +companion had to tell. +</P> + +<P> +We had mentioned the lord of the manor as we crossed the common, and +the notice-board brought him once more to the old man's mind. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor gentleman!" he said, pointing to the board as though it was the +lord of the manor himself standing there, "I shouldn't like to have had +the trouble he's had on my shoulders." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed?" I said interrogatively. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you see, sir," he continued, instinctively lowering his voice to +a confidential impressiveness, "he married an actress; a noble lady too +she was, a fine dashing merry lady as ever you saw. All went well for +a time, and then it suddenly got whispered about that she and the +village schoolmaster were meeting each other at nights, in the +meadow-bottom at the end of her own park. It lies over that way,—I +could take you to the very place. The schoolmaster was a noble-looking +young man too, a devil-me-care blade of a fellow, with a turn for +poetry, they said, and a merry man too, and much in request for a song +at The Moonrakers of an evening. Many 's the night I've heard the +windows rattling with the good company gathered round him. Yes, he was +a noble-looking man, a noble-looking man," he repeated wistfully, and +with an evident sympathy for the lovers which, I need hardly say, won +my heart. +</P> + +<P> +"But how, I wonder, did they come to know each other?" I interrupted, +anxious to learn all I could, even if I had to ask stupid questions to +learn it. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, of course, no one can say how these things come about. She was +the lady of the manor and the patroness of his school; and then, as I +say, he was a very noble-looking man, and probably took her fancy; and, +sir, whenever some women set their hearts on a man there's no stopping +them. Have him they will, whatever happens. They can't help it, poor +things! It's just a freak of nature." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, and how was it found out?" I again jogged him. +</P> + +<P> +"One of Sir William's keepers played the spy on them. He spread it all +over the place how he had seen them on moonlight nights sitting +together in the dingle, drinking champagne, and laughing and talking as +merry as you please; and, of course, it came in time to Sir William—" +</P> + +<P> +"You see that green lane there," he broke off, pointing to a romantic +path winding along the heath side; "it was along there he used to go of +a night to meet her after every one was in bed; and when it all came +out there was a regular cartload of bottles found there. The squire +had them all broken up, but the pieces are there to this day. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he again proceeded, "it hit Sir William very hard. He's never +been the same man since." +</P> + +<P> +I am afraid that my sympathies were less with Sir William than better +regulated sympathies would have been. I confess that my imagination +was more occupied with that picture of the two lovers making merry +together in the moonlit dingle. +</P> + +<P> +Is it not, indeed, a fascinating little story, with its piquant +contrasts and its wild love-at-all-costs? And how many such stories +are hidden about the country, lying carelessly in rustic memories, if +one only knew where to find them! +</P> + +<P> +At this point my companion left me, and I—well, I confess that I +retraced my steps to the common and rambled up that green lane, along +which the romantic schoolmaster used to steal in the moonlight to the +warm arms of his love. How eagerly he had trodden the very turf I was +treading,—we never know at what moment we are treading sacred earth! +But for that old man, I had passed along this path without a thrill. +Had I not but an hour ago stood upon this very common, vainly, so it +seemed, invoking the spirits of passion and romance, and the grim old +common had never made a sign. And now I stood in the very dingle where +they had so often and so wildly met; and it was all gone, quite gone +away for ever. The hours that had seemed so real, the kisses that had +seemed like to last for ever, the vows, the tears, all now as if they +had never been, gone on the four winds, lost in the abysses of time and +space. +</P> + +<P> +And to think of all the thousands and thousands of lovers who had loved +no less wildly and tenderly, made sweet these lanes with their vows, +made green these meadows with their feet; and they, too, all gone, +their bright eyes fallen to dust, their sweet voices for ever put to +silence. +</P> + +<P> +To which I would add, for the benefit of the profane, that I sought in +vain for those broken bottles. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0112"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GIPSIES +</H3> + +<P> +I felt lonely after losing my companion, and I met nobody to take his +place. In fact, for a couple of hours I met nothing worth mentioning, +male or female, with the exception of a gipsy caravan, which I suppose +was both; but it was a poor show. Borrow would have blushed for it. In +fact, it is my humble opinion that the gipsies have been overdone, just +as the Alps have been over-climbed. I have no great desire to see +Switzerland, for I am sure the Alps must be greasy with being climbed. +</P> + +<P> +Besides, the Alps and the gipsies, in common with waterfalls and ruined +castles, belong to the ready-made operatic poetry of the world, from +which the last thrill has long since departed. They are, so to say, +public poetry, the public property of the emotions, and no longer touch +the private heart or stir the private imagination. Our fathers felt so +much about them that there is nothing left for us to feel. They are as +a rose whose fragrance has been exhausted by greedy and indiscriminate +smelling. I would rather find a little Surrey common for myself and +idle about it a summer day, with the other geese and donkeys, than +climb the tallest Alp. +</P> + +<P> +Most gipsies are merely tenth-rate provincial companies, travelling +with and villainously travestying Borrow's great pieces of "Lavengro" +and "Romany Rye." Dirty, ill-looking, scowling men; dirty, slovenly, +and wickedly ugly women; children to match, snarling, filthy little +curs, with a ready beggar's whine on occasion. A gipsy encampment +to-day is little more than a moving slum, a scab of squalor on the fair +face of the countryside. +</P> + +<P> +But there was one little trifle of an incident that touched me as I +passed this particular caravan. Evidently one of the vans had come to +grief, and several men of the party were making a great show of +repairing it. After I had run the gauntlet of the begging children, +and was just out of ear-shot of the group, I turned round to survey it +from a distance. It was encamped on a slight rise of the undulating +road, and from where I stood tents and vans and men were clearly +silhouetted against the sky. The road ran through and a little higher +than the encampment, which occupied both sides of it. Presently the +figure of a young man separated itself from the rest, stept up on to +the smooth road, and standing in the middle of it, in an absorbed +attitude, began to make a movement with his hands as though winding +string round a top. That in fact was his occupation, and for the next +five minutes he kept thus winding the cord, flinging the top to the +ground, and intently bending down to catch it on his hand, none of the +others, not even the children, taking the slightest notice of him,—he +entirely alone there with his poor little pleasure. There seemed to me +pathos in his loneliness. Had some one spun the top with him, it would +have vanished; and presently, no doubt at the bidding of an oath I +could not hear, he hurriedly thrust the top into his pocket, and once +more joined the straining group of men. The snatched pleasure must be +put by at the call of reality; the world and its work must rush in upon +his dream. I have often thought about the top and its spinner, as I +have noted the absorbed faces of other people's pleasures in the +streets,—two lovers passing along the crowded Strand with eyes only +for each other; a student deep in his book in the corner of an omnibus; +a young mother glowing over the child in her arms; the wild-eyed +musician dreamily treading on everybody's toes, and begging nobody's +pardon; the pretty little Gaiety Girl hurrying to rehearsal with no +thought but of her own sweet self and whether there will be a letter +from Harry at the stage-door,—yes, if we are alone in our griefs, we +are no less alone in our pleasures. We spin our tops as in an +enchanted circle, and no one sees or heeds save ourselves,—as how +should they with their own tops to spin? Happy indeed is he, who has +his top and cares still to spin it; for to be tired of our tops is to +be tired of life, saith the preacher. +</P> + +<P> +As the young gipsy's little holiday came to an end, I turned with a +sigh upon my way; and here, while still on the subject, may I remark on +the curious fact that probably Borrow has lived and died without a +single gipsy having heard of him, just as the expertest anglers know +nothing of Izaak Walton. +</P> + +<P> +Has the British soldier, one wonders, yet discovered Rudyard Kipling, +or is the Wessex peasant aware of Thomas Hardy? It is odd to think that +the last people to read such authors are the very people they most +concern. For you might spend your life, say, in studying the London +street boy, and write never so movingly and humourously about him, yet +would he never know your name; and though Whitechapel makes novelists, +it does so without knowing it,—makes them to be read in Mayfair,—just +as it never wears the dainty hats and gowns its weary little milliners +and seamstresses make through the day and night. It is Capital and +Labour over again, for in literature also we reap in gladness what +others have sown in tears. +</P> + +<P> +And now, after these admirable reflections, I am about to make such +"art" as I can of another man's tragedy, as will appear in the next +chapter. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0113"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A STRANGE WEDDING +</H3> + +<P> +My moralisings were cut short by my entering a village, and, it being +about the hour of noon, finding myself in the thick of a village +wedding. +</P> + +<P> +Undoubtedly the nicest way to get married is on the sly, and indeed it +is at present becoming quite fashionable. Many young couples of my +acquaintance, who have had no other reason for concealing the fact +beyond their own whim, have thus slipped off without saying a word to +anybody, and returned full-blown housekeepers, with "at home" days of +their own, and everything else like real married people,—for, as said +an old lady to me, "one can never be sure of married people nowadays +unless you have been at the wedding." +</P> + +<P> +My friend George Muncaster, who does everything charmingly different +from any one else, hit upon one of the quaintest plans for his +marriage. It was simple, and some may say prosaic enough. His days +being spent at a great office in the city, he got leave of absence for +a couple of hours, met his wife, went with her to the registrar's, +returned to his office, worked the rest of the day as usual, and then +went to his new home to find his wife and dinner awaiting him,—all +just as it was going to be every night for so many happy years. +Prosaic, you say! Not your idea of poetry, perhaps, but, after a new +and growing fashion in poetry, truly poetic. George Muncaster's +marriage is a type of the new poetry, the poetry of essentials. The old +poetry, as exemplified in the old-fashioned marriage, is a poetry of +externals, and certainly it has the advantage of picturesqueness. +</P> + +<P> +There is perhaps more to be said for it than that. Indeed, if I were +ever to get married, I am at a loss to know which way I should +choose,—George Muncaster's way or the old merry fashion, with the rice +and the old shoes and the orange-blossom. No doubt the old cheery +publicity is a little embarrassing to the two most concerned, and the +old marriage customs, the singing of the bride and bridegroom to their +nuptial couch, the frank jests, the country horse-play, must have +fretted the souls of many a lover before Shelley, who, it will be +remembered, resented the choral celebrations of his Scotch landlord and +friends by appearing at his bedroom door with a brace of pistols. +</P> + +<P> +How like Shelley! The Scotch landlord meant well, we may be sure, and +a very small pinch of humour, or even mere ordinary humanity, as +distinct from humanitarianism, would have taken in the situation. Of +course Shelley's mind was full of the sanctity of the moment, and +indignant that "the hour for which the years did sigh" should thus be +broken in upon by vulgar revelry; but while we may sympathise with his +view, and admit to the full the sacredness, not to say the solemnity, +of the marriage ceremony, yet it is to be hoped that it still retains a +naturally mirthful side, of which such public merriment is but the +crude expression. +</P> + +<P> +With all its sweet and mystical significance, surely the prevailing +feeling in the hearts of bride and bridegroom is, or should be, that of +happiness,—happiness bubbling and dancing, all sunny ripples from +heart to heart. +</P> + +<P> +Surely they can spare a little of it, just one day's sight of it, to a +less happy world,—a world long since married and done for, and with +little happiness in it save the spectacle of other people's happiness. +It is good for us to see happy people, good for the symbols of +happiness to be carried high amidst us on occasion; for if they serve +no other purpose, they inspire in us the hope that we too may some day +be happy, or remind our discontented hearts that we have been. +</P> + +<P> +If it were only for the sake of those quaint old women for whom life +would be entirely robbed of interest were it not for other people's +weddings and funerals, one feels the public ceremony of marriage a sort +of public duty, the happiness tax, so to say, due to the somewhat +impoverished revenues of public happiness. Other forms of happiness +are taxed; why not marriage? +</P> + +<P> +In a village, particularly, two people who robbed the community of its +perquisites in this respect would be looked upon as "enemies of the +people," and their joint life would begin under a social ban which it +would cost much subsequent hospitality to remove. The dramatic +instinct to which the life of towns is necessarily unfavourable, is +kept alive in the country by the smallness of the stage and the fewness +of the actors. A village is an organism, conscious of its several +parts, as a town is not. +</P> + +<P> +In a village everybody is a public man. The great events of his life +are of public as well as private significance, appropriately, +therefore, invested with public ceremonial. Thus used to living in the +public eye, the actors carry off their parts at weddings and other +dramatic ceremonials, with more spirit than is easy to a townsman, who +is naturally made self-conscious by being suddenly called upon to fill +for a day a public position for which he has had no training. That no +doubt is the real reason for the growth of quiet marriages; and the +desire for them, I suspect, comes first from the man, for there are few +women who at heart do not prefer the old histrionic display. +</P> + +<P> +However, the village wedding at which I suddenly found myself a +spectator was, for a village, a singularly quiet one. There was no +bell-ringing, and there were no bridesmaids. The bride drove up quietly +with her father, and there was a subdued note even in the murmur of +recognition which ran along the villagers as they stood in groups near +the church porch. There was an absence of the usual hilarity which +struck me. One might almost have said that there was a quite ominous +silence. +</P> + +<P> +Seating myself in a corner of the transept where I could see all and be +little seen, I with the rest awaited the coming of the overdue +bridegroom. Meanwhile the usual buzzing and bobbing of heads went on +amongst the usual little group near the foot of the altar. Now and +then one caught a glisten of tears through a widow's veil, and the +little bride, dressed quietly in grey, talked with the usual nervous +gaiety to her girl friends, and made the usual whispered confidences +about her trousseau. The father, in occasional conversation with one +and another, appeared to be avoiding the subject with the usual +self-conscious solemnity, and occasionally he looked, somewhat +anxiously, I thought, towards the church door. The bridegroom did not +keep us waiting long,—I noticed that he had a rather delicate sad +face,—and presently the service began. +</P> + +<P> +I don't know myself what getting married must feel like, but it cannot +be much more exciting than watching other people getting married. +Probably the spectators are more conscious of the impressive meaning of +it all than the brave young people themselves. I say brave, for I am +always struck by the courage of the two who thus gaily leap into the +gulf of the unknown together, thus join hands over the inevitable, and +put their signatures to the irrevocable. Indeed, I always get +something like a palpitation of the heart just before the priest utters +those final fateful words, "I declare you man and—wife." Half a second +before you were still free, half a second after you are bound for the +term of your natural life. Half a second before you had only to dash +the book from the priest's hands, and put your hand over his mouth, and +though thus giddily swinging on the brink of the precipice, you are +saved. Half a second after +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Not all the king's horses and all the king's men<BR> + Can make you a bachelor ever again.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It is the knife-edge moment 'twixt time and eternity. +</P> + +<P> +And, curiously enough, while my thoughts were thus running on towards +the rapids of that swirling moment, the very thing happened which I had +often imagined might happen to myself. Suddenly, with a sob, the +bridegroom covered his face with his hands, and crying, "I cannot! I +cannot!" hurriedly left the church, tears streaming down his cheeks, to +the complete dismay of the sad little group at the altar, and the +consternation of all present. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor young man! I thought he would never go through with it," said an +old woman half to herself, who was sitting near me. I involuntarily +looked my desire of explanation. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you see," she said, "he had been married before. His first wife +died four years ago, and he loved her beyond all heaven and earth." +</P> + +<P> +That evening, I afterwards heard, the young bridegroom's body was found +by some boys as they went to bathe in the river. As I recalled once +more that sad yearning face, and heard again that terrible "I cannot! +I cannot!" I thought of Heine's son of Asra, who loved the Sultan's +daughter. +</P> + +<P> +"What is thy name, slave?" asked the princess, "and what thy race and +birthplace?" +</P> + +<P> +"My name," the young slave answered, "is Mahomet. I come from Yemen. +My race is that of Asra, and when we love, we die." +</P> + +<P> +And likewise a voice kept saying in my heart, "If ever you find your +Golden Bride, be sure she will die." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0114"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE MYSTERIOUS PETTICOAT +</H3> + +<P> +The sad thoughts with which this incident naturally left me were at +length and suddenly dispersed, as sad thoughts not infrequently are, by +a petticoat. When I say petticoat, I use the word in its literal +sense, not colloquially as a metaphor for its usual wearer, meaning +thereby a dainty feminine undergarment seen only by men on rainy days, +and one might add washing-days. It was indeed to the fortunate accident +of its being washing-day at the pretty cottage near which in the course +of my morning wanderings I had set me down to rest, that I owed the +sight of the petticoat in question. +</P> + +<P> +But first allow me to describe a little more fully my surroundings at +the moment. Not indeed that I can hope to put into words the charm of +those embowered cottages, like nests in the armpits of great trees, +tucked snugly in the hollows of those narrow, winding, almost +subterranean lanes which burrow their way beneath the warm-hearted +Surrey woodlands. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing can be straighter and smoother than a Surrey road—when it is +on the king's business; then it is a high-road and behaves accordingly: +but a Surrey bye-road is the most whimsical companion in the world. It +is like a sheep-dog, always running backwards and forwards, poking into +the most out-of-the-way corners, now climbing at a run some steep +hummock of the down, and now leisurely going miles about to escape an +ant-hill; and all the time (here, by the way, ends the sheep-dog) it is +stopping to gossip with rillets vagabond as itself, or loitering to +bedeck itself with flowers. It seems as innocent of a destination as a +boy on an errand; but, after taking at least six times as long as any +other road in the kingdom for its amount of work, you usually find it +dip down of a sudden into some lovely natural cul-de-sac, a +meadow-bottom surrounded by trees, with a stream spreading itself in +fantastic silver shallows through its midst, and a cottage half hidden +at the end. Had the lane been going to some great house, it would have +made more haste, we may be sure. +</P> + +<P> +The lane I had been following had finally dropped me down at something +of a run upon just such a scene. The cottage, built substantially of +grey stone, stood upon the side of the slope, and a broad strip of +garden, half cultivated and half wild, began near the house with +cabbages, and ended in a jungle of giant bulrushes as it touched the +stream. Golden patches of ragwort blazed here and there among a tangled +mass of no doubt worthier herbage,—such even in nature is the power of +gold,—and there were the usual birds. +</P> + +<P> +However, my business is with the week's washing, which in various +shades of white, with occasional patches of scarlet, fluttered +fantastically across a space of the garden, thereby giving unmistakable +witness to human inhabitants, male and female. +</P> + +<P> +As I lounged upon the green bank, I lazily watched these parodies of +humanity as they were tossed hither and thither with humourous +indignity by the breeze, remarking to myself on the quaint +shamelessness with which we thus expose to the public view garments +which at other times we are at such bashful pains to conceal. And thus +philosophising, like a much greater philosopher, upon clothes, I found +myself involuntarily deducing the cottage family from the family +washing. I soon decided that there must be at least one woman say of +the age of fifty, one young woman, one little child, sex doubtful, and +one man probably young. Further than this it was impossible to +conjecture. Thus I made the rough guess that a young man and his wife, +a child, and a mother-in-law were among the inhabitants of this idyllic +cottage. +</P> + +<P> +But the clothes-line presented charming evidence of still another +occupant; and here, though so far easy to read, came in something of a +puzzle. Who in this humble out-of-the-way cottage could afford to wear +that exquisite cambric petticoat edged with a fine and very expensive +lace? And surely it was on no country legs that those delicately +clocked and open-worked silk stockings walked invisible through the +world. +</P> + +<P> +Nor was the lace any ordinary expensive English lace, such as any good +shop can supply. Indeed, I recognised it as being of a Parisian design +as yet little known in England; while on the tops of the stockings I +laughingly suspected a border designed by a certain eccentric artist, +who devotes his strange gifts to decorating with fascinating miniatures +the under-world of woman. I have seen corsets thus made beautiful by +him valued at five hundred pounds, and he never paints a pair of +garters for less than a hundred. His name is not yet a famous one, as, +for obvious reasons, his works are not exhibited at public galleries, +though they are occasionally to be seen at private views. +</P> + +<P> +I am far from despising an honest red-flannel country petticoat. There +is no warmer kinder-looking garment in the world. It suggests country +laps and country breasts, with sturdy country babes greedy for the warm +white milk, and it seems dyed in country blushes. Yet, for all that, +one could not be insensible to the exotic race and distinction of that +frivolous town petticoat, daintily disporting itself there among its +country cousins, like a queen among milkmaids. +</P> + +<P> +What numberless suggestions of romance it awoke! What strange perfumes +seemed to waft across from it, perfumes laden with associations of a +world so different from the green world where it now was, a charming +world of gay intrigue and wanton pleasure. No wonder the wind chose it +so often for its partner as it danced through the garden, scorning to +notice the heavy homespun things about it. It was not every day that +that washing-day wind met so fine a lady, and it was charming to see +how gently he played about her stockings. "Ah, wind," I said, +"evidently you are a gallant born; but tell us the name of the lady. +It is somewhere on that pretty petticoat, I'll be bound." +</P> + +<P> +Is she some little danseuse with the whim to be romantically rustic for +a week? or is she somebody else's pretty wife run away with somebody +else's man? or is she some naughty little grisette with an extravagant +lover? or is she just the usual lady landscape artist, with a more than +usual taste in lingerie? +</P> + +<P> +At all events, it was fairly obvious that, for one reason or another, +the wearer of the petticoat and stockings which have now occupied us +for perhaps a sufficient number of pages, was a visitor at the cottage. +</P> + +<P> +The next thing was to get a look at her. So, remembering how fond I was +of milk from the cow, I pushed open the gate and advanced to the +cottage door. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0115"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +STILL OCCUPIED WITH THE PETTICOAT +</H3> + +<P> +The door was opened by a comely young woman, with ruddy cheeks and a +bright kind eye that promised conversation. But "H'm," said I to +myself, as she went to fetch my milk, "evidently not yours, my dear." +</P> + +<P> +"A nice drying day for your washing," I said, as I slowly sipped my +milk, with a half-inclination of my head towards the clothes-line. +</P> + +<P> +"Very fine, indeed, sir," she returned, with something of a blush, and +a shy deprecating look that seemed to beg me not to notice the +peculiarly quaint antics which the wind, evidently a humourist, chose +at that moment to execute with the female garments upon the line. +However, I was for once cased in triple brass and inexorable. +</P> + +<P> +"And who," I ventured, smiling, "may be the owner of those fine things?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not those," I continued, pointing to an odd garment which the wind was +wantonly puffing out in the quaintest way, "but that pretty petticoat +and those silk stockings?" +</P> + +<P> +The poor girl had gone scarlet, scarlet as the petticoat which I was +sure WAS hers, with probably a fellow at the moment keeping warm her +buxom figure. +</P> + +<P> +"You are very bold, sir," she stammered through her blushes, but I +could see that she was not ill-pleased that the finery should attract +attention. +</P> + +<P> +"But won't you tell me?" I urged; "I have a reason for asking." +</P> + +<P> +And here I had better warn the reader that, as the result of a whim +that presently seized me, I must be content to appear mad in his eyes +for the next few pages, till I get an opportunity of explanation. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, what if they should be mine?" at length I persuaded her into +saying. +</P> + +<P> +I made the obvious gallant reply, but, "All the same," I added, "you +know they are not yours. They belong to some lady visitor, who, I'll +be bound, isn't half so pretty; now, don't they?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, they just don't then. They're mine, as I tell you." +</P> + +<P> +"H'm," I continued, a little nonplussed, "but do you really mean there +is no lady staying with you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly," she replied, evidently enjoying my bewilderment. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, some lady must have stayed here once," I retorted, with a +sudden inspiration, "and left them behind—" +</P> + +<P> +"You might be a detective after stolen goods," she interrupted. +</P> + +<P> +"I tell you the things are mine; and what I should like to know does a +gentleman want bothering himself about a lady's petticoat! No wonder +you blush," for, in fact, as was easy to foresee, the situation was +becoming a little ridiculous for me. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, look here," I said with an affectation of gravity, "if you'll +tell me how you came by those things, I'll make it worth your while. +They were given to you by a lady who stayed here not so long ago, now, +weren't they?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, they were." +</P> + +<P> +"The lady stayed here with a gentleman?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, she did." +</P> + +<P> +"H'm! I thought so," I said. "Yes! that lady, it pains me to say, was +my wife!" +</P> + +<P> +This unblushing statement was not, I could see, without its effect upon +the present owner of the petticoat. +</P> + +<P> +"But she said they were brother and sister," she replied. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course she did," I returned, with a fine assumption of scorn,—"of +course she did. They always do." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear young woman," I continued, when I was able to control my emotion, +"you are happily remote from the sin and wickedness of the town, and I +am sorry to speak of such things in so peaceful a spot—but as a +strange chance has led me here, I must speak, must tell you that all +wives are not so virtuous and faithful as you, I am sure, are. There +are wives who forsake their husbands and—and go off with a handsomer +man, as the poet says; and mine, mine, alas! was one of them. It is +now some months ago that my wife left me in this way, and since then I +have spent every day in searching for her; but never till this moment +have I come upon the least trace of her. Strange, is it not? that +here, in this peaceful out-of-the-way garden, I should come upon her +very petticoat, her very stockings—" +</P> + +<P> +By this my grief had become such that the kind girl put her hand on my +arm. "Don't take on so," she said kindly, and then remembering her +treasured property, and probably fearing a counterclaim on my part to +its possession, "But how can you be sure she was here? There are lots +of petticoats like that—" +</P> + +<P> +"What was she like?" I asked through my agitation. +</P> + +<P> +"Middle height, slim and fair, with red goldy hair and big blue eyes; +about thirty, I should say." +</P> + +<P> +"The very same," I groaned, "there is no mistake; and now," I +continued, "I want you to sell me that petticoat and those stockings," +and I took a couple of sovereigns from my purse. "I want to have them +to confront her with, when I do find her. Perhaps it will touch her +heart to think of the strange way in which I came by them; and you can +buy just as pretty ones again with the money," I added, as I noticed +the disappointment on her face at the prospect of thus losing her +finery. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's a funny business, to be sure," she said, as still half +reluctantly she unpegged the coveted garments from the line; "but if +what you say 's true, I suppose you must have them." +</P> + +<P> +The wanton wind had been so busily kissing them all the morning that +they were quite dry, so I was able to find room for them in my knapsack +without danger to the other contents; and, with a hasty good-day to +their recent possessor, I set off at full speed to find a secure nook +where I could throw myself down on the grass, and let loose the absurd +laughter that was dangerously bottled up within me; but even before I +do that it behoves me if possible to vindicate my sanity to the reader. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0116"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CLEARS UP MY MYSTERIOUS BEHAVIOUR OF THE LAST CHAPTER +</H3> + +<P> +What a sane man should be doing carrying about with him a woman's +petticoat and silk stockings, may well be a puzzle to the most +intelligent reader. +</P> + +<P> +Whim, sir, whim! and few human actions admit of more satisfactory +solution. Like Shylock, I'll say "It is my humour." But no! I'll be +more explanatory. This madcap quest of mine, was it not understood +between us from the beginning to be a fantastic whim, a poetical +wild-goose chase, conceived entirely as an excuse for being some time +in each other's company? To be whimsical, therefore, in pursuit of a +whim, fanciful in the chase of a fancy, is surely but to maintain the +spirit of the game. Now, for the purpose, therefore, of a romance that +makes no pretence to reasonableness, I had very good reasons for buying +that petticoat, which (the reasons, not the petticoat) I will now lay +before you. +</P> + +<P> +I have been conscious all the way along through this pilgrimage of its +inevitable vagueness of direction, of my need of something definite, +some place, some name, anything at all, however slight, which I might +associate, if only for a time, with the object of my quest, a definite +something to seek, a definite goal for my feet. +</P> + +<P> +Now, when I saw that mysterious petticoat, and realised that its wearer +would probably be pretty and young and generally charming, and that +probably her name was somewhere on the waistband, the spirit of whim +rejoiced within me. "Why not," it said, "buy the petticoat, find out +the name of its owner, and, instead of seeking a vague Golden Girl, +make up your mind doggedly to find and marry her, or, failing that, +carry the petticoat with you, as a sort of Cinderella's slipper, try it +on any girl you happen to fancy, and marry her it exactly fits?" +</P> + +<P> +Now, I confess, that seemed to me quite a pretty idea, and I hope the +reader will think so too. If not, I'm afraid I can offer him no better +explanation; and in fact I am all impatience to open my knapsack, and +inform myself of the name of her to the discovery of whom my wanderings +are henceforth to be devoted. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0117"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE NAME UPON THE PETTICOAT +</H3> + +<P> +So imagine me seated in a grassy corner, with my knapsack open on the +ground and my petticoat and silk stockings spread out in front of +me,—an odd picture, to be sure, for any passer by to come upon. I +suppose I could have passed for a pedlar, but undoubtedly it would have +been very embarrassing. However, as it happened, I remained +undisturbed, and was able to examine my purchases at leisure. I had +never seen a petticoat so near before,—at all events I had never given +one such close attention. What delicious dainty things they are! How +essentially womanly—as I hope no one would call a pair of trousers +essentially manly. +</P> + +<P> +How pretty it looked spread out on the grass in front of me! How soft! +how wondrously dainty the finish of every little seam! And the lace! +It almost tempts one to change one's sex to wear such things. There +was a time indeed, and not so long ago, when brave men wore garments no +less dainty. +</P> + +<P> +Rupert's Cavaliers were every bit as particular about their lace +collars and frills as the lady whose pretty limbs once warmed this +cambric. +</P> + +<P> +But where is the name? Ah! here it is! What sweet writing! "Sylvia +Joy, No. 6." +</P> + +<P> +Sylvia Joy! What a perfectly enchanting name! and as I repeated it +enthusiastically, it seemed to have a certain familiarity for my +ear,—as though it were the name of some famous beauty or some popular +actress,—yet the exact association eluded me, and obviously it was +better it should remain a name of mystery. Sylvia Joy! Who could have +hoped for such a pretty name! Indeed, to tell the truth, I had dreaded +to find a "Mary Jones" or an "Ann Williams"—but Sylvia Joy! The name +was a romance in itself. I already felt myself falling in love with +its unseen owner. With such a petticoat and such a name, Sylvia +herself could not be otherwise than delightful too. Already, you see, I +was calling her by her Christian name! And the more I thought of her, +the stronger grew the conviction—which has no doubt already forced +itself upon the romantic reader—that we were born for each other. +</P> + +<P> +But who is Sylvia, who is she? and likewise where is Sylvia, where is +she? Obviously they were questions not to be answered off-hand. Was +not my future—at all events my immediate future—to be spent in +answering them? +</P> + +<P> +Indeed, curiously enough, my recent haste to have them answered had +suddenly died down. A sort of matrimonial security possessed me. I +felt as I imagine a husband may feel on a solitary holiday—if there +are husbands unnatural enough to go holidaying without their +wives—pleasantly conscious of a home tucked somewhere beneath the +distant sunset, yet in no precipitate hurry to return there before the +appointed day. +</P> + +<P> +In fact, a chill tremor went through me as I realised that, to all +intent, I was at length respectably settled down, with quite a +considerable retrospect of happy married life. To come to a decision is +always to bring something to an end. And, with something of a pang, +resolutely stifled, I realised for a moment the true blessedness of the +single state I was so soon to leave behind. At all events, a little +golden fragment of bachelorhood remained. There was yet a fertile +strip of time wherein to sow my last handful of the wild oats of youth. +So festina lente, my destined Sylvia, festina lente! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0118"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH THE NAME OF A GREAT POET IS CRIED OUT<BR> IN A SOLITARY PLACE +</H3> + +<P> +As I once more shouldered my pack and went my way, the character of the +country side began to change, and, from a semi-pastoral heathiness and +furziness, took on a wildness of aspect, which if indeed melodramatic +was melodrama carried to the point of genius. +</P> + +<P> +It was a scene for which the nineteenth century has no worthy use. It +finds ignoble occupation as a gaping-ground for the vacuous +tourist,—somewhat as Heine might have imagined Pan carrying the +gentleman's luggage from the coach to the hotel. It suffers teetotal +picnic-parties to encamp amid its savage hollows, and it humbly allows +itself to be painted by the worst artists. Like a lion in a menagerie, +it is a survival of the extinct chaos entrapped and exhibited amid the +smug parks and well-rolled downs of England. +</P> + +<P> +I came upon it by a winding ledge of road, which clung to the bare side +of the hill like the battlements of some huge castle. Some two hundred +feet below, a brawling upland stream stood for the moat, and for the +enemy there was on the opposite side of the valley a great green +company of trees, settled like a cloud slope upon slope, making all +haste to cross the river and ascend the heights where I stood. Some +intrepid larches waved green pennons in the very midst of the turbulent +water, here and there a veteran lay with his many-summered head abased +in the rocky course of the stream, and here was a young foolhardy beech +that had climbed within a dozen yards of the rampart. All was wild and +solitary, and one might have declared it a scene untrodden by the foot +of man, but for the telegraph posts and small piles of broken "macadam" +at punctual intervals, and the ginger-beer bottles and paper bags of +local confectioners that lent an air of civilisation to the road. +</P> + +<P> +It was a place to quote Alastor in, and nothing but a bad memory +prevented my affrighting the oaks and rills with declamation. As it +was, I could only recall the lines +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "The Poet wandering on, through Arabie<BR> + And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,<BR> + And o'er the aerial mountains which pour down<BR> + Indus and Oxus from their icy caves—"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and that other passage beginning +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore<BR> + He paused—"<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This last I mouthed, loving the taste of its thunder; mouthed thrice, +as though it were an incantation,—and, indeed, from what immediately +followed, it might reasonably have seemed so. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore<BR> + He paused—"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +I mouthed for the fourth time. And lo! advancing to me eagerly along +the causeway seemed the very sprite of Alastor himself! There was a +star upon his forehead, and around his young face there glowed an +aureole of gold and roses—to speak figuratively, for the star upon his +brow was hope, and the gold and roses encircling his head, a miniature +rainbow, were youth and health. His longish golden hair had no doubt +its share in the effect, as likewise the soft yellow silk tie that +fluttered like a flame in the speed of his going. His blue eyes were +tragically fresh and clear,—as though they had as yet been little +used. There were little wings of haste upon his feet, and he came +straight to me, with the air of the Angel Gabriel about to make his +divine announcement. For a moment I thought that he was an apparition +of prophecy charged to announce the maiden of the Lord for whom I was +seeking. However, his brief flushed question was not of these things. +He desired first to ask the time of day, and next—here, after a bump +to the earth, one's thoughts ballooned again heavenwards—"had I seen a +green copy of Shelley lying anywhere along the road?" +</P> + +<P> +Nothing so good had happened to me, I replied—but I believed that I +had seen a copy of Alastor! For a moment my meaning was lost on him; +then he flushed and smiled, thanked me and was off again, saying that +he must find his Shelley, as he wouldn't lose it for the world! +</P> + +<P> +He had presently disappeared as suddenly as he had come, but he had +left me a companion, a radiant reverberant name; and for some little +space the name of Shelley clashed silvery music among the hills. +</P> + +<P> +Its seven letters seemed to hang right across the clouds like the Seven +Stars, an apocalyptic constellation, a veritable sky sign; and again +the name was an angel standing with a silver trumpet, and again it was +a song. The heavens opened, and across the blue rift it hung in a +glory of celestial fire, while from behind and above the clouds came a +warbling as of innumerable larks. +</P> + +<P> +How strange was this miracle of fame, I pondered, this strange +apotheosis by which a mere private name becomes a public symbol! +Shelley was once a private person whose name had no more universal +meaning than my own, and so were Byron and Cromwell and Shakespeare; +yet now their names are facts as stubborn as the Rocky Mountains, or +the National Gallery, or the circulation of the blood. From their +original inch or so of private handwriting they have spread and spread +out across the world, and now whole generations of men find +intellectual accommodation within them,—drinking fountains and other +public institutions are erected upon them; yea, Carlyle has become a +Chelsea swimming-bath, and "Highland Mary" is sold for whiskey, while +Mr. Gladstone is to be met everywhere in the form of a bag. +</P> + +<P> +Does Mr. Gladstone, I wonder, instruct his valet "to pack his +Gladstone"? How strange it must seem! Try it yourself some day and +its effect on your servant. Ask him, for example, to "pack your ——" +and see how he'll stare. +</P> + +<P> +Coming nearer and nearer to earth, I wondered if Colonel Boycott ever +uses the word "boycott," and how strange it must have seemed to the +late MacAdam to walk for miles and miles upon his own name, like a +carpet spread out before him. +</P> + +<P> +Then I once more rebounded heavenwards, at the vision of the eager +dreamy lad whose question had set going all this odd clockwork of +association. He wouldn't lose his Shelley for the world! How like +twenty! And how many things that he wouldn't lose for the world will he +have to give up before he is thirty, I reflected sententiously,—give +up at last, maybe, with a stony indifference, as men on a sinking ship +take no thought of the gold and specie in the hold. +</P> + +<P> +And then, all of a sudden, a little way up the ferny grassy hillside, I +caught sight of the end of a book half hidden among the ferns. I +climbed up to it. Of course it was that very green Shelley which the +young stranger wouldn't lose for the world. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0119"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WHY THE STRANGER WOULD NOT LOSE HIS SHELLEY FOR THE WORLD +</H3> + +<P> +Picking up the book, I opened it involuntarily at the titlepage, and +then—I resisted a great temptation! I shut it again. A little flowery +plot of girl's handwriting had caught my eye, and a girl's pretty name. +When Love and Beauty meet, it is hard not to play the eavesdropper, and +it was easy to guess that Love and Beauty met upon that page. St. +Anthony had no harder fight with the ladies he was unpolite enough to +call demons, than I in resisting the temptation to take another look at +that pen-and-ink love making. Now, as I look back, I think it was +sheer priggishness to resist so human and yet so reverent an impulse. +There is nothing sacred from reverence, and love's lovers have a right +to regard themselves as the confidants of lovers, whenever they may +chance to surprise either them or their letters. +</P> + +<P> +While I was still hesitating, and wondering how I could get the book +conveyed to its romantic owner, suddenly a figure turned the corner of +the road, and there was Alastor coming back again. I slipped the book, +in distracted search for which he was evidently still engaged, under +the ferns, and, leisurely lighting a pipe, prepared to tease him. He +was presently within hail, and, looking up, caught sight of me. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you found your Shelley yet?" I called down to him, as he stood a +moment in the road. +</P> + +<P> +He shook his head. No! But he meant to find it, if he had to hunt +every square foot of the valley inch by inch. +</P> + +<P> +Wouldn't any other book do, I asked him. Would he take a Boccaccio, or +a "Golden Ass," or a "Tom Jones," in exchange?—for of such consisted +my knapsack library. He laughed a negative, and it seemed a shame to +tease him. +</P> + +<P> +"It is not so much the book itself," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"But the giver?" I suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," he blushingly replied. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, suppose I have found it?" I continued. +</P> + +<P> +"You don't mean it—" +</P> + +<P> +"But suppose I have—I'm only supposing—will you give me the pleasure +of your company at dinner at the next inn and tell me its story?" +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed I will, gladly," he replied. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then," I said, "catch, for here it is!" +</P> + +<P> +The joy with which he recovered it was pretty to behold, and the +eagerness with which he ran through the leaves, to see that the violets +and the primroses and a spray of meadowsweet, young love's bookmarkers, +were all in their right places, touched my heart. +</P> + +<P> +He could not thank me enough; and as we stepped out to the inn, some +three or four miles on the road, I elicited something of his story. +</P> + +<P> +He was a clerk in a city office, he said, but his dreams were not +commercial. His one dream was to be a great poet, or a great writer of +some sort, and this was one of his holidays. As I looked at his +sensitive young face, unmarred by pleasure and unscathed by sorrow, +bathed daily, I surmised, in the may-dew of high philosophies—ah, so +high! washed from within by a constant radiancy of pure thoughts, and +from without by a constant basking in the shine of every beautiful and +noble and tender thing,—I thought it not unlikely that he might fulfil +his dream. +</P> + +<P> +But, alas! as he talked on, with lighted face and chin in the air, how +cruelly I realised how little I had fulfilled mine. +</P> + +<P> +And how hard it was to talk to him, without crushing some flower of his +fancy or casting doubt upon his dreams. Oh, the gulf between twenty +and thirty! I had never quite comprehended it before. And how +inexpressibly sad it was to hear him prattling on of the ideal life, of +socialism, of Walt Whitman and what not,—all the dear old +quackeries,—while I was already settling down comfortably to a +conservative middle age. He had no hope that had not long been my +despair, no aversion that I had not accepted among the more or less +comfortable conditions of the universe. He was all for nature and +liberty, whereas I had now come to realise the charm of the artificial, +and the social value of constraint. +</P> + +<P> +"Young man," I cried in my heart, "what shall I do to inherit Eternal +Youth?" +</P> + +<P> +The gulf between us was further revealed when, at length coming to our +inn, we sat down to dinner. To me it seemed the most natural thing in +the world to call for the wine-list and consult his choice of wine; +but, will you believe me, he asked to be allowed to drink water! And +when he quoted the dear old stock nonsense out of Thoreau about being +able to get intoxicated on a glass of water, I could have laughed and +cried at the same time. +</P> + +<P> +"Happy Boy!" I cried, "still able to turn water into wine by the divine +power of your youth"; and then, turning to the waiter, I ordered a +bottle of No. 37. +</P> + +<P> +"Wine is the only youth granted to middle age," I continued,—"in vino +juventus, one might say; and may you, my dear young friend, long remain +so proudly independent of that great Elixir—though I confess that I +have met no few young men under thirty who have been excellent critics +of the wine-list." +</P> + +<P> +As the water warmed him, he began to expand into further confidence, +and then he told me the story of his Shelley, if a story it can be +called. For, of course, it was simple enough, and the reader has long +since guessed that the reason why he wouldn't lose his Shelley for the +world was the usual simple reason. +</P> + +<P> +I listened to his rhapsodies of HER and HER and HER with an aching +heart. How good it was to be young! No wonder men had so desperately +sought the secret of Eternal Youth! Who would not be young for ever, +for such dreams and such an appetite? +</P> + +<P> +Here of course was the very heaven-sent confidant for such an +enterprise as mine. I told him all about my whim, just for the pleasure +of watching his face light up with youth's generous worship of all such +fantastic nonsense. You should have seen his enthusiasm and heard all +the things he said. Why, to encounter such a whimsical fellow as myself +in this unimaginative age was like meeting a fairy prince, or coming +unexpectedly upon Don Quixote attacking the windmill. I offered him +the post of Sancho Panza; and indeed what would he not give, he said, +to leave all and follow me! But then I reminded him that he had +already found his Golden Girl. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course, I forgot," he said, with I'm afraid something of a sigh. +For you see he was barely twenty, and to have met your ideal so early +in life is apt to rob the remainder of the journey of something of its +zest. +</P> + +<P> +I asked him to give me his idea of what the Blessed Maid should be, to +which he replied, with a smile, that he could not do better than +describe Her, which he did for the sixth time. It was, as I had +foreseen, the picture of a Saint, a Goddess, a Dream, very lovely and +pure and touching; but it was not a woman, and it was a woman I was in +search of, with all her imperfections on her head. I suppose no boy of +twenty really loves a WOMEN, but loves only his etherealised extract of +woman, entirely free from earthy adulteration. I noticed the words +"pure" and "natural" in constant use by my young friend. Some lines +went through my head, but I forbore to quote them:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Alas I your so called purity<BR> + Is merely immaturity,<BR> + And woman's nature plays its part<BR> + Sincerely but in woman's art.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +But I couldn't resist asking him, out of sheer waggery, whether he +didn't think a touch of powder, and even, very judiciously applied, a +touch of rouge, was an improvement to woman. His answer went to my +heart. +</P> + +<P> +"Paint—a WOMAN!" he exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +It was as though you had said—paint an angel! +</P> + +<P> +I could bear no more of it. The gulf yawned shiveringly wide at +remarks like that; so, with the privilege of an elder, I declared it +time for bed, and yawned off to my room. +</P> + +<P> +Next morning we bade good-bye, and went our several ways. As we +parted, he handed me a letter which I was not to open till I was well +on my journey. We waved good-bye to each other till the turnings of +the road made parting final, and then, sitting down by the roadside, I +opened the letter. It proved to be not a letter, but a poem, which he +had evidently written after I had left him for bed. It was entitled, +with twenty's love for a tag of Latin, Ad Puellam Auream, and it ran +thus:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + The Golden Girl in every place<BR> + Hides and reveals her lovely face;<BR> + Her neither skill nor strength may find—<BR> + 'T is only loving moves her mind.<BR> + If but a pretty face you seek,<BR> + You'll find one any day or week;<BR> + But if you look with deeper eyes,<BR> + And seek her lovely, pure, and wise,<BR> + Then must you wear the pilgrim's shoon<BR> + For many a weary, wandering moon.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Only the pure in heart may see<BR> + That lily of all purity,<BR> + Only in clean unsullied thought<BR> + The image of her face is caught,<BR> + And only he her love may hold<BR> + Who buys her with the spirit's gold.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Thus only shall you find your pearl,<BR> + O seeker of the Golden Girl!<BR> + She trod but now the grassy way,<BR> + A vision of eternal May.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The devil take his impudence! "Only the pure in heart," "clean, +unsullied thought." How like the cheek of twenty! And all the same +how true! Dear lad, how true! Certainly, the child is father to the +man. Dirige nos! O sage of the Golden Twenties! +</P> + +<P> +As I meditatively folded up the pretty bit of writing, I made a +resolution; but it was one of such importance that not only is another +chapter needed to do it honour, but it may well inaugurate another book +of this strange uneventful history. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0201"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK II +</H3> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH I DECIDE TO BE YOUNG AGAIN +</H3> + +<P> +Yes, I said to myself, the lad is quite right; I will follow his +advice. I'm afraid I was in danger of developing into a sad cynic, +with a taste for the humour of this world. What should have been a +lofty high-souled pilgrimage, only less transcendental than that of the +Holy Grail itself, has so far failed, no doubt, because I have +undertaken it too much in the wanton spirit of a troubadour. +</P> + +<P> +I will grow young and serious again. Yes, why not? I will take a vow +of Youth. One's age is entirely a matter of the imagination. From this +moment I am no longer thirty. Thirty falls from me like a hideous +dream. My back straightens again at the thought; my silvering hair +blackens once more; my eyes, a few moments ago lacklustre and sunken, +grow bright and full again, and the whites are clear as the finest +porcelain. Veni, veni, Mephistophile! your Faust is young +again,—young, young, and, with a boy's heart, open once more to all +the influences of the mighty world. +</P> + +<P> +I bring down my stick upon the ground with a mighty ring of resolution, +and the miracle is done. Who would take me for thirty now? From this +moment I abjure pessimism and cynicism in all their forms, put from my +mind all considerations of the complexities of human life, unravel all +by a triumphant optimism which no statistics can abash or criticism +dishearten. I likewise undertake to divest myself entirely of any +sense of humour that may have developed within me during the baneful +experiences of the last ten years, and, in short, will consent for the +future to be nothing that is not perfectly perfect and pure. These, I +take it, are the fundamental conditions of being young again. +</P> + +<P> +And as for the Quest, it shall forthwith be undertaken in an entirely +serious and high-minded spirit. From this moment I am on the look-out +for a really transcendental attachment. No "bright-eyed bar-maids," +however "refined," need apply. Ladies who are prodigal of their white +petticoats are no longer fit company for me. Indeed I shall no longer +look upon a petticoat, unless I am able first entirely to spiritualise +it. It must first be disinfected of every earthly thought. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, I am once more a young man, sound in wind and limb, with not a +tooth or an illusion lost, my mind tabula rasa, my heart to be had for +the asking. Oh, come, ye merry, merry maidens! The fairy prince is on +the fairy road. +</P> + +<P> +Incipit vita nuova! +</P> + +<P> +So in the lovely rapture of a new-born resolution—and is there any +rapture like it?—nature has no more intoxicating illusion than that of +turning over a new leaf, or beginning a new life from to-day—I sprang +along the road with a carolling heart; quite forgetting that Apuleius +and Fielding and Boccaccio were still in my knapsack—not to speak of +the petticoat. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0202"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AT THE SIGN OF THE SINGING STREAM +</H3> + +<P> +Apuleius and Fielding and Boccaccio, bad companions for a petticoat, +I'm afraid, bad companions too for so young a man as I had now become. +However, as I say, I had for the time forgotten that pagan company, or, +in my puritanic zeal, I might have thrown them all to be washed clean +in the upland stream, whose pure waters one might fancy were fragrant +from their sunny day among the ferns and the heather, fragrant to the +eye, indeed, if one may so speak, with the shaken meal of the +meadowsweet. This stream had been the good angel of my thoughts all the +day, keeping them ever moving and ever fresh, cleansing and burnishing +them, quite an open-air laundry of the mind. +</P> + +<P> +We were both making for the same little town, it appeared, and as the +sun was setting we reached it together. I entered the town over the +bridge, and the stream under it, washing the walls of the high-piled, +many-gabled old inn where I proposed to pass the night. I should hear +it still rippling on with its gentle harpsichord tinkle, as I stretched +myself down among the cool lavendered sheets, and little by little let +slip the multifarious world. +</P> + +<P> +The inn windows beamed cheerily, a home of ruddy rest. Having ordered +my dinner and found my room, I threw down my knapsack and then came out +again to smoke an ante-prandial pipe, listen to the evensong of the +stream, and think great thoughts. The stream was still there, and +singing the same sweet old song. You could hear it long after it was +out of sight, in the gathering darkness, like an old nurse humming +lullabies in the twilight. +</P> + +<P> +The dinner was good, the wine was old, and oh! the rest was sweet! +Nothing fills one with so exquisite a weariness as a day spent in good +resolutions and great thoughts. There is something perilously sensuous +in the relaxation of one's muscles, both of mind and body, after a day +thus well spent. +</P> + +<P> +Lighting up my pipe once more, and drawing to the fire, I suddenly +realised a sense of loneliness. Of course, I was lonely for a +book,—Apuleius or Fielding or Boccaccio! +</P> + +<P> +An hour ago they had seemed dangerous companions for so lofty a mood; +but now, under the gentle influences of dinner, the mood had not indeed +changed—but mellowed. So to say, we would split the difference between +the ideal and the human, and be, say, twenty-five. +</P> + +<P> +It was in this genial attitude of mind that I strode up the quaint +circular staircase to fetch Fielding from my room, and, shade of Tom +Jones! what should be leaving my room, as I advanced to enter it, +but—well, it's no use, resolutions are all very well, but facts are +facts, especially when they're natural, and here was I face to face +with the most natural little natural fact, and withal the most charming +and merry-eyed, that—well, in short, as I came to enter my room I was +confronted by the roundest, ruddiest little chambermaid ever created +for the trial of mortal frailty. +</P> + +<P> +And the worst of it was that her merry eye was in partnership with a +merry tongue. Indeed, for some unexplained reason, she was bubbling +over with congested laughter, the reason for which mere embarrassment +set one inquiring. At last, between little gushes of laughter which +shook her plump shoulders in a way that aroused wistful memories of +Hebe, she archly asked me, with mock solemnity, if I should need a +lady's maid. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Certainly," I replied with inane promptitude, for I had no notion of +her drift; but then she ran off in a scurry of laughter, and still +puzzled I turned into my room, TO FIND, neatly hung over the end of the +bed, nothing less than the dainty petticoat and silk stockings of +Sylvia Joy. +</P> + +<P> +You can imagine the colour of my cheeks at the discovery. No doubt I +was already the laughing-stock of the whole inn. What folly! What a +young vixen! Oh, what's to be done? Pay my bill and sneak off at once +to the next town; but how pass through the grinning line of boots, and +waiter, and chambermaid, and ironically respectful landlord and +landlady, in the hall... +</P> + +<P> +But while I thus deliberated, something soft pressed in at the door; +and, making a sudden dart, I had the little baggage who had brought +about my dilemma a prisoner in my arms. +</P> + +<P> +I stayed some days at this charming old inn, for Amaryllis—oh, yes, +you may be sure her name was Amaryllis—had not betrayed me; and indeed +she may have some share in my retrospect of the inn as one of the most +delightful which I encountered anywhere in my journeying. Would you +like to know its name? Well, I know it as The Singing Stream. If you +can find it under that name, you are welcome. And should you chance to +be put into bedroom No. 26, you can think of me, and how I used to lie +awake, listening to the stream rippling beneath the window, with its +gentle harpsichord tinkle, and little by little letting slip the +multifarious world. +</P> + +<P> +And if anything about this chapter should seem to contradict the high +ideals of the chapter preceding it, I can only say that, though the +episode should not rigidly fulfil the conditions of the transcendental, +nothing could have been more characteristic of that early youth to +which I had vowed myself. Indeed, I congratulated myself, as I looked +my last at the sign of The Singing Stream, that this had been quite in +my early manner. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0203"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH I SAVE A USEFUL LIFE +</H3> + +<P> +Though I had said good-bye to the inn, the stream and I did not part +company at the inn-door, but continued for the best part of a morning +to be fellow-travellers. Indeed, having led me to one pleasant +adventure, its purpose, I afterwards realised, was to lead me to +another, and then to go about its own bright business. +</P> + +<P> +I don't think either of us had much idea where we were or whither we +were bound. Our guiding principle seemed to be to get as much sunshine +as possible, and to find the easiest road. We avoided dull sandy +levels and hard rocky places, with the same instinctive dexterity. We +gloomed together through dark dingles, and came out on sunny reaches +with the same gilded magnificence. There are days when every stream is +Pactolus and every man is Croesus, and thanks to that first and +greatest of all alchemists, the sun, the morning I write of was a +morning when to breathe was gold and to see was silver. And to breathe +and see was all one asked. It was the first of May, and the world +shone like a great illuminated letter with which that father of +artists, the sun, was making splendid his missal of the seasons. +</P> + +<P> +The month of May was ever his tour de force. Each year he has strained +and stimulated his art to surpass himself, seeking ever a finer and a +brighter gold, a more celestial azure. Never had his gold been so +golden, his azure so dazzlingly clear and deep as on this particular +May morning; while his fancy simply ran riot in the marginal +decorations of woodland and spinney, quaint embroidered flowers and +copses full of exquisitely painted and wonderfully trained birds of +song. It was indeed a day for nature to be proud of. So seductive was +the sunshine that even the shy trout leapt at noonday, eager apparently +to change his silver for gold. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + O silver fish in the silver stream,<BR> + O golden fish in the golden gleam,<BR> + Tell me, tell me, tell me true,<BR> + Shall I find my girl if I follow you?<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +I suppose the reader never makes nonsense rhymes from sheer gladness of +heart,—nursery doggerel to keep time with the rippling of the stream, +or the dancing of the sun, or the beating of his heart; the gibberish +of delight. As I hummed this nonsense, a trout at least three pounds +in weight, whom you would know again anywhere, leapt a yard out of the +water, and I took it, in my absurd, sun-soaked heart, as a good omen, +as though he had said, "Follow and see." +</P> + +<P> +I had no will but to follow, no desire but to see. All the same, +though I affected to take him seriously, I had little suspicion how +much that trout was to mean to me,—yes, within the course of a very +few moments. Indeed, I had hardly strolled on for another quarter of a +mile, when I was suddenly aroused from wool-gathering by his loud cries +for help. Looking up, I saw him flashing desperately in mid-air, a +lovely foot of writhing silver. In another second he was swung through +the sunlight, and laid out breathing hard in a death-bed of buttercups +and daisies. +</P> + +<P> +There was not a moment to be lost, if I were to repay the debt of +gratitude which in a flash I had seen that I owed him. +</P> + +<P> +"Madam," I said, breathlessly springing forward, as a heavenly being +was coldly tearing the hook from the gills of the unlucky trout, +"though I am a stranger, will you do me a great favour? It is a matter +of life or death..." +</P> + +<P> +She looked up at me with some surprise, but with a fine fearless +glance, and almost immediately said, "Certainly, what can I do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Spare the life of that trout—" +</P> + +<P> +"It is a singular request," she replied, "and one," she smiled, +"self-sacrificing indeed for an angler to grant, for he weighs at least +three pounds. However, since he seems a friend of yours, here goes—" +And with the gladdest, most grateful sound in the world, the happy +smack of a fish back home again in the water, after an appalling three +minutes spent on land, that prophetic trout was once more an active +unit in God's populous universe. +</P> + +<P> +"Now that's good of you," I said, with thankful eyes, "and shows a kind +heart." +</P> + +<P> +"And kind hearts, they say, are more than coronets," she replied +merrily, indulging in that derisive quotation which seems to be the +final reward of the greatest poets. +</P> + +<P> +For a moment there was a silence, during which I confess to wondering +what I should say next. However, she supplied my place. +</P> + +<P> +"But of course," she said, "you owe it to me, after this touching +display of humanitarianism, to entertain me with your reason for +interposing between me and my just trout. Was it one of those +wonderful talking fishes out of the Arabian Nights, or are you merely +an angler yourself, and did you begrudge such a record catch to a girl?" +</P> + +<P> +"I see," I replied, "that you will understand me. That trout was, so +to speak, out of the Arabian Nights. Only five minutes ago it was a +May-day madness of mine to think that he leaped out of the water and +gave me a highly important message. So I begged his life from a mere +fancy. It was just a whim, which I trust you will excuse." +</P> + +<P> +"A whim! So you are a follower of the great god Whim," she replied, +with somewhat of an eager interest in her voice. "How nice it is to +meet a fellow-worshipper!" +</P> + +<P> +"Do women ever have whims?" I respectfully asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know about other women," she replied. "Indeed, I'm afraid I'm +unnatural enough to take no interest in them at all. But, as for +me,—well, what nonsense! Tell me some more about the trout. What was +the wonderful message he seemed to give you? Or perhaps I oughtn't to +ask?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid," I said, "it would hardly translate into anything +approaching common-sense." +</P> + +<P> +"Did I ask for common-sense?" she retorted. It was true, she hadn't. +But then I couldn't, with any respect for her, tell her the trout's +message, or, with any respect for myself, recall those atrocious +doggerel lines. In my dilemma, I caught sight of a pretty book lying +near her fishing-basket, and diverted the talk by venturing to ask its +name. +</P> + +<P> +"'T is of Aucassin and Nicolete," she replied, with something in her +voice which seemed to imply that the tender old story would be familiar +to me. My memory served me for once gallantly. +</P> + +<P> +I answered by humming half to myself the lines from the prologue,— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Sweet the song, the story sweet,<BR> + There is no man hearkens it,<BR> + No man living 'neath the sun,<BR> + So outwearied, so foredone,<BR> + Sick and woful, worn and sad,<BR> + But is healed, but is glad<BR> + 'T is so sweet."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"How charming of you to know it!" she laughed. "You are the only man +in this county, or the next, or the next, who knows it, I'm sure." +</P> + +<P> +"Are the women of the county more familiar with it?" I replied. +</P> + +<P> +"But tell me about the trout," she once more persisted. +</P> + +<P> +At the same moment, however, there came from a little distance the +musical tinkle of a bell that sounded like silver, a fairy-like and +almost startling sound. +</P> + +<P> +"It is my lunch," she explained. "I'm a worshipper of the great god +Whim too, and close by here I have a little summer-house, full of books +and fishing-lines and other childishness, where, when my whim is to be +lonely, I come and play at solitude. If you'll be content with rustic +fare, and promise to be amusing, it would be very pleasant if you'd +join me." +</P> + +<P> +O! most prophetic and agreeable trout! Was it not like the old fairy +tales, the you-help-us and we'll-help-you of Psyche and the ants? +</P> + +<P> +It had been the idlest whim for me to save the life of that poor trout. +There was no real pity in it. For two pins, I had been just as ready +to cut it open, to see if by chance it carried in its belly the golden +ring wherewith I was to wed the Golden— +</P> + +<P> +However, such is the gratitude of nature to man, that this little +thoughtless act of kindness had brought me face to face with—was it +the Golden Girl? +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0204"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +'T IS OF NICOLETE AND HER BOWER IN THE WILDWOOD +</H3> + +<P> +But I have all this time left the reader without any formal descriptive +introduction to this whimsical young lady angler. Not without reason, +for, like any really charming personality, she was very difficult to +picture. Paint a woman! as our young friend Alastor said. +</P> + +<P> +Faces that fall into types you can describe, or at all events label in +such a way that the reader can identify them; but those faces that +consist mainly of spiritual effect and physical bloom, that change with +everything they look upon, the light in which ebbs and flows with every +changing tide of the soul,—these you have to love to know, and to +worship to portray. +</P> + +<P> +Now the face of Nicolete, as I learnt in time to call her, was just +soul and bloom, perhaps mainly bloom. I never noticed whether she had +any other features except her eyes. I suppose she had a nose; a little +lace pocket-handkerchief I have by me at the moment is almost too small +to be evidence on that important point. +</P> + +<P> +As I walked by her side that May morning, I was only conscious of her +voice and her exquisite girlhood; for though she talked with the APLOMB +of a woman of the world, a passionate candour and simple ardour in her +manner would have betrayed her, had her face not plainly declared her +the incarnation of twenty. But if she were twenty years young, she was +equally twenty years OLD; and twenty years old, in some respects, is +the greatest age attained to by man or woman. In this she rather +differed from Alastor, of whom otherwise she was the female +counterpart. Her talk, and something rather in her voice than her +talk, soon revealed her as a curious mixture of youth and age, of +dreamer and desillusionee. +</P> + +<P> +One soon realised that she was too young, was hoping too much from +life, to spend one's days with. Yet she had just sufficiently that +touch of languor which puts one at one's ease, though indeed it was +rather the languor of waiting for what was going to happen than the +weariness of experience gone by. She was weary, not because of the +past, but because the fairy theatre of life still kept its curtain +down, and forced her to play over and over again the impatient overture +of her dreams. +</P> + +<P> +I have no doubt that it was largely nervousness that kept the +mysterious playwright so long fumbling behind the scenes, for it was +obvious that it would be no ordinary sort of play, no every-day +domestic drama, that would satisfy this young lady, to whom life had +given, by way of prologue, the inestimable blessing of wealth, and the +privilege, as a matter of course, of choosing as she would among the +grooms (that is, the bride-grooms) of the romantic British aristocracy. +</P> + +<P> +She had made youth's common mistake of beginning life with books, which +can only be used without danger by those who are in a position to test +their statements. Youth naturally believes everything that is told it, +especially in books. +</P> + +<P> +Now, books are simply professional liars about life, and the books that +are best worth reading are those which lie the most beautifully. Yet, +in fairness, we must add that they are liars, not with intent to +mislead, but merely with the tenderest purpose to console. They are +the good Samaritans that find us robbed of all our dreams by the +roadside of life, bleeding and weeping and desolate; and such is their +skill and wealth and goodness of heart, that they not only heal up our +wounds, but restore to us the lost property of our dreams, on one +condition,—that we never travel with them again in the daylight. +</P> + +<P> +A library is a better world, built by the brains and hearts of poets +and dreamers, as a refuge from the real world outside; and in it alone +is to be found the land of milk and honey which it promises. +</P> + +<P> +"Milk and honey" would have been an appropriate inscription for the +delicious little library which parents who, I surmised, doted on +Nicolete in vain, had allowed her to build in a wild woodland corner of +her ancestral park, half a mile away from the great house, where, for +all its corridors and galleries, she could never feel, at all events, +spiritually alone. All that was most sugared and musical and generally +delusive in the old library of her fathers had been brought out to this +little woodland library, and to that nucleus of old leather-bound poets +and romancers, long since dead, yet as alive and singing on their +shelves as any bird on the sunny boughs outside, my young lady's +private purse had added all that was most sugared and musical and +generally delusive in the vellum bound Japanese-paper literature of our +own luxurious day. Nor were poets and romancers from over sea—in +their seeming simple paper covers, but with, oh, such complicated and +subtle insides!—absent from the court which Nicolete held here in the +greenwood. Never was such a nest of singing-birds. All day long, to +the ear of the spirit, there was in this little library a sound of +harping and singing and the telling of tales,—songs and tales of a +world that never was, yet shall ever be. Here day by day Nicolete fed +her young soul on the nightingale's-tongues of literature, and put down +her book only to listen to the nightingale's-tongues outside. Yea, +sun, moon, and stars were all in the conspiracy to lie to her of the +loveliness of the world and the good intentions of life. And now, thus +unexpectedly, I found myself joining the nefarious conspiracy. Ah, +well! was I not twenty myself, and full of dreams! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0205"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +'T IS OF AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE +</H3> + +<P> +Thus it was that we lunched together amid the books and birds, in an +exquisite solitude a deux; for the ringer of the silver bell had +disappeared, having left a dainty meal in readiness—for two. +</P> + +<P> +"You see you were expected," said Nicolete, with her pretty laugh. "I +dreamed I should have a visitor to-day, and told Susan to lay the lunch +for two. You mustn't be surprised at that," she added mischievously; +"it has often happened before. I dream that dream every other night, +and Susan lays for two every day. She knows my whims,—knows that the +extra knife and fork are for the fairy knight that may turn up any +afternoon, as I tell her—" +</P> + +<P> +"To find the sleepless princess," I added, thinking at the same time +one of those irrelevant asides that will go through the brain of +thirty, that the woman who would get her share of kisses nowadays must +neither slumber nor sleep. +</P> + +<P> +A certain great poet, I think it was Byron, objected to seeing women in +the act of eating. He thought their eating should be done in private. +What a curiously perverse opinion! For surely woman never shows to +better advantage than in the dainty exercises of a dainty repast, and +there is nothing more thrilling to man than a meal alone with a woman +he loves or is about to love. Perhaps, deep down, the reason is that +there still vibrates in the masculine blood the thrilling surprise of +the moment when man first realised that the angel woman was built upon +the same carnivorous principles as his grosser self. +</P> + +<P> +That is one of the first heart-beating surprises that come upon the boy +Columbus, as he sets out to discover the New World of woman; and indeed +his surprise has not seldom deepened into admiration, as he has found +that not only does woman eat, but frequently eats a lot. +</P> + +<P> +This privilege of seeing woman eat is the earliest granted of those +delicate animal intimacies, the fuller and fuller confiding of which +plays not the least important part, and ever such a sweet one, even in +a highly transcendental affection. It is this gradual humanising of +the divine female that brings about the spiritualising of the +unregenerate male. +</P> + +<P> +In the earliest stages of love the services are small that we are +privileged to do for the loved one. But if we are allowed to sit at +meat with her,—ever a royal condescension,—it is ours at least to +pass her the salt, to see that she is never kept waiting a moment for +the mustard or the pepper, to cut the bread for her with geometrical +precision, and to lean as near her warm shoulder as we dare to pour out +for her the sacred wine. +</P> + +<P> +Yes! for sure I was twenty again, for the performance of these simple +services for Nicolete gave me a thrill of pure boyish pleasure such as +I had never expected to feel again. And did she not make a knight of +me by gently asking if I would be so kind as to carve the chicken, and +how she laughed quite disproportionally at my school-boy story of the +man who, being asked to carve a pigeon, said he thought they had better +send for a wood-carver, as it seemed to be a wood pigeon. +</P> + +<P> +And while we ate and drank and laughed and chatted, the books around us +were weaving their spells. Even before the invention of printing books +were "love's purveyors." Was it not a book that sent Paolo and +Francesca for ever wandering on that stormy wind of passion and of +death? And nowadays the part played by books in human drama is greater +than we perhaps realise. Apart from their serious influence as +determining destinies of the character, what endless opportunities they +afford to lovers, who perhaps are denied all other meeting-places than +may be found on the tell-tale pages of a marked volume. The method is +so easy and so unsuspect. You have only to put faint pencil-marks +against the tenderest passages in your favourite new poet, and lend the +volume to Her, and She has only to leave here and there the dropped +violet of a timid confirmatory initial, for you to know your fate. And +what a touchstone books thus become! Indeed they simplify love-making, +from every point of view. With books so inexpensive and accessible to +all as they are to-day, no one need run any risks of marrying the wrong +woman. He has only to put her through an unconscious examination by +getting her to read and mark a few of his favourite authors, and he is +thus in possession of the master clues of her character. With a list +of her month's reading and a photograph, a man ought to be able to make +up his mind about any given woman, even though he has never spoken to +her. "Name your favourite writer" should be one of the first questions +in the Engagement Catechism. +</P> + +<P> +There is, indeed, no such short cut to knowledge of each other as a +talk about books. One short afternoon is enough for any two +book-lovers, though they may have met for the first time in the +morning, to make up their minds whether or not they have been born for +each other. If you are agreed, say, in admiring Meredith, Hardy, Omar +Khayyam, and Maeterlinck,—to take four particularly +test-authors,—there is nothing to prevent your marrying at once. +Indeed, a love for any one of these significant writers will be enough, +not to speak of an admiration for "Aucassin and Nicolete." +</P> + +<P> +Now, Nicolete and I soon found that we had all these and many another +writer in common, and before our lunch was ended we were nearer to each +other than many old friends. The heart does not more love the heart +that loves it than the brain loves the brain that comprehends it; and, +whatever else was to befall us, Nicolete and I were already in love +with each other's brains. Whether or not the malady would spread till +it reached the heart is the secret of some future chapter. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0206"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A FAIRY TALE AND ITS FAIRY TAILORS +</H3> + +<P> +As this is not a realistic novel, I do not hold myself bound, as I have +said before, to account reasonably for everything that is done—least +of all, said—within its pages. I simply say, So it happened, or So it +is, and expect the reader to take my word. If he be uncivil enough to +doubt it, we may as well stop playing this game of fancy. It is one of +the first conditions of enjoying a book, as it is of all successful +hypnotism, that the reader surrenders up his will to the writer, who, +of course, guarantees to return it to him at the close of the volume. +If you say that no young lady would have behaved as I have presently to +relate of Nicolete, that no parents were ever so accommodating in the +world of reality, I reply,—No doubt you are right, but none the less +what I have to tell is true and really did happen, for all that. And +not only did it happen, but to the whimsically minded, to the true +children of fancy, it will seem the most natural thing in the world. +No doubt they will wonder why I have made such a preamble about it, as +indeed, now I think of it, so do I. +</P> + +<P> +Again I claim exemption in this wandering history from all such +descriptive drudgery upon second, third, and fourth dramatis +personsonae as your thorough-going novelist must undertake with a good +grace. Like a host and hostess at a reception, the poor novelist has +to pretend to be interested in everybody,—in the dull as in the +brilliant, in the bore as in the beauty. I'm afraid I should never do +as a novelist, for I should waste all my time with the heroine; whereas +the true novelist is expected to pay as much attention to the heroine's +parents as though he were a suitor for her hand. Indeed, there is no +relative of hero or heroine too humble or stupid for such a novelist as +the great Balzac. He will invite the dullest of them to stay with him +for quite prolonged visits, and without a murmur set apart a suite of +chapters for their accommodation. I'm not sure that the humanity of +the reader in these cases is of such comprehensive sympathy as the +novelist's, and it may well be that the novelist undertakes all such +hard labour under a misapprehension of the desires of the reader, who, +as a rule, I fancy, is as anxious to join the ladies as the novelist +himself. Indeed, I believe that there is an opportunity for a new form +of novel, in which the novelist, as well as the reader, will skip all +the dull people, and merely indicate such of them as are necessary to +the action by an outline or a symbol, compressing their familiar +psychology, and necessary plot-interferences with the main characters, +into recognised formulae. For the benefit of readers voracious for +everything about everybody, schedule chapters might be provided by +inferior novelists, good at painting say tiresome bourgeois fathers, +gouty uncles and brothers in the army, as sometimes in great pictures +we read that the sheep in the foreground have been painted by Mr. +So-and-so, R.A. +</P> + +<P> +The Major-General and his Lady were taking the waters at Wiesbaden. +That was all I knew of Nicolete's parents, and all I needed to know; +with the exception of one good action,—at her urgent entreaty they had +left Nicolete behind them, with no other safeguard than a charming +young lady companion, whose fitness for her sacred duties consisted in +a temperament hardly less romantic and whimsical than Nicolete's own. +She was too charming to deserve the name of obstacle; and as there was +no other— +</P> + +<P> +But I admit that the cart has got a little in front of the horse, and I +grow suddenly alarmed lest the reader should be suspecting me of an +elopement, or some such romantic vulgarity. If he will only put any +such thoughts from his mind, I promise to proceed with the story in a +brief and business-like manner forthwith. +</P> + +<P> +We are back once more at the close of the last chapter, in Nicolete's +book-bower in the wildwood. It is an hour or two later, and the +afternoon sun is flooding with a searching glory all the secret places +of the woodland. Hidden nooks and corners, unused to observation, +suddenly gleam and blush in effulgent exposure,—like lovers whom the +unexpected turning on of a light has revealed kissing in the dark,—and +are as suddenly, unlike the lovers, left in their native shade again. +It was that rich afternoon sunlight that loves to flash into teacups as +though they were crocuses, that loves to run a golden finger along the +beautiful wrinkles of old faces and light up the noble hollows of +age-worn eyes; the sunlight that loves to fall with transfiguring beam +on the once dear book we never read, or, with malicious +inquisitiveness, expose to undreamed-of detection the undusted picture, +or the gold-dusted legs of remote chairs, which the poor housemaid has +forgotten. +</P> + +<P> +So in Nicolete's bower it illuminated with strange radiancy the dainty +disorder of deserted lunch, made prisms out of the wine-glasses, +painted the white cloth with wedge-shaped rainbows, and flooded the +cavernous interiors of the half-eaten fowl with a pathetic yellow +torchlight. +</P> + +<P> +Leaving that melancholy relic of carnivorous appetite, it turned its +bold gold gaze on Nicolete. No need to transfigure her! But, heavens! +how grandly her young face took the great kiss of the god! Then it +fell for a tender moment on the jaundiced page of my old Boccaccio,—a +rare edition, which I had taken from my knapsack to indulge myself with +the appreciation of a connoisseur. Next minute "the unobstructed beam" +was shining right into the knapsack itself, for all the world like one +of those little demon electric lights with which the dentist makes a +momentary treasure-cave of your distended jaws, flashing with startled +stalactite. At the same moment Nicolete's starry eyes took the same +direction; then there broke from her her lovely laughter, merry and +inextinguishable. +</P> + +<P> +Once more, need I say, my petticoat had played me false—or should I +not say true? For there was its luxurious lace border, a thing for the +soft light of the boudoir, or the secret moonlight of love's permitted +eyes, alone to see, shamelessly brazening it out in this terrible +sunlight. Obviously there was but one way out of the dilemma, to +confess my pilgrimage to Nicolete, and reveal to her all the fanciful +absurdity to which, after all, I owed the sight of her. +</P> + +<P> +"So that is why you pleaded so hard for that poor trout," she said, +when I had finished. "Well, you are a fairy prince indeed! Now, do you +know what the punishment of your nonsense is to be?" +</P> + +<P> +"Is it very severe and humiliating?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"You must judge of that. It is—to take me with you!" +</P> + +<P> +"You,—what do you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes,—not for good and all, of course, but just for, say, a fortnight, +just a fortnight of rambles and adventures, and then to deliver me safe +home again where you found me—" +</P> + +<P> +"But it is impossible," I almost gasped in surprise. "Of course you +are not serious?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am, really, and you will take me, won't you?" she continued +pleadingly. "You don't know how we women envy you men those wonderful +walking-tours we can only read about in Hazlitt or Stevenson. We are +not allowed to move without a nurse or a footman. From the day we are +born to the day we die, we are never left a moment to ourselves. But +you—you can go out into the world, the mysterious world, do as you +will, go where you will, wander here, wander there, follow any bye-way +that takes your fancy, put up at old inns, make strange acquaintances, +have all kinds of romantic experiences— Oh, to be a man for a +fortnight, your younger brother for a fortnight!" +</P> + +<P> +"It is impossible!" I repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't at all," she persisted, with a fine blush. "If you will only +be nice and kind, and help me to some Rosalind's clothes. You have only +to write to your tailors, or send home for a spare suit of +clothes,—with a little managing yours would just fit me, you're not so +much taller,—and then we could start, like two comrades, seeking +adventures. Oh, how glorious it would be!" +</P> + +<P> +It was in vain that I brought the batteries of common-sense to bear +upon her whim. I raised every possible objection in vain. +</P> + +<P> +I pointed out the practical difficulties. There were her parents. +</P> + +<P> +Weren't they drinking the waters at Wiesbaden, and weren't they to go +on drinking them for another three weeks? My fancy made a picture of +them distended with three weeks' absorption of mineral springs. Then +there was her companion. Nicolete was confident of her assistance. +Then I tried vilifying myself. How could she run the risk of trusting +herself to such intimate companionship with a man whom she hadn't known +half a dozen hours? This she laughed to scorn. Presently I was silent +from sheer lack of further objections; and need I say that all the +while there had been a traitor impulse in my heart, a weak sweetness +urging me on to accept the pretty chance which the good genius of my +pilgrimage had so evidently put in my way,—for, after all, what harm +could it do? With me Nicolete was, indeed, safe,—that, of course, I +knew,—and safely she should come back home again after her little +frolic. All that was true enough. And how charming it would be to +have such a dainty companion! then the fun, the fancy, the whim of it +all. What was the use of setting out to seek adventures if I didn't +pursue them when found. +</P> + +<P> +Well, the long and short of it was that I agreed to undertake the +adventure, provided that Nicolete could win over the lady whom at the +beginning of the chapter I declared too charming to be described as an +obstacle. +</P> + +<P> +By nine o'clock the following morning the fairy tailors, as Nicolete +called them, were at work on the fairy clothes, and, at the end of +three days, there came by parcel-post a bulky unromantic-looking +brown-paper parcel, which it was my business to convey to Nicolete +under cover of the dark. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0207"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FROM THE MORNING STAR TO THE MOON +</H3> + +<P> +I quite realise that this book is written perhaps only just in time for +the motive of these two or three chapters to be appreciated in its +ancient piquancy. Very soon, alas! the sexes will be robbed of one of +the first and most thrilling motives of romance, the motive of As You +Like It, the romance of wearing each other's clothes. Alas, that every +advance of reason should mean a corresponding retreat of romance! It +is only reasonable that woman, being—have you yet realised the +fact?—a biped like her brothers, should, when she takes to her +brothers' recreations, dress as those recreations demand; and yet the +death of Rosalind is a heavy price to pay for the lady bicyclist. So +soon as the two sexes wear the same clothes, they may as well wear +nothing; the game of sex is up. In this matter, as in others, we +cannot both have our cake and eat it. All romance, like all +temptation, is founded on the Fascination of the Exception. So soon as +the exception becomes, instead of merely proving, the rule, that +particular avenue of romance is closed. The New Woman of the future +will be the woman with the petticoats, she who shall restore the +ancient Eleusinian mysteries of the silk skirt and the tea-gown. +</P> + +<P> +Happily for me, my acquaintance among the Rosalinds of the bicycle, at +this period of my life, was but slight, and thus no familiarity with +the tweed knickerbocker feminine took off the edge of my delight on +first beholding Nicolete clothed in like manhood with ourselves, and +yet, delicious paradox! looking more like a woman than ever. +</P> + +<P> +During those three days while the fairy tailors were at work our +friendship had not been idle. Indeed, some part of each day we had +spent diligently learning each other, as travellers to distant lands +across the Channel work hard at phrase-book and Baedeker the week +before their departure. Meanwhile too I had made the acquaintance of +the charming lady Obstacle,—as it proved so unfair to call her,—and +by some process of natural magnetism we had immediately won each +other's hearts, so that on the moonlight night on which I took the +river path with my brown-paper parcel there was no misgiving in my +heart,—nothing but harping and singing, and blessings on the river +that seemed all silver with the backs of magic trout. As I thought of +all I owed that noble fish, I kneeled by the river's bearded lip, among +the nettles and the meadowsweet, and swore by the inconstant moon that +trout and I were henceforth kinsmen, and that between our houses should +be an eternal amity. The chub and the dace and the carp, not to speak +of that Chinese pirate the pike, might still look to it, when I came +forth armed with rod and line; but for me and my house the trout is +henceforth sacred. By the memory of the Blessed Saint Izaak, I swore it! +</P> + +<P> +My arrival at Beaucaire was one of great excitement. Nicolete and the +Obstacle were both awaiting me, for the mysteries of masculine attire +were not to be explored alone. The parcel was snatched quite +unceremoniously from my hands, the door shut upon me, and I laughingly +bidden go listen to the nightingale. I was not long in finding one, +nor, being an industrious phrase-maker, did I waste my time, for, +before I was summoned to behold Nicolete in all her boyhood, I had +found occasion and moonlight to remark to my pocket-book that, Though +all the world has heard the song of the Nightingale to the Rose, only +the Nightingale has heard the answer of the Rose. This I hurriedly hid +in my heart for future conversation, as the pre-arranged tinkle of the +silver bell called me to the rose. +</P> + +<P> +Would, indeed, that I were a nightingale to sing aright the beauty of +that rose with which, think of it, I was to spend a whole +fortnight,—yes, no less than fourteen wonderful days. +</P> + +<P> +The two girls were evidently proud of themselves at having succeeded so +well with the mysterious garments. There were one or two points on +which they needed my guidance, but they were unimportant; and when at +last Nicolete would consent to stand up straight and let me have a good +look at her,—for, poor child! she was as shy and shrinking as though +she had nothing on,—she made a very pretty young man indeed. +</P> + +<P> +She didn't, I'm afraid, look like a young man of our degenerate day. +She was far too beautiful and distinguished for that. Besides, her dark +curling hair, quite short for a woman, was too long, and her eyes—like +the eyes of all poets—were women's eyes. She looked, indeed, like one +of those wonderful boys of the Italian Renaissance, whom you may still +see at the National Gallery, whose beauty is no denial, but rather the +stamp of their slender, supple strength, young painters and sculptors +who held the palette for Leonardo, or wielded the chisel for +Michelangelo, and anon threw both aside to take up sword for Guelf or +Ghibelline in the narrow streets of Florence. +</P> + +<P> +Her knapsack was already packed, and its contents included a serge +skirt "in case of emergencies." Already, she naughtily reminded me, we +possessed a petticoat between us. +</P> + +<P> +The brief remainder of the evening passed in excited chatter and +cigarettes, and in my instructing Nicolete in certain tricks of +masculine deportment. The chief difficulty I hardly like mentioning; +and if the Obstacle had not been present, I certainly dare not have +spoken of it to Nicolete. I mean that she was so shy about her pretty +legs. She couldn't cross them with any successful nonchalance. +</P> + +<P> +"You must take your legs more for granted, dear Nicolete," I summoned +courage to say. "The nonchalance of the legs is the first lesson to be +learnt in such a masquerade as this. You must regard them as so much +bone and iron, rude skeleton joints and shins, as though they were the +bones of the great elk or other extinct South Kensington +specimen,"—"not," I added in my heart, "as the velvet and ivory which +they are." +</P> + +<P> +We had agreed to start with the sun on the morrow, so as to get clear +of possible Peeping Toms; and when good-nights had been said, and I was +once more swinging towards my inn, it seemed but an hour or two, as +indeed it was, before I heard four o'clock drowsily announced through +my bedroom door, and before I was once more striding along that +river-bank all dew-silvered with last night's moonlight, the sun +rubbing his great eye on the horizon, the whole world yawning through +dainty bed-clothes of mist, and here and there a copse-full of birds +congratulating themselves on their early rising. +</P> + +<P> +Nicolete was not quite ready, so I had to go listen to the lark, about +whom, alas! I could find nothing to say to my pocket-book, before +Nicolete, armed cap-a-pie with stick and knapsack, appeared at the door +of her chalet. +</P> + +<P> +The Obstacle was there to see us start. She and Nicolete exchanged many +kisses which were hard to bear, and the first quarter of an hour of our +journey was much obstructed by the farewells of her far-fluttering +handkerchief. When at last we were really alone, I turned and looked +at Nicolete striding manfully at my side, just to make sure that it was +really true. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we're in for it now," I said; "aren't you frightened?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it's wonderful," she replied; "don't spoil it by talking." +</P> + +<P> +And I didn't; for who could hope to compete with the sun, who was +making the whole dewy world shake with laughter at his brilliancy, or +with the birds, any one of whom was a poet at least equal to Herrick? +</P> + +<P> +Presently we found ourselves at four crossroads, with a four-fingered +post in the centre. We had agreed to leave our destination to chance. +We read the sign-post. +</P> + +<P> +"Which shall we choose?" I said,— +</P> + +<P> +"Aucassin, true love and fair, To what land do we repair?" +</P> + +<P> +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you think this one," she replied, "this one?—To the Moon!" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly, we couldn't find a prettier place; but it's a long way," I +replied, looking up at the sky, all roses and pearls,—"a long way from +the Morning Star to the Moon." +</P> + +<P> +"All the longer to be free," cried Nicolete, recklessly. +</P> + +<P> +"So be it," I assented. "Allons—to the Moon!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0208"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE KIND OF THING THAT HAPPENS IN THE MOON +</H3> + +<P> +Two friends of my youth, with whom it would be hopeless to attempt +competition, have described the star-strewn journey to the moon. It is +not for me to essay again where the ingenious M. Jules Verne and Mr. +William Morris have preceded me. Besides, the journey is nowadays much +more usual, and therefore much less adventurous, than when those +revered writers first described it. In the middle ages a journey to the +moon with a woman you loved was a very perilous matter indeed. Even in +the last century the roads were much beset with danger; but in our own +day, like most journeys, it is accomplished with ease and safety in a +few hours. +</P> + +<P> +However, to the latter-day hero, whose appetite for dragons is not +keen, this absence of adventure is perhaps rather pleasurable than +otherwise; and I confess that I enjoyed the days I spent on foot with +Nicolete none the less because they passed in tranquil +uneventfulness,—that is, without events of the violent kind. Of +course, all depends on what you call an event. We were not waylaid by +robbers, we fed and slept unchallenged at inns, we escaped collision +with the police, and we encountered no bodily dangers of any kind; yet +should I not call the journey uneventful, nor indeed, I think, would +Nicolete. +</P> + +<P> +To me it was one prolonged divine event, and, with such daily +intercourse with Nicolete, I never dreamed of craving for any other +excitement. To walk from morning to evening by her side, to minister +to her moods, to provide such entertainment as I might for her brain, +and watch like a father over her physical needs; to note when she was +weary and too proud to show it, and to pretend to be done up myself; to +choose for her the easiest path, and keep my eyes open for wayside +flowers and every country surprise,—these, and a hundred other +attentions, kept my heart and mind in busy service. +</P> + +<P> +To picnic by some lonely stream-side on a few sandwiches, a flask of +claret, and a pennyworth of apples; to talk about the books we loved; +to exchange our hopes and dreams,—we asked nothing better than this +simple fare. +</P> + +<P> +And so a week went by. But, though so little had seemed to happen, and +though our walking record was shamefully modest, yet, imperceptible as +the transition had been, we were, quite insensibly indeed, and +unacknowledged, in a very different relation to each other than when we +had started out from the Morning Star. In fact, to make no more words +about it, I was head over heels in love with Nicolete, and I think, +without conceit, I may say that Nicolete was rapidly growing rather +fond of me. Apart from anything else, we were such excellent chums. We +got along together as if indeed we had been two brothers, equable in +our tempers and one in our desires. +</P> + +<P> +At last the feeling on my side became so importunate that I could no +longer keep silence. +</P> + +<P> +We were seated together taking tea at a small lonely inn, whose windows +looked out over a romantic little lake, backed by Salvator Rosa +pine-woods. The sun was beginning to grow dreamy, and the whole world +to wear a dangerously sentimental expression. +</P> + +<P> +I forget exactly what it was, but something in our talk had set us +glowing, had touched tender chords of unexpected sympathy, and +involuntarily I stretched out my hand across the corner of the table +and pressed Nicolete's hand as it rested on the cloth. She did not +withdraw it, and our eyes met with a steady gaze of love. +</P> + +<P> +"Nicolete," I said presently, when I could speak, "it is time for you +to be going back home." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" she asked breathlessly. +</P> + +<P> +"Because," I answered, "I must love you if you stay." +</P> + +<P> +"Would you then bid me go?" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Nicolete," I said, "don't tempt me. Be a good girl and go home." +</P> + +<P> +"But supposing I don't want to go home," she said; "supposing—oh, +supposing I love you too? Would you still bid me go?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," I said. "In that case it would be even more imperative." +</P> + +<P> +"Aucassin!" +</P> + +<P> +"It is true, it is true, dear Nicolete." +</P> + +<P> +"Then, Aucassin," she replied, almost sternly, in her great girlish +love, "this is true also,—I love you. I have never loved, shall never +love, any man but you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Nicolete!" +</P> + +<P> +"Aucassin!" +</P> + +<P> +There were no more words spoken between us for a full hour that +afternoon. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0209"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WRITTEN BY MOONLIGHT +</H3> + +<P> +I knew deep down in my heart that it couldn't last, yet how deny myself +these roses, while the opportunity of gathering them was mine!—the +more so, as I believed it would do no harm to Nicolete. At all events, +a day or two more or less of moonshine would make no matter either way. +And so all next day we walked hand in hand through Paradise. +</P> + +<P> +It has been said by them of old time, and our fathers have told us, +that the kiss of first love, the first kiss of the first woman we love, +is beyond all kisses sweet; and true it is. But true is it also that +no less sweet is the first kiss of the last woman we love. +</P> + +<P> +Putting my faith in old saws, as a young man will, I had never dreamed +to know again a bliss so divinely passionate and pure as came to me +with every glance of Nicolete's sweet eyes, with every simple pressure +of her hand; and the joy that was mine when sometimes, stopping on our +way, we would press together our lips ever so gravely and tenderly, +seems too holy even to speak of. +</P> + +<P> +The holy angels could not have loved Nicolete with a purer love, a love +freer from taint of any earthly thought, than I, a man of thirty, +blase, and fed from my youth upon the honeycomb of woman. +</P> + +<P> +It was curious that the first difficulty of our pilgrimage should +befall us the very next day. Coming towards nightfall to a small inn +in a lonely unpopulated countryside, we found that the only +accommodation the inn afforded was one double-bedded room, and there +was no other inn for at least ten miles. I think I was more troubled +than Nicolete. When, after interviewing the landlady, I came and told +her of the dilemma, where she sat in the little parlour wearied out +with the day's walk, she blushed, it is true, but seemed little put +about. Indeed, she laughed, and said it was rather fun, "like +something out of Sterne,"—of such comfort is a literary reference in +all seasons and circumstances,—and then she added, with a sweet look +that sent the blood rioting about my heart, "It won't matter so much, +will it, love, NOW?" +</P> + +<P> +There proved nothing for it but to accept the situation, and we made +the arrangement that Nicolete was to slip off to bed first, and then +put out the light and go to sleep. However, when I followed her, +having sat up as long as the landlady's patience would endure, I found +that, though she had blown out the candle, she had forgotten to put out +the moon, which shone as though it were St. Agnes' Eve across half the +room. +</P> + +<P> +I stole in very shyly, kept my eyes sternly from Nicolete's white bed, +though, as I couldn't shut my ears, the sound of her breathing came to +me with indescribable sweetness. After I had lain among the sheets +some five or ten minutes, I was suddenly startled by a little voice +within the room saying,— +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not asleep." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you should be, naughty child. Now shut your eyes and go to +sleep,—and fair dreams and sweet repose," I replied. +</P> + +<P> +"Won't you give me one little good-night kiss?" +</P> + +<P> +"I gave you one downstairs." +</P> + +<P> +"Is it very wicked to want another?" +</P> + +<P> +There was not a foot between our two beds, so I bent over and took her +soft white shoulders in my arms and kissed her. All the heaped-up +sweetness of the whitest, freshest flowers of the spring seemed in my +embrace as I kissed her, so soft, so fragrant, so pure; and as the +moonlight was the white fire in our blood. Softly I released her, +stroked her brown hair, and turned again to my pillow. Presently the +little voice was in the room again,— +</P> + +<P> +"Mayn't I hold your hand? Somehow I feel lonely and frightened." +</P> + +<P> +So our hands made a bridge across which our dreams might pass through +the night, and after a little while I knew that she slept. +</P> + +<P> +As I lay thus holding her hand, and listening to her quiet breathing, I +realised once more what my young Alastor had meant by the purity of +high passion. For indeed the moonlight that fell across her bosom was +not whiter than my thoughts, nor could any kiss—were it even such a +kiss as Venus promised to the betrayer of Psyche—even in its fiercest +delirium, be other than dross compared with the wild white peace of +those silent hours when we lay thus married and maiden side by side. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0210"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +HOW ONE MAKES LOVE AT THIRTY +</H3> + +<P> +My sleeplessness while Nicolete slept had not been all ecstasy, for I +had come to a bitter resolution; and next morning, when we were once +more on our way, I took a favourable opportunity of conveying it to +Nicolete. +</P> + +<P> +"Nicolete," I said, as we rested awhile by the roadside, "I have +something serious to say to you." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, dear," she said, looking rather frightened. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, dear, it is this,—our love must end with our holiday. No good +can come of it." +</P> + +<P> +"But oh, why? I love you." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and I love you,—love you as I never thought I could love again. +Yet I know it is all a dangerous dream,—a trick of our brains, an +illusion of our tastes." +</P> + +<P> +"But oh, why? I love you." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you do to-day, I know; but it couldn't last. I believe I could +love you for ever; but even so, it wouldn't be right. You couldn't go +on loving me. I am too old, too tired, too desillusione, perhaps too +selfish." +</P> + +<P> +"I will love you always!" said girl Nicolete. +</P> + +<P> +"Whereas you," I continued, disregarding the lovely refrain of her +tear-choked voice, "are standing on the wonderful threshold of life, +waiting in dreamland for the dawn. And it will come, and with it the +fairy prince, with whom you shall wander hand in hand through all its +fairy rose-gardens; but I, dear Nicolete,—I am not he." +</P> + +<P> +Nicolete did not speak. +</P> + +<P> +"I know," I continued, pressing her hand, "that I may seem young enough +to talk like this, but some of us get through life quicker than others, +and when we say, 'It is done,' it is no use for onlookers to say, 'Why, +it is just beginning!' Believe me, Nicolete, I am not fit husband for +you." +</P> + +<P> +"Then shall I take no other," said Nicolete, with set face. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, you will," I rejoined; "let but a month or two pass, and you +will see how wise I was, after all. Besides, there are other reasons, +of which there is no need to speak—" +</P> + +<P> +"What reasons?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," I said, half laughing, "there is the danger that, after all, we +mightn't agree. There is nothing so perilously difficult as the daily +intercourse of two people who love each other. You are too young to +realise its danger. And I couldn't bear to see our love worn away by +the daily dropping of tears, not to speak of its being rent by the +dynamite of daily quarrels. We know each other's tastes, but we know +hardly anything of each other's natures." +</P> + +<P> +Nicolete looked at me strangely. 'Troth, it was a strange way to make +love, I knew. +</P> + +<P> +"And what else?" she asked somewhat coldly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, though it's not a thing one cares to speak of, I'm a poor +man—" +</P> + +<P> +Nicolete broke through my sentence with a scornful exclamation. +</P> + +<P> +"You," I continued straight on,—"well, you have been accustomed to a +certain spaciousness and luxury of life. This it would be out of my +power to continue for you. These are real reasons, very real reasons, +dear Nicolete, though you may not think so now. The law of the world +in these matters is very right. For the rich and the poor to marry is +to risk, terribly risk, the very thing they would marry for—their +love. Love is better an unmarried than a married regret." +</P> + +<P> +Nicolete was silent again. +</P> + +<P> +"Think of your little woodland chalet, and your great old trees in the +park,—you couldn't live without them. I have, at most, but one tree +worth speaking of to offer you—" +</P> + +<P> +I purposely waived the glamour which my old garden had for my mind, and +which I wouldn't have exchanged for fifty parks. +</P> + +<P> +"Trees!" retorted Nicolete,—"what are trees?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, my dear girl, they are a good deal,—particularly when they are +genealogical, as my one tree is not." +</P> + +<P> +"Aucassin," she said suddenly, almost fiercely, "can you really jest? +Tell me this,—do you love me?" +</P> + +<P> +"I love you," I said simply; "and it is just because I love you so much +that I have talked as I have done. No man situated as I am who loved +you could have talked otherwise." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I have heard it all, weighed it all," said Nicolete, presently; +"and to me it is but as thistledown against the love within my heart. +Will you cast away a woman who loves you for theories? You know you +love me, know I love you. We should have our trials, our ups and +downs, I know; but surely it is by those that true love learns how to +grow more true and strong. Oh, I cannot argue! Tell me again, do you +love me?" +</P> + +<P> +And there she broke down and fell sobbing into my arms. I consoled her +as best I might, and presently she looked up at me through her tears. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me again," she said, "that you love me, just as you did +yesterday, and promise never to speak of all those cruel things again. +Ah! have you thought of the kind of men you would give me up to?" +</P> + +<P> +At that I confess I shuddered, and I gave her the required assurance. +</P> + +<P> +"And you won't be wise and reasonable and ridiculous any more?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," I answered; adding in my mind, "not, at all events, for the +present." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0211"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +HOW ONE PLAYS THE HERO AT THIRTY +</H3> + +<P> +Had we only been able to see a day into the future, we might have +spared ourselves this agonising, for all our doubts and fears were +suddenly dispersed in an entirely unexpected manner. Happily these +interior problems are not infrequently resolved by quite exterior +forces. +</P> + +<P> +We were sitting the following afternoon in one of those broad bay +windows such as one finds still in some old country inns, just thinking +about starting once more on our way, when suddenly Nicolete, who had +been gazing out idly into the road, gave a little cry. I followed her +glance. A carriage with arms on its panels had stopped at the inn, and +as a smart footman opened the door, a fine grey-headed military-looking +man stepped out and strode hurriedly up the inn steps. +</P> + +<P> +"Aucassin," gasped Nicolete, "it is my father!" +</P> + +<P> +It was too true. The old man's keen eye had caught sight of Nicolete +at the window also, and in another moment we were all three face to +face. I must do the Major-General the justice of saying that he made +as little of a "scene" of it as possible. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, my girl," he said, "I have come to put an end to this nonsense. +Have you a petticoat with you? Well, go upstairs and get it on. I +will wait for you here... On you, sir, I shall waste no words. From +what I have heard, you are as moonstruck as my daughter." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," I stammered, "I cannot expect you to understand the +situation, though I think, if you would allow me, I could in a very few +words make it somewhat clearer,—make you realise that, after all, it +has been a very innocent and childish escapade, in which there has been +no harm and a great deal of pleasure—" +</P> + +<P> +But the Major-General cut me short. +</P> + +<P> +"I should prefer," he said, "not to discuss the matter. I may say that +I realise that my daughter has been safe in your hands, however +foolish,"—for this I thanked him with a bow,—"but I must add that +your eccentric acquaintance must end here—" +</P> + +<P> +I said him neither yea nor nay; and while we stood in armed and +embarrassed silence, Nicolete appeared with white face at the door, +clothed in her emergency petticoat. Alas! it was for no such emergency +as this that it had been destined that merry night when she had packed +it in her knapsack. With a stern bow her father turned from me to join +her; but she suddenly slipped past him, threw her arms round me, and +kissed me one long passionate kiss. +</P> + +<P> +"Aucassin, be true," she cried, "I will never forget you,—no one shall +come between us;" and then bursting into tears, she buried her face in +her hands and followed her father from the room. +</P> + +<P> +In another moment she had been driven away, and I sat as one stupefied +in the inn window. But a few short minutes ago she had been sitting +merrily prattling by my side, and now I was once more as lonely as if +we had never met. Presently I became conscious in my reverie of a +little crumpled piece of paper on the floor. I picked it up. It was a +little note pencilled in her bedroom at the last moment. "Aucassin," +it ran, just like her last passionate words, "be true. I will never +forget you. Stay here till I write to you, and oh, write to me soon!— +Your broken-hearted Nicolete." +</P> + +<P> +As I read, I saw her lovely young face, radiant with love and sorrow as +I had last seen it, and pressing the precious little letter to my lips, +I said fervently, "Yes, Nicolete, I will be true." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0212"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH I REVIEW MY ACTIONS AND RENEW MY RESOLUTIONS +</H3> + +<P> +No doubt the youthful reader will have but a poor opinion of me after +the last two chapters. He will think that in the scene with the +Major-General I acted with lamentably little spirit, and that generally +my friend Alastor would have proved infinitely more worthy of the +situation. It is quite true, I confess it. The whole episode was made +for Alastor. Nicolete and he were born for each other. Alas! it is +one of the many drawbacks of experience that it frequently prevents our +behaving with spirit. +</P> + +<P> +I must be content to appeal to the wiser and therefore sadder reader, +of whom I have but a poor opinion if he too fails to understand me. +He, I think, will understand why I didn't promptly assault the +Major-General, seize Nicolete by the waist, thrust her into her +ancestral carriage, haul the coachman from his box, and, seizing the +reins, drive away in triumph before astonishment had time to change +into pursuit. Truly it had been but the work of a moment, and there was +only one consideration which prevented my following this +now-I-call-that-heroic course. It is a consideration I dare hardly +venture to write, and the confession of which will, I know, necessitate +my changing my age back again to thirty on the instant. Oh, be +merciful, dear romantic reader! I didn't strike the Major-General, +because, oh, because I AGREED WITH HIM! +</P> + +<P> +I loved Nicolete, you must have felt that. She was sweet to me as the +bunch of white flowers that, in their frail Venetian vase, stand so +daintily on my old bureau as I write, doing their best to sweeten my +thoughts. Dear was she to me as the birds that out in the old garden +yonder sing and sing their best to lift up my leaden heart. She was +dear as the Spring itself, she was only less dear than Autumn. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, black confession! after the first passion of her loss, the +immediate ache of her young beauty had passed, and I was able to +analyse what I really felt, I not only agreed with him, I thanked God +for the Major-General! He had saved me from playing the terrible part +of executioner. He had just come in time to behead the Lady Jane Grey +of our dreams. +</P> + +<P> +I should have no qualms about tightening the rope round the neck of +some human monster, or sticking a neat dagger or bullet into a +dangerous, treacherous foe, but to kill a dream is a sickening +business. It goes on moaning in such a heart-breaking fashion, and you +never know when it is dead. All on a sudden some night it will come +wailing in the wind outside your window, and you must blacken your +heart and harden your face with another strangling grip of its slim +appealing throat, another blow upon its angel eyes. Even then it will +recover, and you will go on being a murderer, making for yourself day +by day a murderer's face, without the satisfaction of having really +murdered. +</P> + +<P> +But what of Nicolete? do you exclaim. Have you no thought for her, +bleeding her heart away in solitude? Can you so soon forget those +appealing eyes? Yes, I have thought for her. Would God that I could +bear for her those growing pains of the heart! and I shall never forget +those farewell eyes. But then, you see, I had firmly realised this, +that she would sooner recover from our separation than from our +marriage; that her love for me, pretty and poignant and dramatic while +it lasted, was a book-born, book-fed dream, which must die soon or +late,—the sooner the better for the peace of the dreams that in the +course of nature would soon spring up to take its place. +</P> + +<P> +But while I realised all this, and, with a veritable aching of the +heart at the loss of her, felt a curious satisfaction at the turn of +events, still my own psychology became all the more a puzzle to me, and +I asked myself, with some impatience, what I would be at, and what it +was I really wanted. +</P> + +<P> +Here had I but a few moments ago been holding in my hands the very +dream I had set out to find, and here was I secretly rejoicing to be +robbed of it! If Nicolete did not fulfil the conditions of that +mystical Golden Girl, in professed search for whom I had set out that +spring morning, well, the good genius of my pilgrimage felt it time to +resign. Better give it up at once, and go back to my books and my +bachelorhood, if I were so difficult to please. No wonder my kind +providence felt provoked. It had provided me with the sweetest +pink-and-porcelain dream of a girl, and might reasonably have concluded +that his labours on my behalf were at an end. +</P> + +<P> +But, really, there is no need to lecture me upon the charms and virtues +of Nicolete, for I loved them from the first moment of our strange +introduction, and I dream of them still. There was indeed only one +quality of womanhood in which she was lacking, and in which, after much +serious self-examination, I discovered the reason of my instinctive +self-sacrifice of her,—SHE HAD NEVER SUFFERED. As my heart had warned +me at the beginning, "she was hoping too much from life to spend one's +days with." She lacked the subtle half-tones of experience. She lacked +all that a pretty wrinkle or two might have given. There was no +shadowy melancholy in her sky-clear eyes. She was gay indeed, and had +a certain childish humour; but she had none of that humour which comes +of the resigned perception that the world is out of joint, and that you +were never born to set it right. These characteristics I had yet to +find in woman. There was still, therefore, an object to my quest. +Indeed my experience had provided me with a formula. I was in search +of a woman who, in addition to every other feminine charm and virtue, +was a woman who had suffered. +</P> + +<P> +With this prayer I turned once more to the genius of my pilgrimage. +"Grant me," I asked, "but this—A WOMAN WHO HAS SUFFERED!" and, +apparently as a consequence, he became once more quite genial. He +seemed to mean that a prayer so easy to grant would put any god into a +good temper; and possibly he smiled with a deeper meaning too. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0301"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK III +</H3> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH I RETURN TO MY RIGHT AGE AND <BR> +ENCOUNTER A COMMON OBJECT OF THE COUNTRY +</H3> + +<P> +And so when the days of my mourning for Nicolete were ended (and in +this sentence I pass over letters to and fro,—letters wild from +Nicolete, letters wise from Aucassin, letters explanatory and +apologetic from the Obstacle—how the Major-General had suddenly come +home quite unexpectedly and compelled her to explain Nicolete's +absence, etc., etc. Dear Obstacle! I should rather have enjoyed a +pilgrimage with her too)—I found myself one afternoon again upon the +road. The day had been very warm and dusty, and had turned sleepy +towards tea-time. +</P> + +<P> +I had now pretty clearly in my mind what I wanted. This time it was, +all other things equal, to be "a woman who had suffered," and to this +end, I had, before starting out once more, changed my age back again at +the inn and written "Aetat. 30" after my name in the visitors' book. +As a young man I was an evident failure, and so, having made the +countersign, I was speedily transformed to my old self; and I must say +that it was a most comfortable feeling, something like getting back +again into an old coat or an old pair of shoes. I never wanted to be +young again as long as I lived. Youth was too much like the Sunday +clothes of one's boyhood. Moreover, I had a secret conviction that the +woman I was now in search of would prefer one who had had some +experience at being a man, who would bring her not the green plums of +his love, but the cunningly ripened nectarines, a man to whom love was +something of an art as well as an inspiration. +</P> + +<P> +It was in this frame of mind that I came upon the following scene. +</P> + +<P> +The lane was a very cloistral one, with a ribbon of gravelly road, +bordered on each side with a rich margin of turf and a scramble of +blackberry bushes, green turf banks and dwarf oak-trees making a rich +and plenteous shade. My attention was caught firstly by a bicycle +lying carelessly on the turf, and secondly and lastly by a graceful +woman's figure, recumbent and evidently sleeping against the turf bank, +well tucked in among the afternoon shadows. My coming had not aroused +her, and so I stole nearer to her on tiptoe. +</P> + +<P> +She was a pretty woman, of a striking modern type, tall, +well-proportioned, strong, I should say, with a good complexion that +had evidently been made just a little better. But her most striking +feature was an opulent mass of dark red hair, which had fallen in some +disorder and made quite a pillow for her head. Her hat was off, lying +in its veil by her side, and a certain general abandon of her +figure,—which was clothed in a short cloth skirt, cut with that +unmistakable touch which we call style—betokened weariness that could +no longer wait for rest. +</P> + +<P> +Poor child! she was tired out. She must never be left to sleep on +there, for she seemed good to sleep till midnight. +</P> + +<P> +I turned to her bicycle, and, examining it with the air of a man who +had won silver cups in his day, I speedily discovered what had been the +mischief. The tire of the front wheel had been pierced, and a great +thorn was protruding from the place. Evidently this had been too much +for poor Rosalind, and it was not unlikely that she had cried herself +to sleep. +</P> + +<P> +I bent over her to look—yes, there were traces of tears. Poor thing! +Then I had a kindly human impulse. I would mend the tire, having +attended ambulance classes, do it very quietly so that she wouldn't +hear, like the fairy cobblers who used to mend people's boots while +they slept, and then wait in ambush to watch the effect upon her when +she awoke. +</P> + +<P> +What do you think of the idea? +</P> + +<P> +But one important detail I have omitted from my description of the +sleeper. Her left hand lay gloveless, and of the four rings on her +third finger one was a wedding-ring. +</P> + +<P> +"Such red hair,—and a wedding-ring!" I exclaimed inwardly. "How this +woman must have suffered!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0302"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH I HEAL A BICYCLE AND COME TO THE WHEEL OF PLEASURE +</H3> + +<P> +Moving the bicycle a little away, so that my operations upon it might +not arouse her, I had soon made all right again, and when I laid it +once more where she had left it, she was still sleeping as sound as +ever. She had only to sleep long enough, a sly thought suggested, to +necessitate her ending her day's journey at the same inn as myself, +some five miles on the road. One virtue at least the reader will allow +to this history,—we are seldom far away from an inn in its pages. +When I thought of that I sat stiller than ever, hardly daring to turn +over the pages of Apuleius, which I had taken from my knapsack to +beguile the time, and, I confess, to give my eyes some other occupation +than the dangerous one of gazing upon her face, dangerous in more ways +than one, but particularly dangerous at the moment, because, as +everybody knows, a steady gaze on a sleeping face is apt to awake the +sleeper. And she wasn't to be disturbed! +</P> + +<P> +"No! she mustn't waken before seven at the latest," I said to myself, +holding my breath and starting in terror at every noise. Once a great +noisy bee was within an ace of waking her, but I caught him with +inspired dexterity, and he buzzed around her head no more. +</P> + +<P> +But despite the providential loneliness of the road, there were one or +two terrors that could not be disposed of so summarily. The worst of +all was a heavy miller's cart which one could hardly crush to silence +in one's handkerchief; but it went so slowly, and both man and horses +were so sleepy, that they passed unheard and unnoticing. +</P> + +<P> +A sprightly tramp promised greater difficulty, and nothing but some +ferocious pantomime and a shilling persuaded him to forego a choice +fantasia of cockney humour. +</P> + +<P> +A poor tired Italian organ-grinder, tramping with an equally tired +monkey along the dusty roads, had to be bought off in a similar +manner,—though he only cost sixpence. He gave me a Southern smile and +shrug of comprehension, as one acquainted with affairs of the +heart,—which was a relief after the cockney tramp's impudent +expression of, no doubt, a precisely similar sentiment. +</P> + +<P> +And then at last, just as my watch pointed to 6.50 (how well I remember +the exact moment!) Rosalind awoke suddenly, as women and children do, +sitting straight up on the instant, and putting up her hands to her +tousled hair, with a half-startled "Where am I?" When her hair was +once more "respectable," she gave her skirts a shake, bent sideways to +pull up her stockings and tighten her garters, looked at her watch, and +then with an exclamation at the lateness of the hour, went over, with +an air of desperate determination, to her bicycle. +</P> + +<P> +"Now for this horrid puncture!" were the first words I was to hear fall +from her lips. +</P> + +<P> +She sought for the wound in the india-rubber with growing bewilderment. +</P> + +<P> +"Goodness!" was her next exclamation, "why, there's nothing wrong with +it. Can I have been dreaming?" +</P> + +<P> +"I hope your dreams have been pleasanter than that," I ventured at this +moment to stammer, rising, a startling apparition, from my ambush +behind a mound of brambles; and before she had time to take in the +situation I added that I hoped she'd excuse my little pleasantry, and +told her how I had noticed her and the wounded bicycle, et cetera, et +cetera, as the reader can well imagine, without giving me the trouble +of writing it all out. +</P> + +<P> +She was sweetness itself on the instant. +</P> + +<P> +"Excuse you!" she said, "I should think so. Who wouldn't? You can't +tell the load you've taken off my mind. I'm sure I must have groaned +in my sleep—for I confess I cried myself to sleep over it." +</P> + +<P> +"I thought so," I said with gravity, and eyes that didn't dare to smile +outright till they had permission, which, however, was not long +withheld them. +</P> + +<P> +"How did you know?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, intuition, of course—who wouldn't have cried themselves to sleep, +and so tired too!" +</P> + +<P> +"You're a nice sympathetic man, anyhow," she laughed; "what a pity you +don't bicycle!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," I said, "I would give a thousand pounds for a bicycle at this +moment." +</P> + +<P> +"You ought to get a good one for that," she laughed,—"all bright parts +nickel, I suppose; indeed, you should get a real silver frame and gold +handle-bars for that, don't you think? Well, it would be nice all the +same to have your company a few miles, especially as it's growing +dark," she added. +</P> + +<P> +"Especially as it's growing dark," I repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"You won't be going much farther to-night. Have you fixed on your +inn?" I continued innocently. She had—but that was in a town too far +to reach to-night, after her long sleep. +</P> + +<P> +"You might have wakened me," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it was stupid of me not to have thought of it," I answered, +offering no explanation of the dead bee which at the moment I espied a +little away in the grass, and saying nothing of the merry tramp and the +melancholy musician. +</P> + +<P> +Then we talked inns, and thus she fell beautifully into the pit which I +had digged for her; and it was presently arranged that she should ride +on to the Wheel of Pleasure and order a dinner, which she was to do me +the honour of sharing with me. +</P> + +<P> +I was to follow on foot as speedily as might be, and it was with a high +heart that I strode along the sunset lanes, hearing for some time the +chiming of her bell in front of me, till she had wheeled it quite out +of hearing, and it was lost in the distance. +</P> + +<P> +I never did a better five miles in my life. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0303"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +TWO TOWN MICE AT A COUNTRY INN. +</H3> + +<P> +When I reached the Wheel of Pleasure, I found Rosalind awaiting me in +the coffee-room, looking fresh from a traveller's toilette, and with +the welcome news that dinner was on the way. By the time I had washed +off the day's dust it was ready, and a merry meal it proved. Rosalind +had none of Alastor's objections to the wine-list, so we drank an +excellent champagne; and as there seemed to be no one in the hotel but +ourselves, we made ourselves at home and talked and laughed, none +daring to make us afraid. +</P> + +<P> +At first, on sitting down to table, we had grown momentarily shy, with +one of those sudden freaks of self-consciousness which occasionally +surprise one, when, midway in some slightly unconventional situation to +which the innocence of nature has led us, we realise it—"for an +instant and no more." +</P> + +<P> +Positively, I think that in the embarrassment of that instant I had +made some inspired remark to Rosalind about the lovely country which +lay dreamy in the afterglow outside our window. Oh, yes, I remember the +very words. They were "What a heavenly landscape!" or something +equally striking. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Rosalind had answered, "it is almost as beautiful as the Strand!" +</P> + +<P> +If I'd known her better, I should have exclaimed, "You dear!" and I +think it possible that I did say something to that effect,—perhaps +"You dear woman!" At all events, the veil of self-consciousness was +rent in twain at that remark, and our spirits rushed together at this +touch of London nature thus unexpectedly revealed. +</P> + +<P> +London! I hadn't realised till this moment how I had been missing it +all these days of rustication, and my heart went out to it with a vast +homesickness. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes! the Strand," I repeated tenderly, "the Strand—at night!" +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed, yes! what is more beautiful in the whole world?" she joined in +ardently. +</P> + +<P> +"The wild torrents of light, the passionate human music, the hansoms, +the white shirts and shawled heads, the theatres—" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't speak of them or you'll make me cry," said Rosalind. +</P> + +<P> +"The little suppers after the theatre—" +</P> + +<P> +"Please don't," she cried, "it is cruel;" and I saw that her eyes were +indeed glistening with tears. +</P> + +<P> +"But, of course," I continued, to give a slight turn aside in our talk, +"it is very wrong of us to have such sophisticated tastes. We ought to +love these lonely hills and meadows far more. The natural man revels in +solitude, and wants no wittier company than birds and flowers. +Wordsworth made a constant companion of a pet daisy. He seldom went +abroad without one or two trotting at his side, and a skylark would +keep Shelley in society for a week." +</P> + +<P> +"But they were poets," retorted Rosalind; "you don't call poets +natural. Why, they are the most unnatural of men. The natural person +loves the society of his kind, whereas the poet runs away from it." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, of course, there are poets and poets, poets sociable and poets +very unsociable. Wordsworth made the country, but Lamb made the town; +and there is quite a band of poets nowadays who share his distaste for +mountains, and take London for their muse. If you'll promise not to cry +again, I'll recall some lines by a friend of mine which were written +for town-tastes like ours. But perhaps you know them?" +</P> + +<P> +It will gratify my friend to learn that Rosalind had the verses I refer +to by heart, and started off humming,— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Ah, London, London, our delight,<BR> + Great flower that opens but at night,<BR> + Great city of the midnight sun,<BR> + Whose day begins when day is done...<BR> + Like dragon-flies the hansoms hover<BR> + With jewelled eyes to catch the lover;"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and so on, with a gusto of appreciation that must have been very +gratifying to the author had he been present. +</P> + +<P> +Thus perceiving a taste for a certain modern style of poetry in my +companion, I bethought me of a poem which I had written on the roadside +a few days before, and which, I confess, I was eager to confide to some +sympathetic ear. I was diffident of quoting it after such lines as +Rosalind had recalled, but by the time we had reached our coffee, I +plucked up courage to mention it. I had, however, the less diffidence +in that it would have a technical interest for her, being indeed no +other than a song of cycling a deux which had been suggested by one of +those alarmist danger-posts always placed at the top of the pleasantest +hills, sternly warning the cyclist that "this hill is dangerous,"—just +as in life there is always some minatory notice-board frowning upon us +in the direction we most desire to take. +</P> + +<P> +But I omit further preface and produce the poem:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "This hill is dangerous," I said,<BR> + As we rode on together<BR> + Through sunny miles and sunny miles<BR> + Of Surrey heather;<BR> + "This hill is dangerous—don't you think<BR> + We'd better walk it?"<BR> + "Or sit it out—more danger still!"<BR> + She smiled—"and talk it?"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Are you afraid?" she turned and cried<BR> + So very brave and sweetly,—<BR> + Oh that brave smile that takes the heart<BR> + Captive completely!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Afraid?" I said, deep in her eyes<BR> + Recklessly gazing;<BR> + "For you I'd ride into the sun<BR> + And die all blazing!"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "I never yet saw hill," I said,<BR> + "And was afraid to take it;<BR> + I never saw a foolish law,<BR> + And feared to break it.<BR> + Who fears a hill or fears a law<BR> + With you beside him?<BR> + Who fears, dear star, the wildest sea<BR> + With you to guide him?"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Then came the hill—a cataract,<BR> + A dusty swirl, before us;<BR> + The world stood round—a village world—<BR> + In fearful chorus.<BR> + Sure to be killed! Sure to be killed!<BR> + O fools, how dare ye!<BR> + Sure to be killed—and serve us right!<BR> + Ah! love, but were we?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + The hill was dangerous, we knew,<BR> + And knew that we must take it;<BR> + The law was strong,—that too we knew<BR> + Yet dared to break it.<BR> + And those who'd fain know how we fared<BR> + Follow and find us,<BR> + Safe on the hills, with all the world<BR> + Safely behind us.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Rosalind smiled as I finished. "I'm afraid," she said, "the song is as +dangerous as the hill. Of course it has more meanings than one?" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps two," I assented. +</P> + +<P> +"And the second more important than the first." +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe," I smiled; "however, I hope you like it." +</P> + +<P> +Rosalind was very reassuring on that point, and then said musingly, as +if half to herself, "But that hill is dangerous, you know; and young +people would do well to pay attention to the danger-board!" +</P> + +<P> +Her voice shook as she spoke the last two or three words, and I looked +at her in some surprise. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I know it," she added, her voice quite broken; and before I +realised what was happening, there she was with her beautiful head down +upon the table, and sobbing as if her heart would break. +</P> + +<P> +"Forgive me for being such a fool," she managed to wring out. +</P> + +<P> +Now, usually I never interrupt a woman when she is crying, as it only +encourages her to continue; but there was something so unexpected and +mysterious about Rosalind's sudden outburst that it was impossible not +to be sympathetic. I endeavoured to soothe her with such words as +seemed fitting; and as she was crying because she really couldn't help +it, she didn't cry long. +</P> + +<P> +These tears proved, what certain indications of manner had already +hinted to me, that Rosalind was more artless than I had at first +supposed. She was a woman of the world, in that she lived in it, and +loved its gaieties, but there was still in her heart no little of the +child, as is there not in the hearts of all good women—or men? +</P> + +<P> +And this you will realise when I tell you the funny little story which +she presently confided to me as the cause of her tears. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0304"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +MARRIAGE A LA MODE +</H3> + +<P> +For Rosalind was no victim of the monster man, as you may have supposed +her, no illustration of his immemorial perfidies. On the contrary, she +was one half of a very happy marriage, and, in a sense, her sufferings +at the moment were merely theoretical, if one may so describe the +sufferings caused by a theory. But no doubt the reader would prefer a +little straightforward narrative. +</P> + +<P> +Well, Rosalind and Orlando, as we may as well call them, are two newly +married young people who've been married, say, a year, and who find +themselves at the end of it loving each other more than at the +beginning,—for you are to suppose two of the tenderest, most devoted +hearts that ever beat as one. However, they are young people of the +introspective modern type, with a new theory for everything. +</P> + +<P> +About marriage and the law of happiness in that blessed estate, they +boasted the latest philosophical patents. To them, among other +matters, the secret of unhappy marriages was as simple as can be. It +was in nothing more or less than the excessive "familiarity" of +ordinary married life, and the lack of personal freedom allowed both +parties to the contract. Thus love grew commonplace, and the unhappy +ones to weary of each other by excessive and enforced association. +This was obvious enough, and the remedy as obvious,—separate bedrooms, +and a month's holiday in each year to be spent apart (notoriously all +people of quality had separate bedrooms, and see how happy they were!). +These and similar other safeguards of individual liberty they had in +mock-earnest drawn up and signed on their marriage eve, as a sort of +supplemental wedding service. +</P> + +<P> +It would not be seemly to inquire how far certain of these conditions +had been kept,—how often, for example, Orlando's little hermit's bed +had really needed remaking during those twelve months! Answer, ye +birds of the air that lie in your snug nests, so close, so close, +through the tender summer nights, and maybe with two or three little +ones besides,—unless, indeed, ye too have felt the influence of the +Zeit-geist, and have taken to sleeping in separate nests. +</P> + +<P> +The condition with which alone we have here to concern ourselves was +one which provided that each of the two lovers, hereafter to be called +the husband of the one part and the wife of the other part, solemnly +bound themselves to spend one calendar month of each year out of each +other's society, with full and free liberty to spend it wheresoever, +with whomsoever, and howsoever they pleased; and that this condition +was rigidly to be maintained, whatever immediate effort it might cost, +as the parties thereto believed that so would their love the more +likely maintain an enduring tenderness and an unwearied freshness. And +to this did Orlando and his Rosalind set their hands and hearts and +lips. +</P> + +<P> +Now, wisdom is all very well till the time comes to apply it; and as +that month of June approached in which they had designed to give their +love a holiday, they had found their courage growing less and less. +Their love didn't want a holiday; and when Orlando had referred to the +matter during the early days of May, Rosalind had burst into tears, and +begged him to reconsider a condition which they had made before they +really knew what wedded love was. But Orlando, though in tears himself +(so Rosalind averred), had a higher sense of their duty to their ideal, +and was able, though in tears, to beg her look beyond the moment, and +realise what a little self-denial now might mean in the years to come. +They hadn't kept any other of their resolutions,—thus Rosalind let it +out!—this must be kept. +</P> + +<P> +And thus it had come about that Orlando had gone off for his month's +holiday with a charming girl, who, with the cynic, will no doubt +account for his stern adherence to duty; and Rosalind had gone off for +hers with a pretty young man whom she'd liked well enough to go to the +theatre and to supper with,—a young man who was indeed a dear friend, +and a vivacious, sympathetic companion, but whom, as a substitute for +Orlando, she immediately began to hate. Such is the female heart! +</P> + +<P> +The upshot of the experiment, so far as she was concerned, was that she +had quarrelled with her companion, and had gone off in search of her +husband, on which search she was embarked at the moment of my +encountering her. The tears, therefore,—that is, the first lot of +tears by the roadside,—had not been all on account of the injured +bicycle, you see. +</P> + +<P> +Now the question was, How had Orlando been getting on? I had an +intuition that in his case the experiment had proved more enjoyable, +but I am not one to break the bruised reed by making such a suggestion. +On the contrary, I expressed my firm conviction that Orlando was +probably even more miserable than she was. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you really think so?" she asked eagerly, her poor miserable face +growing bright a moment with hope and gratitude. +</P> + +<P> +"Undoubtedly," I answered sententiously. "To put the case on the most +general principles, apart from Orlando's great love for you, it is an +eternal truth of masculine sentiment that man always longs for the +absent woman." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you quite sure?" asked Rosalind, with an unconvinced half-smile. +</P> + +<P> +"Absolutely." +</P> + +<P> +"I thought," she continued, "that it was just the other way about; that +it was presence and not absence that made the heart of man grow fonder, +and that if a man's best girl, so to say, was away, he was able to make +himself very comfortable with his second-best!" +</P> + +<P> +"In some cases, of course, it's true," I answered, unmoved; "but with a +love like yours and Orlando's, it's quite different." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, do you really mean it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly I do; and your mistake has been in supposing that an +experiment which no few every-day married couples would be only too +glad to try, was ever meant for two such love-birds as you. Laws and +systems are meant for the unhappy and the untractable, not for people +like you, for whom Love makes its own laws." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, that is what we used to say; and indeed, we thought that this was +one of love's laws,—this experiment, as you call it." +</P> + +<P> +"But it was quite a mistake," I went on in my character as matrimonial +oracle. "Love never made a law so cruel, a law that would rob true +lovers of each other's society for a whole month in a year, stretching +them on the rack of absence—" There my period broke down, so I began +another less ambitiously planned. +</P> + +<P> +"A whole month in a year! Think what that would mean in a lifetime. +How long do you expect to live and love together? Say another fifty +years at the most. Well, fifty ones are fifty. Fifty months +equal—four twelves are forty-eight and two over—four years and two +months. Yes, out of the short life God allows even for the longest +love you would voluntarily throw away four years and two months!" +</P> + +<P> +This impressive calculation had a great effect on poor Rosalind; and it +is a secondary matter that it and its accompanying wisdom may have less +weight with the reader, as for the moment Rosalind was my one concern. +</P> + +<P> +"But, of course, we have perfect trust in each other," said Rosalind +presently, with charming illogicality. +</P> + +<P> +"No doubt," I said; "but Love, like a good householder (ahem!), does +well not to live too much on trust." +</P> + +<P> +"But surely love means perfect trust," said Rosalind. +</P> + +<P> +"Theoretically, yes; practically, no. On the contrary, it means +exactly the opposite. Trust, perfect trust, with loved ones far away! +No, it is an inhuman ideal, and the more one loves the less one lives +up to it. If not, what do these tears mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no!" Rosalind retorted, with a flush, "you mustn't say that. I +trust Orlando absolutely. It isn't that; it's simply that I can't bear +to be away from him." +</P> + +<P> +What women mean by "trusting" might afford a subject for an interesting +disquisition. However, I forbore to pursue the matter, and answered +Rosalind's remark in a practical spirit. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then," I said, "if that's all, the thing to do is to find +Orlando, tell him that you cannot bear it, and spend the rest of your +holiday, you and he, together." +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I thought," said Rosalind. +</P> + +<P> +"Unfortunately," I continued, "owing to your foolish arrangement not to +tell each other where you were going and not to write, as being +incompatible with Perfect Trust, you don't know where Orlando is at the +present moment." +</P> + +<P> +"No; but I have a good guess," said Rosalind. "There's a smart little +watering-place, not so many miles from here, called Yellowsands, a sort +of secret little Monaco, which not many people know of, a +wicked-innocent gay little place, where we've often talked of going. I +think it's very likely that Orlando has gone there; and that's just +where I was going when we met." +</P> + +<P> +I will tell the reader more about Yellowsands in the next chapter. +Meanwhile, let us complete Rosalind's arrangements. The result of our +conversation was that she was to proceed to Yellowsands on the morrow, +and that I was to follow as soon as possible, so as to be available +should she chance to need any advice, and at all events to give myself +the pleasure of meeting her again. +</P> + +<P> +This arranged, we said good-night, Rosalind with ever such a +brightened-up face, of which I thought for half an hour and then fell +asleep to dream of Yellowsands. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0305"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CONCERNING THE HAVEN OF YELLOWSANDS +</H3> + +<P> +On the morrow, at the peep of day, Rosalind was off to seek her lord. +An hour or so after I started in leisurely pursuit. +</P> + +<P> +Yellowsands! I had heard in a vague way of the place, as a whim of a +certain young nobleman who combined brains with the pursuit of +pleasure. Like most ideas, it was simple enough when once conceived. +Any one possessing a mile or two of secluded seaboard, cut off on the +land side by precipitous approaches, and including a sheltered river +mouth ingeniously hidden by nature, in the form of a jutting wall of +rock, from the sea, might have made as good use of these natural +opportunities as the nobleman in question, had they only been as wise +and as rich. William Blake proposed to rebuild Jerusalem in this green +and pleasant land. My lord proposed to erect a miniature Babylon amid +similar pleasant surroundings, a little dream-city by the sea, a home +for the innocent pleasure-seeker stifled by the puritanism of the great +towns, refugium peccatorum in this island of the saints. +</P> + +<P> +"Once it was the Puritan Fathers who left our coasts," he is recorded +to have said; "nowadays it is our Prodigal Sons." +</P> + +<P> +No doubt it was in further elaboration of this aphorism that the little +steamboat that sailed every other day from Yellowsands to the beckoning +shores of France was called "the Mayflower." +</P> + +<P> +My lord's plan had been simple. By the aid of cunning architects he +had first blasted his harbour into shape, then built his hotels and +pleasure-palaces, and then leased them to dependants of his who knew +the right sort of people, and who knew that it was as much as their +lease was worth to find accommodation for teetotal amateur +photographers or wistful wandering Sunday-school treats. As, +unfortunately, the Queen's highway ran down in tortuous descent to the +handful of fishermen's cottages that had clung there limpet-like for +ages, there was always a chance of such a stray visitation; but it was +remote, and the whole place, hand and heart, was in the pocket of my +lord. +</P> + +<P> +So much to give the reader some idea of the secret watering-place of +Yellowsands, situated at the mouth of that romantic little torrent, the +river Sly. Such further description as may be needed may be kept till +we come within sight of its gilded roofs and marble terraces. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0306"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE MOORLAND OF THE APOCALYPSE +</H3> + +<P> +I reckoned that it would take me two or three days, leisurely walking, +to reach Yellowsands. Rosalind would, of course, arrive there long +before me; but that I did not regret, as I was in a mood to find +company in my own thoughts. +</P> + +<P> +Her story gave me plenty to think of. I dwelt particularly on the +careless extravagance of the happy. Here were two people to whom life +had given casually what I was compelled to go seeking lonely and +footsore through the world, and with little hope of finding it at the +end; and yet were they so little aware of their good fortune as to risk +it over a trumpery theory, a shadow of pseudo-philosophy. Out of the +deep dark ocean of life Love had brought them his great moon-pearl, and +they sat on the boat's edge carelessly tossing it from one to the +other, unmindful of the hungry fathoms on every side. A sudden slip, +and they had lost it for ever, and might only watch its shimmering fall +to the bottom of the world. Theories! Theories are for the unknown and +the unhappy. Who will trouble to theorise about Heaven when he has +found Heaven itself? Theories are for the poor-devil outcast,—for him +who stands outside the confectioner's shop of life without a penny in +his pocket, while the radiant purchasers pass in and out through the +doors,—for him who watches with wistful eyes this and that sugared +marvel taken out of the window by mysterious hands, to bless some happy +customer inside. He is not fool enough even to hope for one of those +glistering masterpieces of frosted sugar and silk flowers, which rise +to pinnacles of snowy sweetness, white mountains of blessedness, rich +inside, they say, with untold treasures for the tooth that is sweet. +No! he craves nothing but a simple Bath-bun of happiness, and even that +is denied him. +</P> + +<P> +Would I ever find my Bath-bun? I disconsolately asked myself. I had +been seeking it now for some little time, and seemed no nearer than +when I set out. I had seen a good many Bath-buns on my pilgrimage, it +is true. Some I have not had space to confide to the reader; but +somehow or other they had not seemed the unmistakably predestined for +which I was seeking. +</P> + +<P> +And oh, how I could love a girl, if she would only give me the +chance,—that is, be the right girl! Oh, Sylvia Joy! where art thou? +Why so long dost thou remain hidden "in shady leaves of destiny"? +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "Seest thou thy lover lowly laid,<BR> + Hear'st thou the sighs that rend his breast?"<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +And then, as the novelists say, "a strange thing happened." +</P> + +<P> +The road I was tramping at the moment was somewhat desolate. It ran up +from a small market town through a dreary undulating moorland, forking +off here and there to unknown villages of which the horizon gave no +hint. Its cheerless hillocks were all but naked of vegetation, for a +never very flourishing growth of heather had recently been burnt right +down to the unkindly-looking earth, leaving a dwarf black forest of +charred sticks very grim to the eye and heart; while the dull surface +of a small lifeless-looking lake added the final touch to the Dead-Sea +mournfulness of the prospect. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly I became aware of the fluttering of a grey dress a little +ahead of me. Unconsciously I had been overtaking a tall young woman +walking in the same direction as myself, with a fine athletic carriage +of her figure and a noble movement of her limbs. +</P> + +<P> +She walked manfully, and as I neared her I could hear the sturdy ring +of her well-shod feet upon the road. There was an air of expectancy +about her walk, as though she looked to be met presently by some one +due from the opposite direction. +</P> + +<P> +It was curious that I had not noticed her before, for she must have +been in sight for some time. No doubt my melancholy abstraction +accounted for that, and perhaps her presence there was to be explained +by a London train which I had listlessly observed come in to the town +an hour before. This surmise was confirmed, as presently,—over the +brow of a distant undulation in the road, I descried a farmer's gig +driven by another young woman. The gig immediately hoisted a +handkerchief; so did my pedestrian. At this moment I was within a yard +or two of overtaking her. And it was then the strange thing happened. +</P> + +<P> +Distance had lent no enchantment which nearness did not a hundred times +repay. The immediate impression of strength and distinction which the +first glimpse of her had made upon me was more and more verified as I +drew closer to her. The carriage of her head was no whit less noble +than the queenly carriage of her limbs, and her glorious chestnut hair, +full of warm tints of gold, was massed in a sumptuous simplicity above +a neck that would have made an average woman's fortune. This glowing +description, however, must be lowered or heightened in tone by the +association of these characteristics with an undefinable simplicity of +mien, a certain slight rusticity of effect. The town spoke in her +well-cut gown and a few simple adornments, but the dryad still moved +inside. +</P> + +<P> +I suppose most men, even in old age, feel a certain anxiety, conscious +or not, as they overtake a woman whose back view is in the least +attractive. I confess that I felt a more than usual, indeed a quite +irrational, perturbation of the blood, as, coming level with her, I +dared to look into her face. As I did so she involuntarily turned to +look at me—turned to look at me, did I say? "To look" is a feeble +verb indeed to express the unexpected shock of beauty to which I was +suddenly exposed. I cannot describe her features, for somehow features +always mean little to me. They were certainly beautifully moulded, and +her skin was of a lovely pale olive, but the life of her face was in +her great violet eyes and her wonderful mouth. Thus suddenly to look +into her face was like unexpectedly to come upon moon and stars +reflected in some lonely pool. I suppose the look lasted only a second +or two; but it left me dazzled as that king in the Eastern tale, who +seemed to have lived whole dream-lives between dipping his head into a +bowl of water and taking it out again. Similarly in that moment I +seemed to have dived into this unknown girl's eyes, to have walked +through the treasure palaces of her soul, to have stood before the +flaming gates of her heart, to have gathered silver flowers in the +fairy gardens of her dreams. I had followed her white-robed spirit +across the moonlit meadows of her fancy, and by her side had climbed +the dewy ladder of the morning star, and then suddenly I had been +whirled up again to the daylight through the magic fountains of her +eyes. +</P> + +<P> +I'll tell you more about that look presently! Meanwhile the gig +approached, and the two girls exchanged affectionate greetings. +</P> + +<P> +"Tom hasn't come with you, then?" said the other girl, who was +evidently her sister, and who was considerably more rustic in style and +accent. She said it with a curious mixture of anxiety and relief. +</P> + +<P> +"No," answered the other simply, and I thought I noticed a slight +darkening of her face. Tom was evidently her husband. So she was +married! +</P> + +<P> +"Yes!" said a fussy hypocrite of reason within me, "and what's that to +do with you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Everything, you fool!" answered a robuster voice in my soul, kicking +the feeble creature clean out of my head on the instant. +</P> + +<P> +For, absurd as it may sound, with that look into those Arabian Nights' +eyes, had come somewhere out of space an overwhelming intuition, nay, +an unshakable conviction, that the woman who was already being rolled +away from me down the road in that Dis's car of a farmer's gig, was now +and for ever and before all worlds the woman God had created for me, +and that, unless I could be hers and she mine, there would be no home, +no peace for either of us so long as we lived. +</P> + +<P> +And yet she was being carried away further and further every moment, +while I gazed after her, aimlessly standing in the middle of the road. +Why did I not call to her, overtake her? In a few moments she would be +lost to me for ever— +</P> + +<P> +Though I was unaware of it, this hesitation was no doubt owing to a +stealthy return of reason by the back-door of my mind. In fact, he +presently dared to raise his voice again. "I don't deny," he ventured, +ready any moment to flee for his life, "that she is written yours in +all the stars, and particularly do I see it written on the face of the +moon; but you mustn't forget that many are thus meant for each other +who never meet, not to speak of marrying. It is such contradictions +between the purposes and performance of the Creator that make +life—life; you'll never see her again, so make your mind easy—" +</P> + +<P> +At that moment the gig was on the point of turning a corner into a dark +pine-wood; but just ere it disappeared,—was it fancy?—I seemed to +have caught the flash of a momentarily fluttering handkerchief. "Won't +I? you fool!" I exclaimed, savagely smiting reason on the cheek, as I +sprang up wildly to wave mine; but the road was already blank. +</P> + +<P> +At this a sort of panic possessed me, and like a boy I raced down the +road after her. To lose her like this, at the very moment that she had +been revealed to me. It was more than I could bear. +</P> + +<P> +Past the dreary lake, through the little pine-wood I ran, and then I +was brought to a halt, panting, by cross-roads and a finger-post. An +involuntary memory of Nicolete sang to me as I read the quaint names of +the villages to one of which the Vision was certainly wending. Yes! I +was bound on one more journey to the moon, but alas! there was no +heavenly being by my side to point the way. Oh, agony, which was the +road she had taken? +</P> + +<P> +It never occurred to me till the following day that I might have been +able to track her by the wheel-marks of the gig on the dusty summer +road. Instead I desperately resorted to the time-honoured expedient of +setting up a stick and going in the direction of its fall. Like most +ancient guide-posts, it led me quite wrong, down into a pig's-trough of +a hamlet whither I felt sure she couldn't have been bound. Then I ran +back in a frenzy, and tried the other road,—as if it could be any use, +with at least three quarters of an hour gone since I had lost sight of +her. Of course I had no luck; and finally, hot and worn out with +absurd excitement, I threw myself down in a meadow and called myself an +ass,—which I undoubtedly was. +</P> + +<P> +For of all the fancies that had obsessed my moonstruck brain, this was +surely the maddest. Suppose I had overtaken the girl, what could I +have said to her? And, suppose she had listened to me, how did I know +she was the girl I imagined her to be? But this was sheer reason again, +and has no place in a fantastic romance. So I hasten to add that the +mood was one of brief duration, and that no cold-water arguments were +able to quench the fire which those eyes had set aflame within me, no +daylight philosophy had any power to dispel the dream of a face which +was now my most precious possession, as I once more took up my stick +and listlessly pursued my way to Yellowsands. +</P> + +<P> +For I had one other reason than my own infatuation, or thought I had. +Yes, brief and rapid as our glance at each other had been, I had +fancied in her eyes a momentary kindling as they met mine, a warm +summer-lightning which seemed for a second to light up for me the inner +heaven of her soul. +</P> + +<P> +Of one feeling, however, I was sure,—that on my side this apocalyptic +recognition of her, as it had seemed, was no mere passionate +correspondence of sex, no mere spell of a beautiful face (for such +passion and such glamour I had made use of opportunities to study), but +was indeed the flaming up of an elemental affinity, profounder than +sex, deeper than reason, and ages older than speech. +</P> + +<P> +But it was a fancy, for all that? Yes, one of those fancies that are +fancies on earth, but facts in heaven. Perhaps you don't believe in +them. Well, I'm afraid that cannot be helped. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0307"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS!" +</H3> + +<P> +Nothing further happened to me till I reached Yellowsands, except an +exciting ride on the mail-coach, which connected it with the nearest +railway-station some twenty miles away. For the last three or four +miles the road ran along the extreme precipitous verge of cliffs that +sloped, a giant's wall of grassy mountain, right away down to a dreamy +amethystine floor of sea, miles and miles, as it seemed, below. To +ride on that coach, as it gallantly staggered betwixt earth and heaven, +was to know all the ecstasy of flying, with an added touch of danger, +which birds and angels, and others accustomed to fly, can never +experience. And then at length the glorious mad descent down three +plunging cataracts of rocky road, the exciting rattling of the harness, +the grinding of the strong brakes, the driver's soothing calls to his +horses, and the long burnished horn trailing wild music behind us, like +invisible banners of aerial brass,—oh, it stirred the dullest blood +amongst us thus as it were to tear down the sky towards the white roofs +of Yellowsands, glittering here and there among the clouds of trees +which filled the little valley almost to the sea's edge, while floating +up to us came soft strains of music, silken and caressing, as though +the sea itself sang us a welcome. Had you heard it from aboard the +Argo, you would have declared it to be the sirens singing, and it would +have been found necessary to lash you to the mast. But there were no +masts to lash you to in Yellowsands—and of the sirens it is not yet +time to speak. +</P> + +<P> +It was the golden end of afternoon as the coach stopped in front of the +main hotel, The Golden Fortune; and for the benefit of any with not too +long purses who shall hereafter light on Yellowsands, and be alarmed at +the name and the marble magnificence of that delightful hotel, I may +say that the charges there were surprisingly "reasonable," owing to one +other wise provision of the young lord and master of that happy place, +who had had the wit to realise that the nicest and brightest and +prettiest people were often the poorest. Yellowsands, therefore, was +carried on much like a club, to which you had only to be the right sort +of person to belong. I was relieved to find that the hotel people +evidently considered me the right sort of person, and didn't take me +for a Sunday-school treat,—for presently I found myself in a charming +little corner bedroom, whence I could survey the whole extent of the +little colony of pleasure. The Golden Fortune was curiously situated, +perched at the extreme sea-end of a little horse-shoe bay hollowed out +between two headlands, the points of which approached each other so +closely that the river Sly had but a few yards of rocky channel through +which to pour itself into the sea. The Golden Fortune, therefore, +backed by towering woodlands, looked out to sea at one side, across to +the breakwater headland on another, and on its land side commanded a +complete view of the gay little haven, with its white houses built +terrace on terrace upon its wooded slopes, connected by flights of +zigzag steps, by which the apparently inaccessible shelves and +platforms circulated their gay life down to the gay heart of the +place,—the circular boulevard, exquisitely leafy and cool, where one +found the great casino and the open-air theatre, the exquisite +orchestra, into which only the mellowest brass and the subtlest strings +were admitted, and the Cafe du Ciel, charmingly situated among the +trees, where the boulevard became a bridge, for a moment, at the mouth +of the river Sly. Here one might gaze up the green rocky defile through +which the Sly made pebbly music, and through which wound romantic walks +and natural galleries, where far inland you might wander +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "From dewy dawn to dewy night,<BR> + And have one with you wandering,"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +or where you might turn and look across the still lapping harbour, out +through the little neck of light between the headlands to the +shimmering sea beyond,—your ears filled with a melting tide of sweet +sounds, the murmur of the streams and the gentle surging of the sea, +the rippling of leaves, the soft restless whisper of women's gowns, and +the music of their vowelled voices. It was here I found myself sitting +at sunset, alone, but so completely under the spell of the place that I +needed no companion. The place itself was companion enough. The +electric fairy lamps had popped alight; and as the sun sank lower, +Yellowsands seemed like a glowing crown of light floating upon the +water. +</P> + +<P> +I had as yet failed to catch any sight of Rosalind; so I sat alone, and +so far as I had any thoughts or feelings, beyond a consciousness of +heavenly harmony with my surroundings, they were for that haunting +unknown face with the violet eyes and the heavy chestnut hair. +</P> + +<P> +Presently, close by, the notes of a guitar came like little gold +butterflies out of the twilight, and then a woman's voice rose like a +silver bird on the air. It was a gay wooing measure to which she sang. +I listened with ears and heart. "All ye," it went,— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + All ye who seek for pleasure,<BR> + Here find it without measure—<BR> + No one to say<BR> + A body nay,<BR> + And naught but love and leisure.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + All ye who seek forgetting,<BR> + Leave frowns and fears and fretting,<BR> + Here by the sea<BR> + Are fair and free<BR> + To give you peace and petting.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + All ye whose hearts are breaking<BR> + For somebody forsaking,<BR> + We'll count you dear,<BR> + And heal you here,<BR> + And send you home love-making."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Bravo!" I cried involuntarily, as the song ended amid multitudinous +applause; and I thus attracted the attention of another who sat near me +as lonely as myself, but evidently quite at home in the place. +</P> + +<P> +"You haven't heard our sirens sing before?" he said, turning to me with +a pleasant smile, and thus we fell into talk of the place and its +pleasures. +</P> + +<P> +"There's one feature of the place I might introduce you to if you care +for a stroll," he said presently. "Have you heard of The Twelve +Golden-Haired Bar-maids?" I hadn't, but the fantastic name struck my +fancy. It was, he explained, the name given to a favourite buffet at +the Hotel Aphrodite, which was served by twelve wonderful girls, not +one under six feet in height, and all with the most glorious golden +hair. It was a whim of the management, he said. +</P> + +<P> +So, of course, we went. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0308"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE TWELVE GOLDEN-HAIRED BAR-MAIDS. +</H3> + +<P> +Now it was not without some boyish nervousness that I followed my newly +made friend, for I confess that I have ever been a poor hand at talking +to bar-maids. It is, I am convinced, an art apart, an art like any +other,—needing first the natural gift, then the long patient training, +and finally the courageous practice. Alas for me, I possessed neither +gift, training, nor courage. Courage I lacked most of all. It was in +vain that I said to myself that it was like swimming,—all that was +needed was "confidence." That was the very thing I couldn't muster. No +doubt I am handicapped by a certain respectful homage which I always +feel involuntarily to any one in the shape of woman, for anything +savouring of respect is the last thing to win the bar-maid heart +divine. The man to win her is he who calls loudly for his drink, +without a "Please" or a "Thank you," throws his hat at the back of his +head, gulps down half his glass, and, while drawing breath for the +other half, takes a hard, indifferent look at her, and in an off-hand +voice throws her some fatuous, mirthless jest. +</P> + +<P> +Now, I've never been able to do this in the convincing grand manner of +the British male; and whatever I have said, the effect has been the +same. I've talked about theatres and music-halls, of events of the +day, I've even—Heaven help me—talked of racing and football, but I +might as well have talked of Herbert Spencer. I suppose I didn't talk +about them in the right way. I'm sure it must be my fault somewhere, +for certainly they seem easy enough to please, poor things! However, my +failure remains, and sometimes even I find it extremely hard to attract +their attention in the ordinary way of business. I don't mind my +neighbour being preferred before me, but I do object to his being +served before me! +</P> + +<P> +So, I say, I couldn't but tremble at the vision of those golden-haired +goddesses, standing with immobile faces by their awful altars. Indeed, +had I realised how superbly impressive they were going to be, I think I +must have declined the adventure altogether,—for, robed in lustrous +ivory-white linen were those figures of undress marble, the wealth of +their glorious bodies pressing out into bosoms magnificent as magnolias +(nobler lines and curves Greece herself has never known), towering in +throats of fluted alabaster, and flowering in coiffures of imperial +gold. +</P> + +<P> +Nor was their temple less magnificent. To make it fair, Ruskin had +relit the seven lamps of architecture, and written the seven labours of +Hercules; for these windows through a whole youth Burne Jones had +worshipped painted glass at Oxford, and to breathe romance into these +frescos had Rossetti been born, and Dante born again. Men had gone to +prison and to death that this temple of Whiskey-and-Soda might be fair. +</P> + +<P> +Strange, in truth, are the ministrations to which Beauty is called. +Out of the high heaven is she summoned, from mystic communion with her +own perfection, from majestic labours in the Sistine Chapel of the +Stars,—yea, she must put aside her gold-leaf and purples and leave +unfinished the very panels of the throne of God,—that Circe shall have +her palace, and her worshippers their gilded sty. +</P> + +<P> +As there were at least a score of "worshippers" round each Circe, my +nervousness became unimportant, and therefore passed. Thus, as my +companion and I sat at one of the little tables, from which we might +gaze upon the sea without and Aphrodite within, my eyes were able to +fly like bees from one fair face to another. Finally, they settled upon +a Circe less besieged of the hoarse and grunting mob. She was +conspicuously less in height, her hair was rather bright red than +golden, and her face had more meanings than the faces of her fellows. +</P> + +<P> +"Why," in a flash it came to me, "it's Rosalind!" and clean forgetting +to be shy, or polite to my companion, I hastened across to her, to be +greeted instantly in a manner so exclusively intimate that the little +crowd about her presently spread itself among the other crowds, and we +were left to talk alone. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," I said, "you're a nice girl! Whatever are you doing here?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I'm afraid you'll have but a strange opinion of me," she said; +"but I love all experience,—it's such fun,—and when I heard that +there was a sudden vacancy for a golden-haired beauty in this place, I +couldn't resist applying, and to my surprise they took me—and here I +am! Of course I shall only stay till Orlando appears—which," she +added mournfully—"he hasn't done yet." +</P> + +<P> +Her hours were long and late, but she had two half-days free in the +week, and for these of course I engaged myself. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile I spent as much time as I decently could at her side; but it +was impossible to monopolise her, and the rest of my time there was no +difficulty in filling up, you may be sure, in so gay a place. +</P> + +<P> +Two or three nights after this, a little before dinner-time, while I +was standing talking to her, she suddenly went very white, and in a +fluttering voice gasped, "Look yonder!" I looked. A rather slight +dark-haired young man was entering the bar, with a very stylish pretty +woman at his side. As they sat down and claimed the waiter, some +distance away, Rosalind whispered, "That's my husband!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" I said; "but that's no reason for your fainting. Pull yourself +together. Take a drop of brandy." But woman will never take the most +obvious restorative, and Rosalind presently recovered without the +brandy. She looked covertly at her husband, with tragic eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"He's much younger than I imagined him," I said,—reserving for myself +the satisfaction which this discovery had for me. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes, he's really quite a boy," said Rosalind; adding under her +breath, "Dear fellow! how I love him!" +</P> + +<P> +"And hate him too!" she superadded, as she observed his evident +satisfaction with his present lot. Indeed the experiment appeared to +be working most successfully with him; nor, looking at his companion, +could I wonder. She was a sprightly young woman, very smart and merry +and decorously voluptuous, and of that fascinating prettiness that wins +the hearts of boys and storms the footlights. One of her +characteristics soothed the heart of Rosalind. She had splendid red +hair, almost as good as her own. +</P> + +<P> +"He's been faithful to my hair, at all events," she said, trying to be +nonchalant. +</P> + +<P> +"And the eyes are not unlike," I added, meaning well. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry you think so," said Rosalind, evidently piqued. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, never mind," I tried to make peace, "she hasn't your hands,"—I +knew that women cared more about their hands than their faces. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know?" she retorted; "you cannot see through her gloves." +</P> + +<P> +"Would any gloves disguise your hands?" I persisted. "They would shine +through the mittens of an Esquimau." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, enough of that! See—I know it's wickedly mean of me—but +couldn't you manage to sit somewhere near them and hear what they are +saying? Of course you needn't tell me anything it would be mean to +hear, but only what—" +</P> + +<P> +"You would like to know." +</P> + +<P> +But this little plot died at its birth, for that very minute the +threatened couple arose, and went out arm in arm, apparently as +absurdly happy as two young people can be. +</P> + +<P> +As they passed out, one of Rosalind's fellow bar-maids turned to her +and said,— +</P> + +<P> +"You know who that was?" +</P> + +<P> +"Who?" said Rosalind, startled. +</P> + +<P> +"That pretty woman who went out with that young Johnny just now?" +</P> + +<P> +"No; who is she?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, that's"—and readers with heart-disease had better brace +themselves up for a great shock—"that's SYLVIA JOY, the famous dancer!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0309"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SYLVIA JOY +</H3> + +<P> +Sylvia Joy! And I hadn't so much as looked at her petticoat for weeks! +But I would now. The violet eyes and the heavy chestnut hair rose up +in moralising vision. Yes! God knows, they were safe in my heart, but +petticoats were another matter. Sylvia Joy! +</P> + +<P> +Well, did you ever? Well, I'm d——d! Sylvia Joy! +</P> + +<P> +I should have been merely superhuman had I been able to control the +expression of surprise which convulsed my countenance at the sound of +that most significant name. +</P> + +<P> +"The name seems familiar to you," said Rosalind, a little surprised and +a little eagerly; "do you know the lady?" +</P> + +<P> +"Slightly," I prevaricated. +</P> + +<P> +"How fortunate!" exclaimed Rosalind; "you'll be all the better able to +help me!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," I said; "but since things have turned out so oddly, I may say +that our relations are of so extremely delicate a nature that I shall +have very carefully to think out what is best to be done. Meanwhile, +do you mind lending me that ring for a few hours?" +</P> + +<P> +It was a large oblong opal set round with small diamonds,—a ring of +distinguished design you could hardly help noticing, especially on a +man's hand, for which it was too conspicuously dainty. I slipped it on +the little finger of my left hand, and, begging Rosalind to remain +where she was meanwhile, and to take no steps without consulting me, I +mysteriously, not to say officiously, departed. +</P> + +<P> +I left the twelfth Golden-Haired Bar-maid not too late to stalk her +husband and her under-study to their hotel, where they evidently +proposed to dine. There was, therefore, nothing left for me but to +dine also. So I dined; and when the courses of my dining were ended, I +found myself in a mellow twilight at the Cafe du Ciel. And it was +about the hour of the sirens' singing. Presently the little golden +butterflies flitted once more through the twilight, and again the +woman's voice rose like a silver bird on the air. +</P> + +<P> +As I have a partiality for her songs, I transcribe this Hymn of the +Daughters of Aphrodite, which you must try to imagine transfigured by +her voice and the sunset. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Queen Aphrodite's<BR> + Daughters are we,<BR> + She that was born<BR> + Of the morn<BR> + And the sea;<BR> + White are our limbs<BR> + As the foam on the wave,<BR> + Wild are our hymns<BR> + And our lovers are brave!<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Queen Aphrodite,<BR> + Born of the sea,<BR> + Beautiful dutiful daughters<BR> + Are we!<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + You who would follow,<BR> + Fear not to come,<BR> + For love is for love<BR> + As dove is for dove;<BR> + The harp of Apollo<BR> + Shall lull you to rest,<BR> + And your head find its home<BR> + On this beautiful breast.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Queen Aphrodite,<BR> + Born of the sea,<BR> + Beautiful dutiful daughters<BR> + Are we!<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Born of the Ocean,<BR> + Wave-like are we!<BR> + Rising and falling<BR> + Like waves of the sea;<BR> + Changing for ever,<BR> + Yet ever the same,<BR> + Music in motion<BR> + And marble in flame.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Queen Aphrodite,<BR> + Born of the sea,<BR> + Beautiful dutiful daughters<BR> + Are we!<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +When I alighted once more upon the earth from the heaven of this song, +who should I find seated within a table of me but the very couple I was +at the moment so unexpectedly interested in? But they were far too +absorbed in each other to notice me, and consequently I was able to +hear all of importance that was said. I regret that I cannot gratify +the reader with a report of their conversation, for the excuse I had +for listening was one that is not transferable. A woman's happiness +was at stake. No other consideration could have persuaded me to means +so mean save an end so noble. I didn't even tell Rosalind all I heard. +Mercifully for her, the candour of fools is not among my superstitions. +Suffice it for all third persons to know—what Rosalind indeed has +never known, and what I hope no reader will be fool enough to tell +her—that Orlando was for the moment hopelessly and besottedly +faithless to his wife, and that my services had been bespoken in the +very narrowest nick of time. +</P> + +<P> +Having, as the reader has long known, a warm personal interest in his +attractive companion, and desiring, therefore, to think as well of her +as possible, I was pleased to deduce, negatively, from their +conversation, that Sylvia Joy knew nothing of Rosalind, and believed +Orlando to be a free, that is, an unmarried man. From the point of +view, therefore, of her code, there was no earthly reason why she +should not fall in with Orlando's proposal that they should leave for +Paris by the "Mayflower" on the following morning. Orlando, I could +hear, wished to make more extended arrangements, and references to that +well-known rendezvous, "Eternity," fell on my ears from time to time. +Evidently Sylvia had no very saving belief in Eternity, for I heard her +say that they might see how they got on in Paris for a start. Then it +would be time enough to talk of Eternity. This and other remarks of +Sylvia's considerably predisposed me towards her. Having concluded +their arrangements for the heaven of the morrow, they rose to take a +stroll along the boulevards. As they did so, I touched Orlando's +shoulder and begged his attention for a moment. Though an entire +stranger to him, I had, I said, a matter of extreme importance to +communicate to him, and I hoped, therefore, that it would suit his +convenience to meet me at the same place in an hour and a half. As I +said this, I flashed his wife's ring in the light so obviously that he +was compelled to notice it. +</P> + +<P> +"Wherever did you get that?" he gasped, no little surprised and +agitated. +</P> + +<P> +"From your wife," I answered, rapidly moving away. "Be sure to be here +at eleven." +</P> + +<P> +I slipped away into the crowd, and spent my hour and a half in +persuading Rosalind that her husband was no doubt a little infatuated, +but nevertheless the most faithful husband in the world. If she would +only leave all to me, by this time to-morrow night, if not a good many +hours before, he should be in her arms as safe as in the Bank. It did +my heart good to see how happy this artistic adaptation of the truth +made her; and I must say that she never had a wiser friend. +</P> + +<P> +When eleven came, I was back in my seat at the Cafe du Ciel. Orlando +too was excitedly punctual. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, what is it?" he hurried out, almost before he had sat down. +</P> + +<P> +"What will you do me the honour of drinking?" I asked calmly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, drink be d——d!" he said; "what have you to tell me?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm glad to hear you rap out such a good honest oath," I said; "but I +should like a drink, for all that, and if I may say so, you would be +none the worse for a brandy and soda, late as it is." +</P> + +<P> +When the drinks had come, I remarked to him quietly, but not without +significance: "The meaning of this ring is that your wife is here, and +very wretched. By an accident I have been privileged with her +friendship; and I may say, to save time, that she has told me the whole +story. +</P> + +<P> +"What happily she has not been able to tell me, and what I need hardly +say she will never know from me, I overheard, in the interests of your +joint happiness, an hour or so ago." +</P> + +<P> +The man who is telling the story has a proverbial great advantage; but +I hope the reader knows enough of me by this to believe that I am far +from meanly availing myself of it in this narrative. I am well and +gratefully aware that in this interview with Orlando my advantages were +many and fortunate. For example, had he been bigger and older, or had +he not been a gentleman, my task had been considerably more arduous, +not to say dangerous. +</P> + +<P> +But, as Rosalind had said, he was really quite a boy, and I confess I +was a little ashamed for him, and a little piqued, that he showed so +little fight. The unexpectedness of my attack had, I realised, given +me the whip-hand. So I judged, at all events, from the fact that he +forbore to bluster, and sat quite still, with his head in his hands, +saying never a word for what seemed several minutes. Then presently he +said very quietly,— +</P> + +<P> +"I love my wife all the same." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course you do," I answered, eagerly welcoming the significant +announcement; "and if you'll allow me to say so, I think I understand +more about the whole situation than either of you, bachelor though +unfortunately I am. As a famous friend of mine is fond of saying, +lookers-on see most of the game." +</P> + +<P> +Then I rapidly told him the history of my meeting with his wife, and +depicted, in harrowing pigments of phrase, the distress of her mind. +</P> + +<P> +"I love my wife all the same," he repeated, as I finished; "and," he +added, "I love Sylvia too." +</P> + +<P> +"But not quite in the same way?" I suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"I love Sylvia very tenderly," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I know; I don't think you could do anything else. No man worth +his salt could be anything but tender to a dainty little woman like +that. But tenderness, gentleness, affection, even +self-sacrifice,—these may be parts of love; but they are merely the +crude untransformed ingredients of a love such as you feel for your +wife, and such as I know she feels for you." +</P> + +<P> +"She still loves me, then," he said pitifully; "she hasn't fallen in +love with you." +</P> + +<P> +"No fear," I answered; "no such luck for me. If she had, I'm afraid I +should hardly have been talking to you as I am at this moment. If a +woman like Rosalind, as I call her, gave me her love, it would take +more than a husband to rob me of it, I can tell you." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he repeated, "on my soul, I love her. I have never been false +to her, in my heart; but—" +</P> + +<P> +"I know all about it," I said; "may I tell you how it all +was,—diagnose the situation?" +</P> + +<P> +"Do," he replied; "it is a relief to hear you talk." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," I said, "may I ask one rather intimate question? Did you ever +before you were married sow what are known as wild oats?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never," he answered indignantly, flashing for a moment. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you should have done," I said; "that's just the whole trouble. +Wild oats will get sown some time, and one of the arts of life is to +sow them at the right time,—the younger the better. Think candidly +before you answer me." +</P> + +<P> +"I believe you are right," he replied, after a long pause. +</P> + +<P> +"You are a believer in theories," I continued, "and so am I; but you +can take my word that on these matters not all, but some, of the old +theories are best. One of them is that the man who does not sow his +wild oats before marriage will sow them afterwards, with a whirlwind +for the reaping." +</P> + +<P> +Orlando looked up at me, haggard with confession. +</P> + +<P> +"You know the old story of the ring given to Venus? Well, it is the +ruin of no few men to meet Venus for the first time on their marriage +night. Their very chastity, paradoxical as it may seem, is their +destruction. No one can appreciate the peace, the holy satisfaction of +monogamy till he has passed through the wasting distractions, the +unrest of polygamy. Plunged right away into monogamy, man, +unexperienced in his good fortune, hankers after polygamy, as the +monotheistic Jew hankered after polytheism; and thus the monogamic +young man too often meets Aphrodite for the first time, and makes +future appointments with her, in the arms of his pure young wife. If +you have read Swedenborg, you will remember his denunciation of the +lust of variety. Now, that is a lust every young man feels, but it is +one to be satisfied before marriage. Sylvia Joy has been such a +variant for you; and I'm afraid you're going to have some little +trouble to get her off your nerves. Tell me frankly," I said, "have +you had your fill of Aphrodite? It is no use your going back to your +wife till you have had that." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not quite a beast," he retorted. "After all, it was an experiment +we both agreed to try." +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly," I answered, "and I hope it may have the result of +persuading you of the unwisdom of experimenting with happiness. You +have the realities of happiness; why should you trouble about its +theories? They are for unhappy people, like me, who must learn to +distil by learned patience the aurum potabile from the husks of life, +the peace which happier mortals find lying like manna each morn upon +the meadows." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," I continued, "enough of the abstract; let us have another +drink, and tell me what you propose to do." +</P> + +<P> +"Poor Sylvia!" sighed Orlando. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I tell you about Sylvia?" I said. "On second thoughts, I won't. +It would hardly be fair play; but this, I may say, relying on your +honour, that if you were to come to my hotel, I could show you +indisputable proof that I know at least as much about Sylvia Joy as +even such a privileged intimate as yourself." +</P> + +<P> +"It is strange, then, that she never recognised you just now," he +retorted, with forlorn alertness. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course she didn't. How young you are! It is rather too bad of a +woman of Sylvia's experience." +</P> + +<P> +"And I've bought our passages for to-morrow. I cannot let her go +without some sort of good-bye." +</P> + +<P> +"Give the tickets to me. I can make use of them. How much are they? +Let's see." +</P> + +<P> +The calculation made and the money passed across, I said abruptly,— +</P> + +<P> +"Now supposing we go and see your wife." +</P> + +<P> +"You have saved my life," he said hoarsely, pressing my hand as we rose. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know about that," I said inwardly; "but I do hope I have saved +your wife." +</P> + +<P> +As I thought of that, a fear occurred to me. +</P> + +<P> +"Look here," I said, as we strolled towards the Twelve Golden-Haired, +"I hope you have no silly notions about confession, about telling the +literal truth and so on. Because I want you to promise me that you will +lie stoutly to your wife about Sylvia Joy. You must swear the whole +thing has been platonic. It's the only chance for your happiness. +Your wife, no doubt, will lure you on to confession by saying that she +doesn't mind this, that, and the other, so long as you don't keep it +from her; and no doubt she will mean it till you have confessed. But, +however good their theories, women by nature cannot help confusing body +and soul, and what to a man is a mere fancy of the senses, to them is a +spiritual tragedy. Promise me to lie stoutly on this point. It is, I +repeat, the only chance for your future happiness. As has been wisely +said, a lie in time saves nine; and such a lie as I advise is but one +of the higher forms of truth. Such lying, indeed, is the art of +telling the truth. The truth is that you love her body, soul, and +spirit; any accidental matter which should tend to make her doubt that +would be the only real lie. Promise me, won't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I will lie," said Orlando. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, there she is," I said; "and God bless you both." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0310"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IN WHICH ONCE MORE I BECOME OCCUPIED IN MY OWN AFFAIRS +</H3> + +<P> +During a pause in my matrimonial lecture, Orlando had written a little +farewell note to Sylvia,—a note which, of course, I didn't read, but +which it is easy to imagine "wild with all regret." This I undertook +to have delivered to her the same night, and promised to call upon her +on the morrow, further to illuminate the situation, and to offer her +every consolation in my power. To conclude the history of Orlando and +his Rosalind, I may say that I saw them off from Yellowsands by the +early morning coach. There was a soft brightness in their faces, as +though rain had fallen in the night; but it was the warm sweet rain of +joy that brings the flowers, and is but sister to the sun. They are, at +the time of my writing, quite old friends of mine, and both have an +excessive opinion of my wisdom and good-nature. +</P> + +<P> +"That lie," Orlando once said to me long after, "was the truest thing I +ever said in my life,"—a remark which may not give the reader a very +exalted idea of his general veracity. +</P> + +<P> +As the coach left long before pretty young actresses even dreamed of +getting up, I had to control my impatient desire to call on +Mademoiselle Sylvia Joy till it was fully noon. And even then she was +not to be seen. I tried again in the afternoon with better success. +</P> + +<P> +Rain had been falling in the night with her too, I surmised, but it had +failed to dim her gay eyes, and had left her complexion unimpaired. Of +course her little affair with Orlando had never been very serious on +her side. She genuinely liked him. "He was a nice kind boy," was the +height of her passionate expression, and she was, naturally, a little +disappointed at having an affectionate companion thus unexpectedly +whisked off into space. Her only approach to anger was on the subject +of his deceiving her about his wife. Little Sylvia Joy had no very +long string of principles; but one generous principle she did hold +by,—never, if she knew it, to rob another woman of her husband. And +that did make her cross with Orlando. He had not played the game fair. +</P> + +<P> +There is no need to follow, step by step, the progression by which +Sylvia Joy and I, though such new acquaintances, became in the course +of a day or two even more intimate than many old friends. We took to +each other instinctively, even on our first rather difficult interview, +and very gently and imperceptibly I bid for the vacant place in her +heart. +</P> + +<P> +That night we dined together. +</P> + +<P> +The next day we lunched and dined together. +</P> + +<P> +The next day we breakfasted, lunched, and dined together. +</P> + +<P> +And on the next I determined to venture on the confession which, as you +may imagine, it had needed no little artistic control not to make on +our first meeting. +</P> + +<P> +She looked particularly charming this evening, in a black silk gown, +exceedingly simple and distinguished in style, throwing up the lovely +firm whiteness of her throat and bosom, and making a fine contrast with +her lurid hair. +</P> + +<P> +It was sheer delight to sit opposite her at dinner, and quietly watch +her without a word. Shall I confess that I had an exceedingly boyish +vanity in thus being granted her friendship? It is almost too boyish to +confess at my time of life. It was simply in the fact that she was an +actress,—a real, live, famous actress, whose photographs made shop +windows beautiful,—come right out of my boy's fairyland of the +theatre, actually to sit eating and drinking, quite in a real way, at +my side. This, no doubt, will seem pathetically naive to most modern +young men, who in this respect begin where I leave off. An actress! +Great heavens! an actress is the first step to a knowledge of life. +Besides, actresses off the stage are either brainless or soulful, and +the choice of evils is a delicate one. Well, I have never set up for a +man of the world, though sometimes when I have heard the Lovelaces of +the day hinting mysteriously at their secret sins or boasting of their +florid gallantries, I have remembered the last verse of Suckling's +"Ballad of a Wedding," which, no doubt, the reader knows as well as I, +and if not, it will increase his acquaintance with our brave old poetry +to look it up. +</P> + +<P> +"You are very beautiful to-night," I said, in one of the meditative +pauses between the courses. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, kind sir," she said, making a mock courtesy; "but the +compliment is made a little anxious for me by your evident implication +that I didn't look so beautiful this morning. You laid such a marked +emphasis on to-night." +</P> + +<P> +"Nay," I returned, "'for day and night are both alike to thee.' I +think you would even be beautiful—well, I cannot imagine any moment or +station of life you would not beautify." +</P> + +<P> +"I must get you to write that down, and then I'll have it framed. It +would cheer me of a morning when I curl my hair," laughed Sylvia. +</P> + +<P> +"But you are beautiful," I continued, becoming quite impassioned. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and as good as I'm beautiful." +</P> + +<P> +And she was too, though perhaps the beauty occasionally predominated. +</P> + +<P> +When the serious business of dining was dispatched, and we were +trifling with our coffee and liqueurs, my eyes, which of course had +seldom left her during the whole meal, once more enfolded her little +ivory and black silk body with an embrace as real as though they had +been straining passionate arms; and as I thus nursed her in my eyes, I +smiled involuntarily at a thought which not unnaturally occurred to me. +</P> + +<P> +"What is that sly smile about?" she asked. Now I had smiled to think +that underneath that stately silk, around that tight little waist, was +a dainty waistband bearing the legend "Sylvia Joy," No. 4, perhaps, or +5, but NOT No. 6; and a whole wonderful underworld of lace and linen +and silk stockings, the counterpart of which wonders, my clairvoyant +fancy laughed to think, were at the moment—so entirely unsuspected of +their original owner—my delicious possessions. +</P> + +<P> +Everything a woman wears or touches immediately incarnates something of +herself. A handkerchief, a glove, a flower,—with a breath she endues +them with immortal souls. How much, therefore, of herself must inhere +in a garment so confidential as a petticoat, or so close and constant a +companion as a stocking! +</P> + +<P> +Now that I knew Sylvia Joy, I realised how absolutely true my instinct +had been, when on that far afternoon in that Surrey garden I had said, +"With such a petticoat and such a name, Sylvia herself cannot be +otherwise than charming." +</P> + +<P> +Indeed, now I could see that the petticoat was nothing short of a +portrait of her, and that any one learned in the physiognomy of clothes +would have been able to pick Sylvia out of a thousand by that spirited, +spoilt, and petted garment. +</P> + +<P> +"What is that sly smile about?" she repeated presently. +</P> + +<P> +"I only chanced to think of an absurd little fairy story I read the +other day," I said, "which is quite irrelevant at the moment. You know +the idle way things come and go through one's head." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't believe you," she replied, "but tell me the story. I love +fairy tales." +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly," I said, for I wasn't likely to get a better opportunity. +"There's nothing much in it; it's merely a variation of Cinderella's +slipper. Well, once upon a time there was an eccentric young prince +who'd had his fling in his day, but had arrived at the lonely age of +thirty without having met a woman whom he could love enough to make his +wife. He was a rather fanciful young prince, accustomed to follow his +whims; and one day, being more than usually bored with existence, he +took it into his head to ramble incognito through his kingdom in search +of his ideal wife,—'The Golden Girl,' as he called her. He had hardly +set out when in a country lane he came across a peasant girl hanging +out clothes to dry, and he fell to talk with her while she went on with +her charming occupation. Presently he observed, pegged on the line, +strangely incongruous among the other homespun garments, a wonderful +petticoat, so exquisite in material and design that it aroused his +curiosity. At the same moment he noticed a pair of stockings, round +the tops of which one of the daintiest artists in the land had wrought +an exquisite little frieze. The prince was learned in every form of +art, and had not failed to study this among other forms of decoration. +No sooner did he see this petticoat than the whim seized him that he +would find and marry the wearer, whoever she might be—" +</P> + +<P> +"Rather rash of him," interrupted Sylvia, "for it is usually old ladies +who have the prettiest petticoats. They can best afford them—" +</P> + +<P> +"He questioned the girl as to their owner," I continued, "and after +vainly pretending that they were her own, she confessed that they had +belonged to a young and beautiful lady who had once lodged there and +left them behind. Then the prince gave her a purse of gold in exchange +for the finery, and on the waistband of the petticoat he read a +beautiful name, and he said, 'This and no other shall be my wife, this +unknown beautiful woman, and on our marriage night she shall wear this +petticoat.' And then the prince went forth seeking—" +</P> + +<P> +"There's not much point in it," interrupted Sylvia. +</P> + +<P> +"No," I said, "I'm afraid I've stupidly missed the point." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, what was it?" +</P> + +<P> +"The name upon the petticoat!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, what name was it?" she asked, somewhat mystified. +</P> + +<P> +"The inscription upon the petticoat was, to be quite accurate, 'Sylvia +Joy, No. 6.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever are you talking about?" she said with quite a stormy blush. +"I'm afraid you've had more than your share of the champagne." +</P> + +<P> +As I finished, I slipped out of my pocket a dainty little parcel softly +folded in white tissue paper. Very softly I placed it on the table. +It contained one of the precious stockings; and half opening it, I +revealed to Sylvia's astonished eyes the cunning little frieze of +Bacchus and Ariadne, followed by a troop of Satyrs and Bacchantes, +which the artist had designed to encircle one of the white columns of +that little marble temple which sat before me. +</P> + +<P> +"You know," I said, "how in fairy tales, when the wandering hero or the +maiden in distress has a guiding dream, the dream often leaves +something behind on the pillow to assure them of its authenticity. +'When you wake up,' the dream will say, 'you will find a rose or an +oak-leaf or an eagle's feather, or whatever it may be, on your pillow.' +Well, I have brought this stocking—for which, if I might but use them, +I have at the moment a stock of the most appropriately endearing +adjectives—for the same purpose. By this token you will know that the +fairy tale I have been telling you is true, and to-morrow, if you will, +you shall see your autograph petticoat." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, wherever did you come across them? And what a mad creature you +must be! and what an odd thing that you should really meet me, after +all!" exclaimed Sylvia, all in a breath. "Of course, I remember," she +said frankly, and with a shade of sadness passing over her face. "I +was spending a holiday with Jack Wentworth,—why, it must be nearly two +years ago. Poor Jack! he was killed in the Soudan," and poor Jack +could have wished no prettier resurrection than the look of tender +memory that came into her face as she spoke of him, and the soft baby +tears filled her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm so sorry," I said. "Of course I didn't know. Let's come for a +little stroll. There seems to be a lovely moon." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course you didn't," she said, patting my cheek with a kind little +hand. "Yes, do let us go for a stroll." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0311"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"THE HOUR FOR WHICH THE YEARS DID SIGH" +</H3> + +<P> +This unexpected awakening of an old tenderness naturally prevented my +speaking any more of my mind to Sylvia that evening. No doubt the +reader may be a little astonished to hear that I had decided to offer +her marriage,—not taking my serious view of a fanciful vow. Doubtless +Sylvia was not entirely suitable to me, and to marry her was to be +faithless to that vision of the highest, that wonderful unknown woman +of the apocalyptic moorland, whose face Sylvia had not even momentarily +banished from my dreams, and whom, with an unaccountable certitude, I +still believed to be the woman God had destined for me; but, all things +considered, Sylvia was surely as pretty an answer to prayer as a man +could reasonably hope for. Many historic vows had met with sadly less +lucky fulfilment. +</P> + +<P> +So, after dinner the following evening, I suggested that we should for +once take a little walk up along the river-side; and when we were quiet +in the moonlight, dappling the lovers' path we were treading, and +making sharp contrasts of ink and silver down in the river-bed,—I +spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"Sylvia," I said, plagiarising a dream which will be found in Chapter +IV.,—"Sylvia, I have sought you through the world and found you at +last; and with your gracious permission, having found you, I mean to +stick to you." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean, silly boy?" she said, as an irregularity in the road +threw her soft weight the more fondly upon my arm. +</P> + +<P> +"I mean, dear, that I want you to be my wife." +</P> + +<P> +"Your wife? Not for worlds!—no, forgive me, I didn't mean that. +You're an awful dear boy, and I like you very much, and I think you're +rather fond of me; but—well, the truth is, I was never meant to be +married, and don't care about it—and when you think of it, why should +I?" +</P> + +<P> +"You mean," I said, "that you are fortunate in living in a society +where, as in heaven, there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, +where in fact nobody minds whether you're married or not, and where +morals are very properly regarded as a personal and private matter—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, that's what I mean," said Sylvia; "the people I care about—dear +good people—will think no more of me for having a wedding-ring, and no +less for my being without; and why should one put a yoke round one's +neck when nobody expects it? A wedding-ring is like a top-hat,—you +only wear it when you must—But it's very sweet of you, all the same, +and you can kiss me if you like. Here's a nice sentimental patch of +moonlight." +</P> + +<P> +I really felt very dejected at this not of course entirely unexpected +rejection,—if one might use the word for a situation on which had just +been set the seal of so unmistakable a kiss; but the vision in my heart +seemed to smile at me in high and happy triumph. To have won Sylvia +would have been to have lost her. My ideal had, as it were, held her +breath till Sylvia answered; now she breathed again. +</P> + +<P> +"At all events, we can go on being chums, can't we?" I said. +</P> + +<P> +For answer Sylvia hummed the first verse of that famous song writ by +Kit Marlowe. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes!" she said presently. "I will sing for you, dance for you, +and—perhaps—flirt with you; but marry you—no! it's best not, for +both of us." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then," I said, "dance for me! You owe me some amends for an +aching heart." As I said this, the path suddenly broadened into a +little circular glade into which the moonlight poured in a silver +flood. In the centre of the space was a boulder some three or four +feet high, and with a flat slab-like surface of some six feet or so. +</P> + +<P> +"I declare I will," said Sylvia, giving me an impulsive kiss, and +springing on to the stone; "why, here is a ready-made stage." +</P> + +<P> +"And there," I said, "are the nightingale and the nightjar for +orchestra." +</P> + +<P> +"And there is the moon," said she, "for lime-light man." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," I said; "and here is a handful of glow-worms for the footlights." +</P> + +<P> +Then lifting up her heavy silk skirt about her, and revealing a +paradise of chiffons, Sylvia swayed for a moment with her face full in +the moon, and then slowly glided into the movements of a mystical dance. +</P> + +<P> +It was thus the fountains were dancing to the moon in Arabia; it was +thus the Nixies shook their white limbs on the haunted banks of the +Rhine; it was thus the fairy women flashed their alabaster feet on the +fairy hills of Connemara; it was thus the Houris were dancing for +Mahomet on the palace floors of Paradise. +</P> + +<P> +"It was over such dancing," I said, "that John the Baptist lost his +head." +</P> + +<P> +"Give me a kiss," she said, nestling exhausted in my arms. "I always +want some one to kiss when I have danced with my soul as well as my +body." +</P> + +<P> +"I think we always do," I said, "when we've done anything that seems +wonderful, that gives us the thrill of really doing—" +</P> + +<P> +"And a poor excuse is better than none, isn't it, dear?" said Sylvia, +her face full in the cataract of the moonlight. +</P> + +<P> +As a conclusion for this chapter I will copy out a little song which I +extemporised for Sylvia on our way home to Yellowsands—too artlessly +happy, it will be observed, to rhyme correctly:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Sylvia's dancing 'neath the moon,<BR> + Like a star in water;<BR> + Sylvia's dancing to a tune<BR> + Fairy folk have taught her.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + Glow-worms light her little feet<BR> + In her fairy theatre;<BR> + Oh, but Sylvia is sweet!<BR> + Tell me who is sweeter!<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0312"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AT THE CAFE DE LA PAIX +</H3> + +<P> +As love-making in which we have no share is apt to be either +tantalising or monotonous, I propose to skip the next fortnight and +introduce myself to the reader at a moment when I am once more alone. +It is about six o'clock on a summer afternoon, I am in Paris, and +seated at one of the little marble tables of the Cafe de la Paix, +dreamily watching the glittering tide of gay folk passing by,— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "All happy people on their way<BR> + To make a golden end of day."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Meditatively I smoke a cigarette and sip a pale greenish liquor +smelling strongly of aniseed, which isn't half so interesting as a +commonplace whiskey and soda, but which, I am told, has the +recommendation of being ten times as wicked. I sip it with a delicious +thrill of degeneration, as though I were Eve tasting the apple for the +first time,—for "such a power hath white simplicity." Sin is for the +innocent,—a truth which sinners will be the first to regret. It was +so, I said to myself, Alfred de Musset used to sit and sip his absinthe +before a fascinated world. It is a privilege for the world to look on +greatness at any moment, even when it is drinking. So I sat, and +privileged the world. +</P> + +<P> +It will readily be surmised from this exordium that—incredible as it +may seem in a man of thirty—this was my first visit to Paris. You may +remember that I had bought Orlando's tickets, and it had occurred to +Sylvia and me to use them. Sylvia was due in London to fulfil a +dancing engagement within a fortnight after our arrival; so after a +tender good-bye, which there was no earthly necessity to make final, I +had remained behind for the purposes of study. Though, logically, my +pilgrimage had ended with the unexpected discovery of Sylvia Joy, yet +there were two famous feminine types of which, seeing that I was in +Paris, I thought I might as well make brief studies, before I returned +to London and finally resumed the bachelorhood from which I had +started. These were the grisette of fiction and the American girl of +fact. Pending these investigations, I meditated on the great city in +the midst of which I sat. +</P> + +<P> +A city! How much more it was than that! Was it not the most portentous +symbol of modern history? Think what the word "Paris" means to the +emancipated intellect, to the political government, to the humanised +morals, of the world; not to speak of the romance of its literature, +the tradition of its manners, and the immortal fame of its women. +France is the brain of the world, as England is its heart, and Russia +its fist. Strange is the power, strange are the freaks and revenges, +of association, particularly perhaps of literary association. Here +pompous official representatives may demur; but who can doubt that it +is on its literature that a country must rely for its permanent +representation? The countries that are forgotten, or are of no +importance in the councils of the world, are countries without +literature. Greece and Rome are more real in print than ever they were +in marble. Though, as we know, prophets are not without honour save in +their own countries and among their own kindred, the time comes when +their countries and kindred are entirely without honour save by reason +of those very prophets they once despised, rejected, stoned, and +crucified. Subtract its great men from a nation, and where is its +greatness? +</P> + +<P> +Similarly, everything, however trifling, that has been written about, +so long as it has been written about sufficiently well, becomes +relatively enduring and representative of the country in which it is +found. To an American, for example, the significance of a skylark is +that Shelley sang it to skies where even it could never have mounted; +and any one who has heard the nightingale must, if he be open-minded, +confess its tremendous debt to Keats: a tenth part genuine song, the +rest moon, stars, silence, and John Keats,—such is the nightingale. +The real truth about a country will never be known till every +representative type and condition in it have found their inspired +literary mouthpiece. Meanwhile one country takes its opinion of another +from the apercus of a few brilliant but often irresponsible or +prejudiced writers,—and really it is rather in what those writers +leave out than in what they put in that one must seek the more reliable +data of national character. +</P> + +<P> +A quaint example of association occurs to me from the experience of a +friend of mine, "rich enough to lend to the poor." Having met an +American friend newly landed at Liverpool, and a hurried quarter of an +hour being all that was available for lunch, "Come let us have a +pork-pie and a bottle of Bass" he had suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"Pork-pies!" said the American, with a delighted sense of discovering +the country,—"why, you read about them in Dickens!" Who shall say but +that this instinctive association was an involuntary severe, but not +inapplicable, criticism? A nightingale suggests Keats; a pork-pie, +Dickens. +</P> + +<P> +Similarly with absinthe, grisettes, the Latin Quarter, and so on. +</P> + +<P> +Why, you read about them in Murger, in Musset, in Balzac, and in +Flaubert; and the fact of your having read about them is, I may add, +their chief importance. +</P> + +<P> +So rambled my after-dinner reflections as I sat that evening smoking +and sipping, sipping and smoking, at the Cafe de la Paix. +</P> + +<P> +Presently in my dream I became aware of English voices near me, one of +which seemed familiar, and which I couldn't help overhearing. The +voice of the husband said,—you can never mistake the voice of the +husband,— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + 'T was the voice of the husband,<BR> + I heard him complain,—<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +the voice of the husband said: "Dora, I forbid you! I will NOT allow +my wife to be seen again in the Latin Quarter. I permitted you to go +once, as a concession, to the Cafe d'Harcourt; but once is enough. You +will please respect my wishes!" +</P> + +<P> +"But," pleaded the dear little woman, whom I had an immediate impulse, +Perseus-like, to snatch from the jaws of her monster, and turning to +the other lady of the party of four,—"but Mrs. —— has never been, +and she cannot well go without a chaperone. Surely it cannot matter for +once. It isn't as if I were there constantly." +</P> + +<P> +"No!" said the husband, with the absurd pomposity of his tribe. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm very sorry. Mrs. —— will, of course, act as she pleases; but I +cannot allow you to do it, Dora." +</P> + +<P> +At last the little wife showed some spirit. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't talk to me like that, Will," she said. "I shall go if I please. +Surely I am my own property." +</P> + +<P> +"Not at all!" at once flashed out the husband, wounded in that most +vital part of him, his sense of property. "There you mistake. You are +my property, MY chattel; you promised obedience to me; I bought you, +and you do my bidding!" +</P> + +<P> +"Great heavens!" I ejaculated, and, springing up, found myself face to +face with a well-known painter whom you would have thought the most +Bohemian fellow in London. And Bohemian he is; but Bohemians are seldom +Bohemians for any one save themselves. They are terrible sticklers for +convention and even etiquette in other people. +</P> + +<P> +We recognised each other with a laugh, and presently were at it, hammer +and tongs. I may say that we were all fairly intimate friends, and thus +had the advantage of entire liberty of speech. I looked daggers at the +husband; he looked daggers at me, and occasionally looking at his wife, +gave her a glance which was like the opening of Bluebeard's closet. +You could see the poor murdered bodies dangling within the shadowy +cupboard of his eye. Of course we got no further. Additional +opposition but further enraged him. He recapitulated what he would no +doubt call his arguments,—they sounded more like threats,—and as he +spoke I saw dragons fighting for their dams in the primeval ooze, and +heard savage trumpetings of masculine monsters without a name. +</P> + +<P> +I told him so. +</P> + +<P> +"You are," I said,—"and you will forgive my directness of +expression,—you are the Primeval Male! You are the direct descendant +of those Romans who carried off the Sabine women. Nay! you have a much +longer genealogy. You come of those hairy anthropoid males who hunted +their mates through the tangle of primeval forests, and who finally +obtained their consent—shall we say?—by clubbing them on the head +with a stone axe. You talk a great deal of nonsense about the New +Woman, but you, Sir, are THE OLD MALE; and," I continued, "I have only +to obtain your wife's consent to take her under my protection this +instant." +</P> + +<P> +Curiously enough, "The Old Male," as he is now affectionately called, +became from this moment quite a bosom friend. Nothing would satisfy us +but that we should all lodge at the same pension together, and there +many a day we fought our battles over again. But that poor little wife +never, to my knowledge, went to the Cafe d'Harcourt again. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0313"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE INNOCENCE OF PARIS +</H3> + +<P> +This meeting with William and Dora was fortunate from the point of view +of my studies; for that very night, as I dined with them en pension, I +found that providence, with his usual foresight, had placed me next to +a very charming American girl of the type that I was particularly +wishful to study. She seemed equally wishful to be studied, and we got +on amazingly from the first moment of our acquaintance. By the middle +of dinner we were pressing each other's feet under the table, and when +coffee and cigarettes had come, we were affianced lovers. "Why should +I blush to own I love?" was evidently my quaint little companion's +motto; and indeed she didn't blush to own it to the whole table, and +publicly to announce that I was the dearest boy, and absolutely the +most lovable man she had met. There was nothing she wouldn't do for +me. Would she brave the terrors of the Latin Quarter with me, I asked, +and introduce me to the terrible Cafe d'Harcourt, about which William +and Dora had suffered such searchings of heart? "Why, certainly; there +was nothing in that," she said. So we went. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing is more absurd and unjust than those crude labels of national +character which label one country virtuous and another vicious, one +musical and another literary. Thus France has an unjust reputation for +vice, and England an equally unjust reputation for virtue. +</P> + +<P> +I had always, I confess, been brought up to think of Paris as a sort of +Sodom and Gomorrah in one. Good Americans might go to Paris, according +to the American theory of a future state; but, certainly I had thought, +no good Englishman ever went there—except, maybe, on behalf of the +Vigilance Society. Well, it may sound an odd thing to say, but what +impressed me most of all was the absolute innocence of the place. +</P> + +<P> +I mean this quite seriously. For surely one important condition of +innocence is unconsciousness of doing wrong. The poor despised +Parisian may be a very wicked and depraved person, but certainly he +goes about with an absolute unconsciousness of it upon his gay and +kindly countenance. +</P> + +<P> +"Seeing the world" usually means seeing everything in it that most +decent people won't look at; but when you come to look at these +terrible things and places, what do you find? Why, absolute +disappointment! +</P> + +<P> +Have you ever read that most amusing book, "Baedeker on Paris"? +</P> + +<P> +I know nothing more delightful than the notes to the Montmartre and +Latin Quarters. The places to which you, as a smug Briton, may or may +not take a lady! The scale of wickedness allowed to the waxwork +British lady is most charmingly graduated. I had read that the cafe +where we were sitting was one of the most terrible places in +Paris,—the Cafe d'Harcourt, where the students of the Latin Quarter +take their nice little domestic mistresses to supper. But Baedeker was +dreadfully Pecksniffian about these poor innocent etudiantes, many of +whom love their lovers much more truly than many a British wife loves +her husband, and are much better loved in return. If you doubt it, +dare to pay attention to one of these young ladies, and you will +probably have to fight a duel for it. In fact, these romantic +relations are much more careful of honour than conventional ones; for +love, and not merely law, keeps guard. +</P> + +<P> +I looked around me. Where were those terrible things I had read of? +Where was this hell which I had reasonably expected would gape leagues +of sulphur and blue flame beneath the little marble table? I mentally +resolved to bring an action against Baedeker for false information. +For what did I see? Simply pairs and groups of young men and women +chattering amiably in front of their "bocks" or their "Americains." +Here and there a student would have his arm round a waist every one +else envied him. One student was prettily trying a pair of new gloves +upon his little woman's hand. Here and there blithe songs would spring +up, from sheer gladness of heart; and never was such a buzz of happy +young people, not even at a Sunday-school treat. To me it seemed +absolutely Arcadian, and I thought of Daphnis and Chloe and the early +world. Nothing indecorous or gross; all perfectly pretty and seemly. +</P> + +<P> +On our way home Semiramis was so sweet to me, in her innocent, artless +frankness, that I went to bed with an intoxicating feeling that I must +be irresistible indeed, to have so completely conquered so true a heart +in so few hours. I was the more flattered because I am not a vain man, +and am not, like some, accustomed to take hearts as the Israelites took +Jericho with the blast of one's own trumpet. +</P> + +<P> +But, alas! my dream of universal irresistibility was but short-lived, +for next afternoon, as William and I sat out at some cafe together, I +found myself the object of chaff. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said William, "how goes the love-affair?" +</P> + +<P> +I flushed somewhat indignantly at his manner with sanctities. +</P> + +<P> +"I see!" he said, "I see! You are already corded and labelled, and +will be shipped over by the next mail,—'To Miss Semiramis Wilcox, 1001 +99th St., Philadelphia, U.S.A. Man with care.' Well, I did think +you'd got an eye in your head. Look here, don't be a fool! I suppose +she said you were the first and last. The last you certainly were. +There are limits even to the speed of American girls; but the first, my +boy! You are more like the twelfth, to my ocular knowledge. Here +comes Dubois the poet. He can tell you something about Miss Semiramis. +Eh! Dubois, you know Miss Semiramis Wilcox, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +The Frenchman smiled and shrugged. +</P> + +<P> +"Un peu," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't be an ass and get angry," William continued; "it's all for your +own good." +</P> + +<P> +"The little Semiramis has been seducing my susceptible friend here. +Like many of us, he has been captivated by her naturalness, her +naivete, her clear good eyes,—that look of nature that is always art! +May I relate the idyl of your tragic passion, dear Dubois, as an object +lesson?" +</P> + +<P> +The Frenchman bowed, and signed William to proceed. +</P> + +<P> +"You dined with us one evening, and you thus met for the first time. +You sat together at table. What happened with the fish?" +</P> + +<P> +"She swore I was the most beautiful man she had ever seen,—and I am +not beautiful, as you perceive." +</P> + +<P> +If not beautiful, the poet was certainly true. +</P> + +<P> +"What happened at the entree?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, long before that we were pressing our feet under the table." +</P> + +<P> +"And the coffee—" +</P> + +<P> +"Mon Dieu! we were Tristram and Yseult, we were all the great lovers in +the Pantheon of love." +</P> + +<P> +"And what then?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, we went to the Cafe d'Harcourt—mon ami." +</P> + +<P> +"Did she wear a veil?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Oui, certainement!" +</P> + +<P> +"And did you say, 'Why do you wear a veil,—setting a black cloud +before the eyes and gates of heaven'?" +</P> + +<P> +"The very words," said the Frenchman. +</P> + +<P> +"And did she say, 'Yes, but the veil can be raised?'" +</P> + +<P> +"She did, mon pauvre ami," said the poet. +</P> + +<P> +"And did you raise it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I did," said the poet. +</P> + +<P> +"And so did I," I answered. And as I spoke, there was a crash of white +marble in my soul, and lo! Love had fallen from his pedestal and been +broken into a thousand pieces,—a heavy, dead thing he lay upon the +threshold of my heart. +</P> + +<P> +We had appointed a secret meeting in the salon of the pension that +afternoon. I was not there! (Nor, as I afterwards learnt, was +Semiramis.) When we did meet, I was brutally cold. I evaded all her +moves; but when at last I decided to give her a hearing, I confess it +needed all my cynicism to resist her air of innocence, of pathetic +devotion. +</P> + +<P> +If I couldn't love her, she said, might she go on loving me? Might she +write to me sometimes? She would be content if now and again I would +send her a little word. Perhaps in time I would grow to believe in her +love, etc. +</P> + +<P> +The heart-broken abandonment with which she said this was a sore trial +to me; but though love may be deceived, vanity is ever vigilant, and +vanity saved me. Yet I left her with an aching sense of having been a +brute, and on the morning of my departure from Paris, as I said +good-bye to William and Dora, I spoke somewhat seriously of Semiramis. +Dora, Dora-like, had believed in her all along,—not having enjoyed +William's opportunities of studying her,—and she reproached me with +being rather hard-hearted. +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense," said William, "if she really cared, wouldn't she have been +up to bid you good-bye?" +</P> + +<P> +The words were hardly gone from his lips when there came a little knock +at the door. It was Semiramis; she had come to say good-bye. Was it in +nature not to be touched? "Good-bye," she said, as we stood a moment +alone in the hall. "I shall always think of you; you shall not be to +me as a ship that has passed in the night, though to me you have +behaved very like an iceberg." +</P> + +<P> +We parted in tears and kisses, and I lived for some weeks with that +sense of having been a Nero, till two months after I received a much +glazed and silvered card to the usual effect. +</P> + +<P> +And so I ceased to repine for the wound I had made in the heart of +Semiramis Wilcox. +</P> + +<P> +Of another whom I met and loved in that brief month in Paris, I cherish +tenderer memories. Prim little Pauline Deschapelles! How clearly I can +still see the respectable brass plate on the door of your little +flat—"Mademoiselle Deschapelles—Modes et Robes;" and indeed the +"modes et robes" were true enough. For you were in truth a very +hard-working little dressmaker, and I well remember how impressed I was +to sit beside you, as you plied your needle on some gown that must be +finished by the evening, and meditate on the quaint contrast between +your almost Puritanic industry and your innocent love of pleasure. I +don't think I ever met a more conscientious little woman than little +Pauline Deschapelles. +</P> + +<P> +There was but one drawback to our intercourse. She didn't know a word +of English, and I couldn't speak a word of French. So we had to make +shift to love without either language. But sometimes Pauline would +throw down her stitching in amused impatience, and, going to her dainty +secretaire, write me a little message in the simplest baby +French—which I would answer in French which would knit her brows for a +moment or two, and then send her off in peals of laughter. +</P> + +<P> +It WAS French! I know. Among the bric-a-brac of my heart I still +cherish some of those little slips of paper with which we made +international love—question and answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Vous allez m'oublier, et ne plus penser a moi—ni me voir. Les +hommes—egoistes—menteurs, pas dire la verite..." so ran the +questions, considerably devoid of auxiliary verbs and such details of +construction. +</P> + +<P> +"Je serais jamais t'oublier," ran the frightful answers! +</P> + +<P> +Dear Pauline! Shall I ever see her again? She was but twenty-six. +She may still live. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0314"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +END OF BOOK THREE +</H3> + +<P> +So ended my pilgrimage. I had wandered far, had loved many, but I came +back to London without the Golden Girl. I had begun my pilgrimage with +a vision, and it was with a vision that I ended it. From all my goings +to and fro upon the earth, I had brought back only the image of a +woman's face,—the face of that strange woman of the moorland, still +haunting my dreams of the night and the day. +</P> + +<P> +It was autumn in my old garden, damp and forsaken, and the +mulberry-tree was hung with little yellow shields. My books looked +weary of awaiting me, and they and the whole lonely house begged me to +take them where sometimes they might be handled by human fingers, +mellowed by lamplight, cheered by friendly laughter. +</P> + +<P> +The very chairs begged mutely to be sat upon, the chill white beds to +be slept in. Yes, the very furniture seemed even lonelier than myself. +</P> + +<P> +So I took heed of their dumb appeal. +</P> + +<P> +"I know," I answered them tenderly,—"I too, with you, have looked on +better days, I too have been where bells have knoll'd to church, I too +have sat at many a good man's feast,—yes! I miss human society, even +as you, my books, my bedsteads, and my side-boards,—so let it be. It +is plain our little Margaret is not coming back, our little Margaret, +dear haunted rooms, will never come back; no longer shall her little +silken figure flit up and down your quiet staircases, her hands filled +with flowers, and her heart humming with little songs. Yes, let us go, +it is very lonely; we shall die if we stay here all so lonely together; +it is time, let us go." +</P> + +<P> +So thereon I wrote to a furniture-remover, and went out to walk round +the mossy old garden for the last time, and say good-bye to the great +mulberry, under whose Dodonaesque shade we had sat half frightened on +starry nights, to the apple-trees whose blossom had seemed like +fairy-land to Margaret and me, town-bred folk, to the apricots and the +peaches and the nectarines that it had seemed almost wicked to own,—as +though we had gone abroad in silk and velvet,—to the little grassy +orchard, and to the little green corner of it, where Margaret had +fallen asleep that summer afternoon, in the great wicker-chair, and I +had brought a dear friend on tiptoe to gaze on her asleep, with her +olive cheeks delicately flushed, her great eyelids closed like the +cheeks of roses, and her gold hair tumbled about her neck... +</P> + +<P> +Well, well, good-bye,—tears are foolish things. They will not bring +Margaret back. Good-bye, old garden, good-bye, I shall never see you +again,—good-bye. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0401"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BOOK IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE POSTSCRIPT TO A PILGRIMAGE +</H3> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SIX YEARS AFTER +</H3> + +<P> +This book is like a woman's letter. The most important part of it is +the postscript. +</P> + +<P> +Six years lie between the end of the last chapter and the beginning of +this. Meanwhile, I had moved to sociable chambers within sound of the +city clocks, and had lived the life of a lonely man about town, sinking +more and more into the comfortable sloth of bachelorhood. I had long +come to look back upon my pilgrimage as a sort of Indian-summer youth, +being, as the reader can reckon for himself, just on thirty-seven. As +one will, with one's most serious experiences, hastening to laugh lest +one should weep, as the old philosopher said, I had made some fun out +of my quest, in the form of a paper for a bookish society to which I +belonged, on "Woman as a Learned Pursuit." It is printed among the +transactions of the society, and is accessible to the curious only by +loan from the members, and I regret that I am unable to print any +extracts here. Perhaps when I am dead the society will see the +criminal selfishness of reserving for itself what was meant for mankind. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile, however, it is fast locked and buried deep in the archives +of the club. I have two marriages to record in the interval: one that +of a young lady whom I must still think of as 'Nicolete' to Sir +Marmaduke Pettigrew, Bart., of Dultowers Hall, and the other the +well-known marriage of Sylvia Joy... +</P> + +<P> +Sylvia Joy married after all her fine protestations! Yes! but I'm sure +you will forgive her, for she was married to a lord. When one is twenty +and romantic one would scorn a woman who would jilt us for wealth and +position; at thirty, one would scorn any woman who didn't. Ah me! how +one changes! No one, I can honestly say, was happier over these two +weddings than I, and I sent Sylvia her petticoat as a wedding present. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +But it was to tell of other matters that I reopen this book and once +more take up my pen—matters so near to my heart that I shrink from +writing of them, and am half afraid that the attempt may prove too hard +for me after all, and my book end on a broken cry of pain. Yet, at the +same time, I want to write of them, for they are beautiful and solemn, +and good food for the heart. +</P> + +<P> +Besides, though my pilgrimage had been ended so long, they are really a +part, yea, the part for which, though I knew it not, all the rest has +been written—for they tell how I came to find by accident her whom so +long I had sought of design. +</P> + +<P> +How shall I tell of Thee who, first and last of all women, gave and +awoke in me that love which is the golden key of the world, the mystic +revelation of the holy meaning of life, love that alone may pass +through the awful gates of the stars, and gaze unafraid into the blue +abysses beyond? +</P> + +<P> +Ah! Love, it seemed far away indeed from the stars, the place where we +met, and only by the light of love's eyes might we have found each +other—as only by the light of love's eyes... But enough, my Heart, +the world waits to hear our story,—the world once so unloving to you, +the world with a heart so hard and anon so soft for love. When the +story is ended, my love, when the story is ended— +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0402"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +GRACE O' GOD +</H3> + +<P> +It was a hard winter's night four years ago, lovely and merciless; and +towards midnight I walked home from a theatre to my rooms in St. +James's Street. The Venusberg of Piccadilly looked white as a nun with +snow and moonlight, but the melancholy music of pleasure, and the sad +daughters of joy, seemed not to heed the cold. For another hour death +and pleasure would dance there beneath the electric lights. +</P> + +<P> +Through the strange women clustering at the corners I took my +way,—women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and +Hittites,—and I thought, as I looked into their poor painted +faces,—faces but half human, vampirish faces, faces already waxen with +the look of the grave,—I thought, as I often did, of the poor little +girl whom De Quincey loved, the good-hearted little 'peripatetic' as he +called her, who had succoured him during those nights, when, as a young +man, he wandered homeless about these very streets,—that good, kind +little Ann whom De Quincey had loved, then so strangely lost, and for +whose face he looked into women's faces as long as he lived. Often +have I stood at the corner of Titchfield Street, and thought how De +Quincey had stood there night after night waiting for her to come, but +all in vain, and how from the abyss of oblivion into which some cruel +chance had swept her, not one cry from her ever reached him again. +</P> + +<P> +I thought, too, as I often did, what if the face I seek should be here +among these poor outcasts,—golden face hidden behind a mask of shame, +true heart still beating true even amidst this infernal world! +</P> + +<P> +Thus musing, I had walked my way out of the throng, and only a figure +here and there in the shadows of doorways waited and waited in the cold. +</P> + +<P> +It was something about one of these waiting figures,—some movement, +some chance posture,—that presently surprised my attention and +awakened a sudden sense of half recognition. She stood well in the +shadow, seeming rather to shrink from than to court attention. As I +walked close by her and looked keenly into her face, she cast down her +eyes and half turned away. Surely, I had seen that tall, noble figure +somewhere before, that haughty head; and then with the apparition a +thought struck me—but, no! it couldn't be she! not HERE! +</P> + +<P> +"It is," said my soul, as I turned and walked past her again; "you +missed her once, are you going to miss her again?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is," said my eyes, as they swept her for the third time; "but she +had glorious chestnut hair, and the hair of this woman is—gilded." +</P> + +<P> +"It is she," said my heart; "thank God, it is she!" +</P> + +<P> +So it was that I went up to that tall, shy figure. +</P> + +<P> +"It must be very cold here," I said; "will you not join me in some +supper?" +</P> + +<P> +She assented, and we sought one of the many radiating centres of +festivity in the neighbourhood. She was very tired and cold,—so tired +she seemed hardly to have the spirit to eat, and evidently the cold had +taken tight clutch of her lungs, for she had a cough that went to my +heart to hear, and her face was ghastly pale. When I had persuaded her +to drink a little wine, she grew more animated and spots of suspicious +colour came into her cheeks. So far she had seemed all but oblivious +of my presence, but now she gave me a sweet smile of gratitude, one of +those irradiating transfiguring smiles that change the whole face, and +belong to few faces, the heavenly smile of a pure soul. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, it was she! The woman who sat in front of me was the woman whom I +had met so strangely that day on that solitary moorland, and whom in +prophecy still more strange my soul had declared to be, "now and for +ever and before all worlds the woman God had created for me, and that +unless I could be hers and she mine, there could be no home, no peace, +for either of us so long as we lived—" and now so strangely met again. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, it was she! +</P> + +<P> +For the moment my mind had room for no other thought. I cared not to +conjecture by what devious ways God had brought her to my side. I +cared not what mire her feet had trodden. She had carried her face +pure as a lily through all the foul and sooty air. There was a pure +heart in her voice. Sin is of the soul, and this soul had not sinned! +Let him that is without sin amongst you cast the first stone. +</P> + +<P> +"Why did you dye that wonderful chestnut hair?" I asked her +presently—and was sorry next minute for the pain that shot across her +face, but I just wanted to hint at what I designed not to reveal fully +till later on, and thus to hint too that it was not as one of the +number of her defilers that I had sought her. +</P> + +<P> +"Why," she said, "how do you know the colour of my hair? We have never +met before." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, we have," I said, "and that was why I spoke to you to-night. +I'll tell you where it was another time." +</P> + +<P> +But after all I could not desist from telling her that night, for, as +afterwards at her lodging we sat over the fire, talking as if we had +known each other all our lives, there seemed no reason for an arbitrary +delay. +</P> + +<P> +I described to her the solitary moorland road, and the grey-gowned +woman's figure in front of me, and the gig coming along to meet her, +and the salutation of the two girls, and I told her all one look of her +face had meant for me, and how I had wildly sought her in vain, and +from that day to this had held her image in my heart. +</P> + +<P> +And as I told her, she sobbed with her head against my knees and her +great hair filling my lap with gold. In broken words she drew for me +the other side of the picture of that long-past summer day. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, the girl in the gig was her sister, and they were the only +daughters of a farmer who had been rich once, but had come to ruin by +drink and misfortune. They had been brought up from girls by an old +grandmother, with whom the sister was living at the time of my seeing +them. Yes, Tom was her husband. He was a doctor in the neighbourhood +when he married her, and a man, I surmised, of some parts and promise, +but, moving to town, he had fallen into loose ways, taken to drinking +and gambling, and had finally deserted her for another woman—at the +very moment when their first child was born. The child died "Thank +God!" she added with sudden vehemence, and "I—well, you will wonder +how I came to this, I wonder myself—it has all happened but six months +ago, and yet I seem to have forgotten—only the broken-hearted and the +hungry would understand, if I could remember—and yet it was not life, +certainly not life I wanted—and yet I couldn't die—" +</P> + +<P> +The more I came to know Elizabeth and realise the rare delicacy of her +nature, the simplicity of her mind, and the purity of her soul, the +less was I able to comprehend the psychology of that false step which +her great misery had forced her to take. For hers was not a sensual, +pleasure-loving nature. In fact, there was a certain curious +Puritanism about her, a Puritanism which found a startlingly +incongruous and almost laughable expression in the Scripture almanac +which hung on the wall at the end of her bed, and the Bible, and two or +three Sunday-school stories which, with a copy of "Jane Eyre," were the +only books that lay upon the circular mahogany table. +</P> + +<P> +Once I ventured gently to chaff her about this religiosity of hers. +</P> + +<P> +"But surely you believe in God, dear," she had answered, "you're not an +atheist!" +</P> + +<P> +I think an atheist, with all her experience of human monsters, was for +her the depth of human depravity. +</P> + +<P> +"No, dear," I had answered; "if you can believe in God, surely I can!" +</P> + +<P> +I repeat that this gap in Elizabeth's psychology puzzled me, and it +puzzles me still, but it puzzled me only as the method of working out +some problem which after all had "come out right" might puzzle one. It +was only the process that was obscure. The result was gold, whatever +the dark process might be. Was it simply that Elizabeth was one of +that rare few who can touch pitch and not be defiled?—or was it, I +have sometimes wondered, an unconscious and after all a sound casuistry +that had saved Elizabeth's soul, an instinctive philosophy that taught +her, so to say, to lay a Sigurd's sword between her soul and body, and +to argue that nothing can defile the body without the consent of the +soul. +</P> + +<P> +In deep natures there is always what one might call a lover's leap to +be taken by those that would love them—something one cannot understand +to be taken on trust, something even that one fears to be gladly +adventured ... all this, and more, I knew that I could safely venture +for Elizabeth's sake, ere I kissed her white brow and stole away in the +early hours of that winter's morning. +</P> + +<P> +As I did so I had taken one of the sumptuous strands of her hair into +my hand and kissed it too. +</P> + +<P> +"Promise me to let this come back to its own beautiful colour," I had +said, as I nodded to a little phial labelled "Peroxide of Hydrogen" on +her mantelshelf. +</P> + +<P> +"Would you like to?" she had said. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, do it for me." +</P> + +<P> +One day some months after I cut from her dear head one long thick lock, +one half of which was gold and the other half chestnut. I take it out +and look at it as I write, and, as when I first cut it, it seems still +a symbol of Elizabeth's life, the sun and the shadow, only that the +gold was the shadow, and the chestnut was the sun. +</P> + +<P> +The time came when the locks, from crown to tip, were all chestnut—but +when it came I would have given the world for them to be gold again; +for Elizabeth had said a curious thing when she had given me her +promise. +</P> + +<P> +"All right, dear," she had said, "but something tells me that when they +are all brown again our happiness will be at an end." +</P> + +<P> +"How long will that take?" I had said, trying to be gay, though an +involuntary shudder had gone through me, less at her words than because +of the strange conviction of her manner. +</P> + +<P> +"About two years,—perhaps a little more," she said, answering me quite +seriously, as she gravely measured the shining tresses, half her body's +length, with her eye. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0403"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE GOLDEN GIRL +</H3> + +<P> +One fresh and sunny morning, some months after this night, Elizabeth +and I stood before the simple altar of a little country church, for the +news had come to us that her husband was dead, and thus we were free to +belong to each other before all the world. The exquisite stillness in +the cool old church was as the peace in our hearts, and the rippling +sound of the sunlit leaves outside seemed like the very murmur of the +stream of life down which we dreamed of gliding together from that hour. +</P> + +<P> +It was one of those moments which sometimes come and go without any +apparent cause, when life suddenly takes a mystical aspect of +completeness, all its discords are harmonised by some unseen hand of +the spirit, and all its imperfections fall away. The lover of beauty +and the lover of God alike know these strange moments, but none know +them with such a mighty satisfaction as a man and a woman who love as +loved Elizabeth and I. +</P> + +<P> +Love for ever completes the world, for it is no future of higher +achievement, no expectation of greater joy. It lives for ever in a +present made perfect by itself. Love can dream of no greater +blessedness than itself, of no heaven but its own. God himself could +have added no touch of happiness to our happy hearts that grave and +sunny morning. You philosophers who go searching for the meaning of +life, thinkers reading so sadly, and let us hope so wrongly, the riddle +of the world—life has but one meaning, the riddle but one +answer—which is Love. To love is to put yourself in harmony with the +spheral music of creation, to stand in the centre of the universe, and +see it good and whole as it appears in the eye of God. +</P> + +<P> +Even Death himself, the great and terrible King of kings, though he may +break the heart of love with agonies and anguish and slow tortures of +separation, may break not his faith. No one that has loved will dream +even death too terrible a price to pay for the revelation of love. For +that revelation once made can never be recalled. As a little sprig of +lavender will perfume a queen's wardrobe, so will a short year of love +keep sweet a long life. And love's best gifts death can never take +away. Nay, indeed, death does not so much rob as enrich the gifts of +love. The dead face that was fair grows fairer each spring, sweet +memories grow more sweet, what was silver is now gold, and as years go +by, the very death of love becomes its immortality. +</P> + +<P> +I think I shall never hear Elizabeth's voice again, never look into her +eyes, never kiss her dear lips—but Elizabeth is still mine, and I am +hers, as in that morning when we kissed in that little chancel amid the +flickering light, and passed out into the sun and down the lanes, to +our little home among the meadow-sweet. +</P> + +<P> +She is still as real to me as the stars,—and, alas, as far away! I +think no thought that does not fly to her, I have no joys I do not +share with her, I tell her when the spring is here, and we sit beneath +the moon and listen to the nightjar together. Sometimes we are merry +together as in the old time, and our laughter makes nightfaring folk to +cross themselves; my work, my dreams, my loves, are all hers, and my +very sins are sinned for her sake. +</P> + +<P> +Two years did Elizabeth and I know the love that passeth all +understanding, and day by day the chestnut upon her head was more and +the gold less, till the day came that she had prophesied, and with the +day a little child, whose hair had stolen all her mother's gold, as her +heart had drained away her mother's life. +</P> + +<P> +Ah! reader, may it be long before you kneel at the bedside of her you +love best in the world, and know that of all your love is left but a +hundred heart-beats, while opposite sits Death, watch in hand, and +fingers upon her wrist. +</P> + +<P> +"Husband," whispered Elizabeth, as we looked at each other for the last +time, "let her be your little golden girl..." +</P> + +<P> +And then a strange sweetness stole over her face, and the dream of +Elizabeth's life was ended. +</P> + +<P> +As I write I hear in the still house the running of little feet, a +fairy patter sweet and terrible to the heart. +</P> + +<P> +Little feet, little feet—perhaps if I follow you I shall find again +our mother that is lost. Perhaps Elizabeth left you with me that I +should not miss the way. +</P> + +<P> +Tout par soullas. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Quest of the Golden Girl, by +Richard le Gallienne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN GIRL *** + +***** This file should be named 461-h.htm or 461-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/6/461/ + +Produced by Charles Keller. HTML version by Al Haines. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Quest of the Golden Girl + +Author: Richard le Gallienne + +Posting Date: September 13, 2008 [EBook #461] +Release Date: March, 1996 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN GIRL *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Keller. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + +THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN GIRL + +A ROMANCE + + +BY + +RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + + + + + + TO + PRIOR AND LOUISE CHRISTIAN, + WITH AFFECTION. + + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK I + + +CHAPTER + +I. AN OLD HOUSE AND ITS BACHELOR + +II. IN WHICH I DECIDE TO GO ON PILGRIMAGE + +III. AN INDICTMENT OF SPRING + +IV. IN WHICH I EAT AND DREAM + +V. CONCERNING THE PERFECT WOMAN, AND THEREFORE CONCERNING ALL + FEMININE READERS + +VI. IN WHICH THE AUTHOR ANTICIPATES DISCONTENT ON THE PART OF + HIS READER + +VII. PRANDIAL + +VIII. STILL PRANDIAL + +IX. THE LEGEND OF HEBES OR THE HEAVENLY HOUSEMAID + +X. AGAIN ON FOOT-THE GIRLS THAT NEVER CAN BE MINE + +XI. AN OLD MAN OF THE HILLS, AND THE SCHOOLMASTER'S STORY + +XII. THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GIPSIES + +XIII. A STRANGE WEDDING + +XIV. THE MYSTERIOUS PETTICOAT + +XV. STILL OCCUPIED WITH THE PETTICOAT + +XVI. CLEARS UP MY MYSTERIOUS BEHAVIOUR OF THE LAST CHAPTER + +XVII. THE NAME UPON THE PETTICOAT + +XVIII. IN WHICH THE NAME OF A GREAT POET IS CRIED OUT IN A + SOLITARY PLACE + +XIX. WHY THE STRANGER WOULD NOT LOSE HIS SHELLEY FOR THE WORLD + + +BOOK II + +I. IN WHICH I DECIDE TO BE YOUNG AGAIN + +II. AT THE SIGN OF THE SINGING STREAM + +III. IN WHICH I SAVE A USEFUL LIFE + +IV. 'T IS OF NICOLETE AND HER BOWER IN THE WILDWOOD + +V. 'T IS OF AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE + +VI. A FAIRY TALE AND ITS FAIRY TAILORS + +VII. FROM THE MORNING STAR TO THE MOON + +VIII. THE KIND OF THING THAT HAPPENS IN THE MOON + +IX. WRITTEN BY MOONLIGHT + +X. HOW ONE MAKES LOVE AT THIRTY + +XI. HOW ONE PLAYS THE HERO AT THIRTY + +XII. IN WHICH I REVIEW MY ACTIONS AND RENEW MY RESOLUTIONS + + +BOOK III + +I. IN WHICH I RETURN TO MY RIGHT AGE AND ENCOUNTER A COMMON + OBJECT OF THE COUNTRY + +II. IN WHICH I HEAL A BICYCLE AND COME TO THE WHEEL OF + PLEASURE + +III. TWO TOWN MICE AT A COUNTRY INN + +IV. MARRIAGE A LA MODE + +V. CONCERNING THE HAVEN OF YELLOW SANDS + +VI. THE MOORLAND OF THE APOCALYPSE + +VII. "COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS!" + +VIII. THE TWELVE GOLDEN-HAIRED BAR-MAIDS + +IX. SYLVIA JOY + +X. IN WHICH ONCE MORE I BECOME OCCUPIED IN MY OWN AFFAIRS + +XI. "THE HOUR FOR WHICH THE YEARS FOR WHICH I DID SIGH" + +XII. AT THE CAFE DE LA PAIX + +XIII. THE INNOCENCE OF PARIS + +XIV. END OF BOOK THREE + + +BOOK IV + +THE POSTSCRIPT TO A PILGRIMAGE + +I. SIX YEARS AFTER + +II. GRACE O' GOD + +III. THE GOLDEN GIRL + + + + + +Gennem de Mange til En! + + + +BOOK I + + +CHAPTER I + +AN OLD HOUSE AND ITS BACHELOR + +When the knell of my thirtieth birthday sounded, I suddenly realised, +with a desolate feeling at the heart, that I was alone in the world. +It was true I had many and good friends, and I was blessed with +interests and occupations which I had often declared sufficient to +satisfy any not too exacting human being. Moreover, a small but +sufficient competency was mine, allowing me reasonable comforts, and +the luxuries of a small but choice library, and a small but choice +garden. These heavenly blessings had seemed mere than enough for +nearly five years, during which the good sister and I had kept house +together, leading a life of tranquil happy days. Friends and books and +flowers! It was, we said, a good world, and I, simpleton,--pretty and +dainty as Margaret was,--deemed it would go on forever. But, alas! one +day came a Faust into our garden,--a good Faust, with no friend +Mephistopheles,--and took Margaret from me. It is but a month since +they were married, and the rice still lingers in the crevices of the +pathway down to the quaint old iron-work gate. Yes! they have gone off +to spend their honeymoon, and Margaret has written to me twice to say +how happy they are together in the Hesperides. Dear happiness! +Selfish, indeed, were he who would envy you one petal of that wonderful +rose--Rosa Mundi--God has given you to gather. + +But, all the same, the reader will admit that it must be lonely for me, +and not another sister left to take pity on me, all somewhere happily +settled down in the Fortunate Isles. + +Poor lonely old house! do you, too, miss the light step of your +mistress? No longer shall her little silken figure flit up and down +your quiet staircases, no more deck out your silent rooms with flowers, +humming the while some happy little song. + +The little piano is dumb night after night, its candles unlighted, and +there is no one to play Chopin to us now as the day dies, and the +shadows stoop out of their corners to listen in vain. Old house, old +house! We are alone, quite alone,--there is no mistake about +that,--and the soul has gone out of both of us. And as for the garden, +there is no company there; that is loneliest of all. The very sunlight +looks desolation, falling through the thick-blossoming apple-trees as +through the chinks and crevices of deserted Egyptian cities. + +While as for the books--well, never talk to me again about the +companionship of books! For just when one needs them most of all they +seem suddenly to have grown dull and unsympathetic, not a word of +comfort, not a charm anywhere in them to make us forget the slow-moving +hours; whereas, when Margaret was here--but it is of no use to say any +more! Everything was quite different when Margaret was here: that is +enough. Margaret has gone away to the Fortunate Isles. Of course +she'll come to see us now and again; but it won't be the same thing. +Yes! old echoing silent House of Joy that is Gone, we are quite alone. +Now, what is to be done? + + + +CHAPTER II + +IN WHICH I DECIDE TO GO ON PILGRIMAGE + +Though I have this bad habit of soliloquising, and indeed am absurd +enough to attempt conversation with a house, yet the reader must +realise from the beginning that I am still quite a young man. I talked +a little just now as though I were an octogenarian. Actually, as I +said, I am but just gone thirty, and I may reasonably regard life, as +the saying is, all before me. I was a little down-hearted when I wrote +yesterday. Besides, I wrote at the end of the afternoon, a melancholy +time. The morning is the time to write. We are all--that is, those of +us who sleep well--optimists in the morning. And the world is sad +enough without our writing books to make it sadder. The rest of this +book, I promise you, shall be written of a morning. This book! oh, +yes, I forgot!--I am going to write a book. A book about what? Well, +that must be as God wills. But listen! As I lay in bed this morning +between sleeping and waking, an idea came riding on a sunbeam into my +room,--a mad, whimsical idea, but one that suits my mood; and put +briefly, it is this: how is it that I, a not unpresentable young man, a +man not without accomplishments or experience, should have gone all +these years without finding that + + "Not impossible she + Who shall command my heart and me,"-- + +without meeting at some turning of the way the mystical Golden +Girl,--without, in short, finding a wife? + +"Then," suggested the idea, with a blush for its own absurdity, "why +not go on pilgrimage and seek her? I don't believe you'll find her. +She isn't usually found after thirty. But you'll no doubt have good +fun by the way, and fall in with many pleasant adventures." + +"A brave idea, indeed!" I cried. "By Heaven, I will take stick and +knapsack and walk right away from my own front door, right away where +the road leads, and see what happens." And now, if the reader please, +we will make a start. + + + +CHAPTER III + +AN INDICTMENT OF SPRING + +"Marry! an odd adventure!" I said to myself, as I stepped along in the +spring morning air; for, being a pilgrim, I was involuntarily in a +mediaeval frame of mind, and "Marry! an odd adventure!" came to my lips +as though I had been one of that famous company that once started from +the Tabard on a day in spring. + +It had been the spring, it will be remembered, that had prompted them +to go on pilgrimage; and me, too, the spring was filling with strange, +undefinable longings, and though I flattered myself that I had set out +in pursuance of a definitely taken resolve, I had really no more +freedom in the matter than the children who followed at the heels of +the mad piper. + +A mad piper, indeed, this spring, with his wonderful lying music,--ever +lying, yet ever convincing, for when was Spring known to keep his word? +Yet year after year we give eager belief to his promises. He may have +consistently broken them for fifty years, yet this year he will keep +them. This year the dream will come true, the ship come home. This +year the very dead we have loved shall come back to us again: for +Spring can even lie like that. There is nothing he will not promise +the poor hungry human heart, with his innocent-looking daisies and +those practised liars the birds. Why, one branch of hawthorn against +the sky promises more than all the summers of time can pay, and a pond +ablaze with yellow lilies awakens such answering splendours and +enchantments in mortal bosoms,--blazons, it would seem, so august a +message from the hidden heart of the world,--that ever afterwards, for +one who has looked upon it, the most fortunate human existence must +seem a disappointment. + +So I, too, with the rest of the world, was following in the wake of the +magical music. The lie it was drawing me by is perhaps Spring's oldest, +commonest lie,--the lying promise of the Perfect Woman, the Quite +Impossible She. Who has not dreamed of her,--who that can dream at +all? I suppose that the dreams of our modern youth are entirely +commercial. In the morning of life they are rapt by intoxicating +visions of some great haberdashery business, beckoned to by the +voluptuous enticements of the legal profession, or maybe the Holy Grail +they forswear all else to seek is a snug editorial chair. These quests +and dreams were not for me. Since I was man I have had but one +dream,--namely, Woman. Alas! till this my thirtieth year I have found +only women. No! that is disloyal, disloyal to my First Love; for this +is sadly true,--that we always find the Golden Girl in our first love, +and lose her in our second. + +I wonder if the reader would care to hear about my First Love, of whom +I am naturally thinking a good deal this morning, under the +demoralising influences of the fresh air, blue sky, and various birds +and flowers. More potent intoxicants these than any that need licenses +for their purveyance, responsible--see the poets--for no end of human +foolishness. + +I was about to tell the story of my First Love, but on second thoughts +I decide not. It will keep, and I feel hungry, and yonder seems a +dingle where I can lie and open my knapsack, eat, drink, and doze among +the sun-flecked shadows. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IN WHICH I EAT AND DREAM + +The girl we go to meet is the girl we have met before. I evolved this +sage reflection, as, lost deep down in the green alleys of the dingle, +having fortified the romantic side of my nature with sandwiches and +sherry, I lazily put the question to myself as to what manner of girl I +expected the Golden Girl to be. A man who goes seeking should have +some notion of what he goes out to seek. Had I any ideal by which to +test and measure the damsels of the world who were to pass before my +critical choosing eye? Had I ever met any girl in the past who would +serve approximately as a model,--any girl, in fact, I would very much +like to meet again? I was very sleepy, and while trying to make up my +mind I fell asleep; and lo! the sandwiches and sherry brought me a +dream that I could not but consider of good omen. And this was the +dream. + +I thought my quest had brought me into a strange old haunted forest, +and that I had thrown myself down to rest at the gnarled mossy root of +a great oak-tree, while all about me was nought but fantastic shapes +and capricious groups of gold-green bole and bough, wondrous alleys +ending in mysterious coverts, and green lanes of exquisite turf that +seemed to have been laid down in expectation of some milk-white queen +or goddess passing that way. + +And so still the forest was you could have heard an acorn drop or a +bird call from one end of it to the other. The exquisite silence was +evidently waiting for the exquisite voice, that presently not so much +broke as mingled with it, like a swan swimming through a lake. + +"Whom seek you?" said, or rather sung, a planetary voice right at my +shoulder. But three short unmusical Saxon words, yet it was as though +a mystical strain of music had passed through the wood. + +"Whom seek you?" and again the lovely speech flowered upon the +silence, as white water-lilies on the surface of some shaded pool. + +"The Golden Girl," I answered simply, turning my head, and looking half +sideways and half upwards; and behold! the tree at whose foot I lay had +opened its rocky side, and in the cleft, like a long lily-bud sliding +from its green sheath, stood a dryad, and my speech failed and my +breath went as I looked upon her beauty, for which mortality has no +simile. Yet was there something about her of the earth-sweetness that +clings even to the loveliest, star-ambitious, earth-born thing. She +was not all immortal, as man is not all mortal. She was the sweetness +of the strength of the oak, the soul born of the sun kissing its green +leaves in the still Memnonian mornings, of moon and stars kissing its +green leaves in the still Trophonian nights. + +"The maid you seek," said she, and again she broke the silence like the +moon breaking through the clouds, "what manner of maid is she? For a +maid abides in this wood, maybe it is she whom you seek. Is she but a +lovely face you seek? Is she but a lofty mind? Is she but a beautiful +soul?" + +"Maybe she is all these, though no one only, and more besides," I +answered. + +"It is well," she replied, "but have you in your heart no image of her +you seek? Else how should you know her should you some day come to meet +her?" + +"I have no image of her," I said. "I cannot picture her; but I shall +know her, know her inerrably as these your wood children find out each +other untaught, as the butterfly that has never seen his kindred knows +his painted mate, passing on the wing all others by. Only when the +lark shall mate with the nightingale, and the honey-bee and the +clock-beetle keep house together, shall I wed another maid. Fair maybe +she will not be, though fair to me. Wise maybe she will not be, though +wise to me. For riches I care not, and of her kindred I have no care. +All I know is that just to sit by her will be bliss, just to touch her +bliss, just to hear her speak bliss beyond all mortal telling." + +Thereat the Sweetness of the Strength of the Oak smiled upon me and +said,-- + +"Follow yonder green path till it leads you into a little grassy glade, +where is a crystal well and a hut of woven boughs hard by, and you +shall see her whom you seek." + +And as she spoke she faded suddenly, and the side of the oak was once +more as the solid rock. With hot heart I took the green winding path, +and presently came the little grassy glade, and the bubbling crystal +well, and the hut of wattled boughs, and, looking through the open door +of the hut, I saw a lovely girl lying asleep in her golden hair. She +smiled sweetly in her sleep, and stretched out her arms softly, as +though to enfold the dear head of her lover. And, ere I knew, I was +bending over her, and as her sweet breath came and went I whispered: +"Grace o' God, I am here. I have sought you through the world, and +found you at last. Grace o' God, I have come." + +And then I thought her great eyes opened, as when the sun sweeps clear +blue spaces in the morning sky. "Flower o' Men," then said she, low +and sweet,--"Flower o' Men, is it you indeed? As you have sought, so +have I waited, waited..." And thereat her arms stole round my neck, +and I awoke, and Grace o' God was suddenly no more than a pretty name +that my dream had given me. + +"A pretty dream," said my soul, "though a little boyish for thirty." +"And a most excellent sherry," added my body. + + + +CHAPTER V + +CONCERNING THE PERFECT WOMAN, AND THEREFORE CONCERNING ALL FEMININE +READERS + +As I once more got under way, my thoughts slowly loitered back to the +theme which had been occupying them before I dropped asleep. What was +my working hypothesis of the Perfect Woman, towards whom I was thus +leisurely strolling? She might be defined, I reflected, as The Woman +Who Is Worthy Of Us; but the improbability which every healthily +conceited young man must feel of ever finding such a one made the +definition seem a little unserviceable. Or, if you prefer, since we +seem to be dealing with impossibles, we might turn about and more truly +define her as The Woman of Whom We are Worthy, for who dare say that +she exists? If, again, she were defined as the Woman our More +Fortunate Friend Marries, her unapproachableness would rob the +definition of any practical value. Other generalisations proving +equally unprofitable, I began scientifically to consider in detail the +attributes of the supposititious paragon,--attributes of body and mind +and heart. This was soon done; but again, as I thus conned all those +virtues which I was to expect united in one unhappy woman, the result +was still unsatisfying, for I began to perceive that it was really not +perfection that I was in search of. As I added virtue after virtue to +the female monster in my mind, and the result remained still inanimate +and unalluring, I realised that the lack I was conscious of was not any +new perfection, but just one or two honest human imperfections. And +this, try as I would, was just what I could not imagine. + +For, if you reflect a moment, you will see that, while it is easy to +choose what virtues we would have our wife possess, it is all but +impossible to imagine those faults we would desire in her, which I +think most lovers would admit add piquancy to the loved one, that +fascinating wayward imperfection which paradoxically makes her perfect. + +Faults in the abstract are each and all so uninviting, not to say +alarming, but, associated with certain eyes and hair and tender little +gowns, it is curious how they lose their terrors; and, as with vice in +the poet's image, we end by embracing what we began by dreading. You +see the fault becomes a virtue when it is hers, the treason prospers; +wherefore, no doubt, the impossibility of imagining it. What +particular fault will suit a particular unknown girl is obviously as +difficult to determine as in what colours she will look her best. + +So, I say, I plied my brains in vain for that becoming fault. It was +the same whether I considered her beauty, her heart, or her mind. A +charming old Italian writer has laid down the canons of perfect +feminine beauty with much nicety in a delicious discourse, which, as he +delivered it in a sixteenth-century Florentine garden to an audience of +beautiful and noble ladies, an audience not too large to be intimate +and not too small to be embarrassing, it was his delightful good +fortune and privilege to illustrate by pretty and sly references to the +characteristic beauties of the several ladies seated like a ring of +roses around him. Thus he would refer to the shape of Madonna +Lampiada's sumptuous eyelids, and to her shell-like ears, to the +correct length and shape of Madonna Amororrisca's nose, to the lily +tower of Madonna Verdespina's throat; nor would the unabashed old +Florentine shrink from calling attention to the unfairness of Madonna +Selvaggia's covering up her dainty bosom, just as he was about to +discourse upon "those two hills of snow and of roses with two little +crowns of fine rubies on their peaks." How could a man lecture if his +diagrams were going to behave like that! Then, feigning a tiff, he +would close his manuscript, and all the ladies with their birdlike +voices would beseech him with "Oh, no, Messer Firenzuola, please go on +again; it's SO charming!" while, as if by accident, Madonna Selvaggia's +moonlike bosom would once more slip out its heavenly silver, perceiving +which, Messer Firenzuola would open his manuscript again and proceed +with his sweet learning. + +Happy Firenzuola! Oh, days that are no more! + +By selecting for his illustrations one feature from one lady and +another from another, Messer Firenzuola builds up an ideal of the +Beautiful Woman, which, were she to be possible, would probably be as +faultily faultless as the Perfect Woman, were she possible. + +Moreover, much about the same time as Firenzuola was writing, +Botticelli's blonde, angular, retrousse women were breaking every one +of that beauty-master's canons, perfect in beauty none the less; and +lovers then, and perhaps particularly now, have found the perfect +beauty in faces to which Messer Firenzuola would have denied the name +of face at all, by virtue of a quality which indeed he has tabulated, +but which is far too elusive and undefinable, too spiritual for him +truly to have understood,--a quality which nowadays we are tardily +recognising as the first and last of all beauty, either of nature or +art,--the supreme, truly divine, because materialistically +unaccountable, quality of Charm! + +"Beauty that makes holy earth and heaven May have faults from head to +feet." + +O loveliest and best-loved face that ever hallowed the eyes that now +seek for you in vain! Such was your strange lunar magic, such the +light not even death could dim. And such may be the loveliest and +best-loved face for you who are reading these pages,--faces little +understood on earth because they belong to heaven. + +There is indeed only one law of beauty on which we may rely,--that it +invariably breaks all the laws laid down for it by the professors of +aesthetics. All the beauty that has ever been in the world has broken +the laws of all previous beauty, and unwillingly dictated laws to the +beauty that succeeded it,--laws which that beauty has no less +spiritedly broken, to prove in turn dictator to its successor. + +The immortal sculptors, painters, and poets have always done exactly +what their critics forbade them to do. The obedient in art are always +the forgotten. + +Likewise beautiful women have always been a law unto themselves. Who +could have prophesied in what way any of these inspired law-breakers +would break the law, what new type of perfect imperfection they would +create? + +So we return to the Perfect Woman, having gained this much knowledge of +her,--that her perfection is nothing more or less than her unique, +individual, charming imperfection, and that she is simply the woman we +love and who is fool enough to love us. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +IN WHICH THE AUTHOR ANTICIPATES DISCONTENT ON THE PART OF HIS READER + +"But come," I imagine some reader complaining, "isn't it high time for +something to happen?" No doubt it is, but what am I to do? I am no +less discontented. Is it not even more to my interest than to the +reader's for something to happen? Here have I been tramping along +since breakfast-time, and now it is late in the afternoon, but never a +feather of her dove's wings, never a flutter of her angel's robes have +I seen. It is disheartening, for one naturally expects to find +anything we seek a few minutes after starting out to seek it, and I +confess that I expected to find my golden mistress within a very few +hours of leaving home. However, had that been the case, there would +have been no story, as the novelists say, and I trust, as he goes on, +the reader may feel with me that that would have been a pity. Besides, +with that prevision given to an author, I am strongly of opinion that +something will happen before long. And if the worst comes to the +worst, there is always that story of my First Love wherewith to fill +the time. Meanwhile I am approaching a decorative old Surrey town, +little more than a cluster of ripe old inns, to one of which I have +much pleasure in inviting the reader to dinner. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +PRANDIAL + +Dinner! + +Is there a more beautiful word in the language? + +Dinner! + +Let the beautiful word come as a refrain to and fro this chapter. + +Dinner! + +Just eating and drinking, nothing more, but so much! + +Drinking, indeed, has had its laureates. Yet would I offer my mite of +prose in its honour. And when I say "drinking," I speak not of +smuggled gin or of brandy bottles held fiercely by the neck till they +are empty. + +Nay, but of that lonely glass in the social solitude of the +tavern,--alone, but not alone, for the glass is sure to bring a dream +to bear it company, and it is a poor dream that cannot raise a song. +And what greater felicity than to be alone in a tavern with your last +new song, just born and yet still a tingling part of you. + +Drinking has indeed been sung, but why, I have heard it asked, have we +no "Eating Songs?"--for eating is, surely, a fine pleasure. Many +practise it already, and it is becoming more general every day. + +I speak not of the finicking joy of the gourmet, but the joy of an +honest appetite in ecstasy, the elemental joy of absorbing quantities +of fresh simple food,--mere roast lamb, new potatoes, and peas of +living green. + +It is, indeed, an absorbing pleasure. It needs all our attention. You +must eat as you kiss, so exacting are the joys of the mouth,--talking, +for example. The quiet eye may be allowed to participate, and +sometimes the ear, where the music is played upon a violin, and that a +Stradivarius. A well-kept lawn, with six-hundred-years-old cedars and +a twenty-feet yew hedge, will add distinction to the meal. Nor should +one ever eat without a seventeenth-century poet in an old yellow-leaved +edition upon the table, not to be read, of course, any more than the +flowers are to be eaten, but just to make music of association very +softly to our thoughts. + +Some diners have wine too upon the table, and in the pauses of thinking +what a divine mystery dinner is, they eat. + +For dinner IS a mystery,--a mystery of which even the greatest chef +knows but little, as a poet knows not, + + "with all his lore, + Wherefore he sang, + or whence the mandate sped." + + +"Even our digestion is governed by angels," said Blake; and if you will +resist the trivial inclination to substitute "bad angels," is there +really any greater mystery than the process by which beef is turned +into brains, and beer into beauty? Every beautiful woman we see has +been made out of beefsteaks. It is a solemn thought,--and the finest +poem that was ever written came out of a grey pulpy mass such as we +make brain sauce of. + +And with these grave thoughts for grace let us sit down to dinner. + +Dinner! + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +STILL PRANDIAL + +What wine shall we have? I confess I am no judge of wines, except when +they are bad. To-night I feel inclined to allow my choice to be +directed by sentiment; and as we are on so pretty a pilgrimage, would +it not be appropriate to drink Liebfraumilch? + +Hock is full of fancy, and all wines are by their very nature full of +reminiscence, the golden tears and red blood of summers that are gone. + +Forgive me, therefore, if I grow reminiscent. Indeed, I fear that the +hour for the story of my First Love has come. But first, notice the +waitress. I confess, whether beautiful or plain,--not too +plain,--women who earn their own living have a peculiar attraction for +me. + +I hope the Golden Girl will not turn out to be a duchess. As old +Campion sings,-- + + "I care not for those ladies + Who must be wooed and prayed; + Give me kind Amaryllis, + The wanton country-maid." + + +Town-maids too of the same pattern. Whether in town or country, give me +the girls that work. The Girls That Work! But evidently it is high +time woe began a new chapter. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE LEGEND OF HEBE, OR THE HEAVENLY HOUSEMAID + +Yes, I blush to admit it, my First Love was a housemaid. So was she +known on this dull earth of ours, but in heaven--in the heaven of my +imagination, at all events--she was, of course, a goddess. How she +managed to keep her disguise I never could understand. To me she was so +obviously dea certe. The nimbus was so apparent. Yet no one seemed to +see it but me. I have heard her scolded as though she were any +ordinary earthly housemaid, and I have seen the butcher's boy trying to +flirt with her without a touch of reverence. + +Maybe I understood because I saw her in that early hour of the morning +when even the stony Memnon sings, in that mystical light of the young +day when divine exiled things, condemned to rough bondage through the +noon, are for a short magical hour their own celestial selves, their +unearthly glory as yet unhidden by any earthly disguise. + +Neither fairies nor fauns, dryads nor nymphs of the forest pools, have +really passed away from the world. You have only to get up early +enough to meet them in the meadows. They rarely venture abroad after +six. All day long they hide in uncouth enchanted forms. They change +maybe to a field of turnips, and I have seen a farmer priding himself +on a flock of sheep that I knew were really a most merry company of +dryads and fauns in disguise. I had but to make the sign of the cross, +sprinkle some holy water upon them, and call them by their sweet secret +names, and the whole rout had been off to the woods, with mad gambol +and song, before the eyes of the astonished farmer. + +It was so with Hebe. She was really a little gold-haired blue-eyed +dryad, whose true home was a wild white cherry-tree that grew in some +scattered woodland behind the old country-house of my boyhood. In +spring-time how that naughty tree used to flash its silver nakedness of +blossom for miles across the furze and scattered birches! + +I might have known it was Hebe. + +Alas! it no longer bares its bosom with so dazzling a prodigality, for +it is many a day since it was uprooted. The little dryad long since +fled away weeping,--fled away, said evil tongues, fled away to the town. + +Well do I remember our last meeting. Returning home one evening, I met +her at the lodge-gate hurrying away. Our loves had been discovered, +and my mother had shuddered to think that so pagan a thing had lived so +long in a Christian house. I vowed--ah! what did I not vow?--and then +we stole sadly together to comfort our aching hearts under cover of the +woodland. For the last time the wild cherry-tree bloomed,--wonderful +blossom, glittering with tears, and gloriously radiant with stormy +lights of wild passion and wilder hopes. + +My faith lived valiantly till the next spring. It was Hebe who was +faithless. The cherry-tree was dead, for its dryad had gone,--fled, +said evil tongues, fled away to the town! + +But as yet, in the time to which my thoughts return, our sweet secret +mornings were known only to ourselves. It was my custom then to rise +early, to read Latin authors,--thanks to Hebe, still unread. I used to +light my fire and make tea for myself, till one rapturous morning I +discovered that Hebe was fond of rising early too, and that she would +like to light my fire and make my tea. After a time she began to +sweeten it for me. And then she would sit on my knee, and we would +translate Catullus together,--into English kisses; for she was +curiously interested in the learned tongue. + +How lovely she used to look with the morning sun turning her hair to +golden mist, and dancing in the blue deeps of her eyes; and once when +by chance she had forgotten to fasten her gown, I caught glimpses of a +bosom that was like two happy handfuls of wonderful white cherries... + +She wore a marvellous little printed gown. And here I may say that I +have never to this day understood objections which were afterwards +raised against my early attachment to print. The only legitimate +attachment to print stuff, I was told, was to print stuff in the form +of blouse, tennis, or boating costume. Yet, thought I, I would rather +smuggle one of those little print gowns into my berth than all the +silks a sea-faring friend of mine takes the trouble to smuggle from far +Cathay. However, every one to his taste; for me, + + No silken madam, by your leave, + Though wondrous, wondrous she be, + Can lure this heart--upon my sleeve-- + From little pink-print Hebe. + + +For I found beneath that pretty print such a heart as seldom beats +beneath your satin, warm and wild as a bird's. I used to put my ear to +it sometimes to listen if it beat right. Ah, reader, it was like +putting your ear to the gate of heaven. + +And once I made a song for her, which ran like this:-- + + There grew twin apples high on a bough + Within an orchard fair; + The tree was all of gold, I vow, + And the apples of silver were. + + And whoso kisseth those apples high, + Who kisseth once is a king, + Who kisseth twice shall never die, + Who kisseth thrice--oh, were it I!-- + May ask for anything. + + +Hebe blushed, and for answer whispered something too sweet to tell. + + +"Dear little head sunning over with curls," were I to meet you now, +what would happen? Ah! to meet you now were too painfully to measure +the remnant of my youth. + + + +CHAPTER X + +AGAIN ON FOOT--THE GIRLS THAT NEVER CAN BE MINE + +Next morning I was afoot early, bent on my quest in right good earnest; +for I had a remorseful feeling that I had not been sufficiently +diligent the day before, had spent too much time in dreaming and +moralising, in which opinion I am afraid the reader will agree. + +So I was up and out of the town while as yet most of the inhabitants +were in the throes of getting up. Somewhere too SHE, the Golden One, +the White Woman, was drowsily tossing the night-clothes from her limbs +and rubbing her sleepy eyes. William Morris's lovely song came into my +mind,-- + + 'And midst them all, perchance, my love + Is waking, and doth gently move + And stretch her soft arms out to me, + Forgetting thousand leagues of sea." + + +Perhaps she was in the very town I was leaving behind. Perhaps we had +slept within a few houses of each other. Who could tell? + + +Looking back at the old town, with its one steep street climbing the +white face of the chalk hill, I remembered what wonderful exotic women +Thomas Hardy had found eating their hearts out behind the windows of +dull country high streets, through which hung waving no banners of +romance, outwardly as unpromising of adventure as the windows of the +town I had left. And then turning my steps across a wide common, which +ran with gorse and whortleberry bushes away on every side to distant +hilly horizons, swarthy with pines, and dotted here and there with +stone granges and white villages, I thought of all the women within +that circle, any one of whom might prove the woman I sought,--from +milkmaids crossing the meadows, their strong shoulders straining with +the weight of heavy pails, to fine ladies dying of ennui in their +country-houses; pretty farmers' daughters surreptitiously reading +novels, and longing for London and "life;" passionate young farmers' +wives already weary of their doltish lords; bright-eyed bar-maids +buried alive in country inns, and wondering "whatever possessed them" +to leave Manchester,--for bar-maids seem always to come from +Manchester,--all longing modestly, said I, to set eyes on a man like +me, a man of romance, a man of feeling, a man, if you like, to run away +with. + + +My heart flooded over with tender pity for these poor sweet +women--though perhaps chiefly for my own sad lot in not encountering +them,--and I conceived a great comprehensive love-poem to be entitled +"The Girls that never can be Mine." Perhaps before the end of our tramp +together, I shall have a few verses of it to submit to the elegant +taste of the reader, but at present I have not advanced beyond the +title. + + + +CHAPTER XI + +AN OLD MAN OF THE HILLS, AND THE SCHOOLMASTER'S STORY + +While occupying myself with these no doubt wanton reflections on the +unfair division of opportunities in human life, I was leisurely +crossing the common, and presently I came up with a pedestrian who, +though I had little suspected it as I caught sight of him ahead, was +destined by a kind providence to make more entertaining talk for me in +half an hour than most people provide in a lifetime. + +He was an oldish man, turned sixty, one would say, and belonging, to +judge from his dress and general appearance, to what one might call the +upper labouring class. He wore a decent square felt hat, a shabby +respectable overcoat, a workman's knitted waistcoat, and workman's +corduroys, and he carried an umbrella. His upper part might have +belonged to a small well-to-do tradesman, while his lower bore marks of +recent bricklaying. Without its being remarkable, he had what one calls +a good face, somewhat aquiline in character, with a refined forehead +and nose. + +His cheeks were shaved, and his whitening beard and moustache were worn +somewhat after the fashion of Charles Dickens. This gave a slight +touch of severity to a face that was full of quiet strength. + +Passing the time of day to each other, we were soon in conversation, I +asking him this and that question about the neighbouring country-side, +of which I gathered he was an old inhabitant. + +"Yes," he said presently, "I was the first to put stick or stone on +Whortleberry Common yonder. Fifteen years ago I built my own wood +cottage there, and now I'm rebuilding it of good Surrey stone." + +"Do you mean that you are building it yourself, with your own hands, no +one to help you?" I asked. + +"Not so much as to carry a pail of water," he replied. "I'm my own +contractor, my own carpenter, and my own bricklayer, and I shall be +sixty-seven come Michaelmas," he added, by no means irrelevantly. + +There was pride in his voice,--pardonable pride, I thought, for who of +us would not be proud to be able to build his own house from floor to +chimney? + +"Sixty-seven,--a man can see and do a good deal in that time," I said, +not flattering myself on the originality of the remark, but desiring to +set him talking. In the country, as elsewhere, we must forego +profundity if we wish to be understood. + +"Yes, sir," he said, "I have been about a good deal in my time. I have +seen pretty well all of the world there is to see, and sailed as far as +ship could take me." + +"Indeed, you have been a sailor too?" + +"Twenty-two thousand miles of sea," he continued, without directly +answering my remark. "Yes, Vancouver's about as far as any vessel need +want to go; and then I have caught seals off the coast of Labrador, and +walked my way through the raspberry plains at the back of the White +Mountains." + +"Vancouver," "Labrador," "The White Mountains," the very names, thus +casually mentioned on a Surrey heath, seemed full of the sounding sea. +Like talismans they whisked one away to strange lands, across vast +distances of space imagination refused to span. Strange to think that +the shabby little man at my side had them all fast locked, pictures +upon pictures, in his brain, and as we were talking was back again in +goodness knows what remote latitude. + +I kept looking at him and saying, "Twenty-two thousand miles of sea! +sixty-seven! and builds his own cottage!" + +In addition to all this he had found time to be twenty-one years a +policeman, and to beget and rear successfully twelve children. He was +now, I gathered, living partly on his pension, and spoke of this +daughter married, this daughter in service here, and that daughter in +service there, one son settled in London and another in the States, +with something of a patriarchal pride, with the independent air too of +a man who could honestly say to himself that, with few advantages from +fortune, having had, so to say, to work his passage, every foot and +hour of it, across those twenty-two thousand miles and those +sixty-seven years, he had made a thoroughly creditable job of his life. + +As we walked along I caught glimpses in his vivid and ever-varying talk +of the qualities that had made his success possible. They are always +the same qualities! + +A little pile of half-hewn stones, the remains of a ruined wall, +scattered by the roadside caught his eye. + +"I've seen the time when I wouldn't have left them stones lying out +there," he said, and presently, "Why, God bless you, I've made my own +boots before to-day. Give me the tops and I'll soon rig up a pair +still." + +And with all his success, and his evident satisfaction with his lot, +the man was neither a prig nor a teetotaller. He had probably seen too +much of the world to be either. Yet he had, he said, been too busy all +his life to spend much time in public-houses, as we drank a pint of ale +together in the inn which stood at the end of the common. + +"No, it's all well enough in its way, but it swallows time," he +remarked. "You see, my wife and I have our own pin at home, and when +I'm a bit tired, I just draw a glass for myself, and smoke a pipe, and +there's no time wasted coming and going, and drinking first with this +and then with the other." + +A little way past the inn we came upon a notice-board whereon the lord +of the manor warned all wayfarers against trespassing on the common by +making encampments, lighting fires or cutting firewood thereon, and to +this fortunate circumstance I owe the most interesting story my +companion had to tell. + +We had mentioned the lord of the manor as we crossed the common, and +the notice-board brought him once more to the old man's mind. + +"Poor gentleman!" he said, pointing to the board as though it was the +lord of the manor himself standing there, "I shouldn't like to have had +the trouble he's had on my shoulders." + +"Indeed?" I said interrogatively. + +"Well, you see, sir," he continued, instinctively lowering his voice to +a confidential impressiveness, "he married an actress; a noble lady too +she was, a fine dashing merry lady as ever you saw. All went well for +a time, and then it suddenly got whispered about that she and the +village schoolmaster were meeting each other at nights, in the +meadow-bottom at the end of her own park. It lies over that way,--I +could take you to the very place. The schoolmaster was a noble-looking +young man too, a devil-me-care blade of a fellow, with a turn for +poetry, they said, and a merry man too, and much in request for a song +at The Moonrakers of an evening. Many 's the night I've heard the +windows rattling with the good company gathered round him. Yes, he was +a noble-looking man, a noble-looking man," he repeated wistfully, and +with an evident sympathy for the lovers which, I need hardly say, won +my heart. + +"But how, I wonder, did they come to know each other?" I interrupted, +anxious to learn all I could, even if I had to ask stupid questions to +learn it. + +"Well, of course, no one can say how these things come about. She was +the lady of the manor and the patroness of his school; and then, as I +say, he was a very noble-looking man, and probably took her fancy; and, +sir, whenever some women set their hearts on a man there's no stopping +them. Have him they will, whatever happens. They can't help it, poor +things! It's just a freak of nature." + +"Well, and how was it found out?" I again jogged him. + +"One of Sir William's keepers played the spy on them. He spread it all +over the place how he had seen them on moonlight nights sitting +together in the dingle, drinking champagne, and laughing and talking as +merry as you please; and, of course, it came in time to Sir William--" + +"You see that green lane there," he broke off, pointing to a romantic +path winding along the heath side; "it was along there he used to go of +a night to meet her after every one was in bed; and when it all came +out there was a regular cartload of bottles found there. The squire +had them all broken up, but the pieces are there to this day. + +"Yes," he again proceeded, "it hit Sir William very hard. He's never +been the same man since." + +I am afraid that my sympathies were less with Sir William than better +regulated sympathies would have been. I confess that my imagination +was more occupied with that picture of the two lovers making merry +together in the moonlit dingle. + +Is it not, indeed, a fascinating little story, with its piquant +contrasts and its wild love-at-all-costs? And how many such stories +are hidden about the country, lying carelessly in rustic memories, if +one only knew where to find them! + +At this point my companion left me, and I--well, I confess that I +retraced my steps to the common and rambled up that green lane, along +which the romantic schoolmaster used to steal in the moonlight to the +warm arms of his love. How eagerly he had trodden the very turf I was +treading,--we never know at what moment we are treading sacred earth! +But for that old man, I had passed along this path without a thrill. +Had I not but an hour ago stood upon this very common, vainly, so it +seemed, invoking the spirits of passion and romance, and the grim old +common had never made a sign. And now I stood in the very dingle where +they had so often and so wildly met; and it was all gone, quite gone +away for ever. The hours that had seemed so real, the kisses that had +seemed like to last for ever, the vows, the tears, all now as if they +had never been, gone on the four winds, lost in the abysses of time and +space. + +And to think of all the thousands and thousands of lovers who had loved +no less wildly and tenderly, made sweet these lanes with their vows, +made green these meadows with their feet; and they, too, all gone, +their bright eyes fallen to dust, their sweet voices for ever put to +silence. + +To which I would add, for the benefit of the profane, that I sought in +vain for those broken bottles. + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GIPSIES + +I felt lonely after losing my companion, and I met nobody to take his +place. In fact, for a couple of hours I met nothing worth mentioning, +male or female, with the exception of a gipsy caravan, which I suppose +was both; but it was a poor show. Borrow would have blushed for it. In +fact, it is my humble opinion that the gipsies have been overdone, just +as the Alps have been over-climbed. I have no great desire to see +Switzerland, for I am sure the Alps must be greasy with being climbed. + +Besides, the Alps and the gipsies, in common with waterfalls and ruined +castles, belong to the ready-made operatic poetry of the world, from +which the last thrill has long since departed. They are, so to say, +public poetry, the public property of the emotions, and no longer touch +the private heart or stir the private imagination. Our fathers felt so +much about them that there is nothing left for us to feel. They are as +a rose whose fragrance has been exhausted by greedy and indiscriminate +smelling. I would rather find a little Surrey common for myself and +idle about it a summer day, with the other geese and donkeys, than +climb the tallest Alp. + +Most gipsies are merely tenth-rate provincial companies, travelling +with and villainously travestying Borrow's great pieces of "Lavengro" +and "Romany Rye." Dirty, ill-looking, scowling men; dirty, slovenly, +and wickedly ugly women; children to match, snarling, filthy little +curs, with a ready beggar's whine on occasion. A gipsy encampment +to-day is little more than a moving slum, a scab of squalor on the fair +face of the countryside. + +But there was one little trifle of an incident that touched me as I +passed this particular caravan. Evidently one of the vans had come to +grief, and several men of the party were making a great show of +repairing it. After I had run the gauntlet of the begging children, +and was just out of ear-shot of the group, I turned round to survey it +from a distance. It was encamped on a slight rise of the undulating +road, and from where I stood tents and vans and men were clearly +silhouetted against the sky. The road ran through and a little higher +than the encampment, which occupied both sides of it. Presently the +figure of a young man separated itself from the rest, stept up on to +the smooth road, and standing in the middle of it, in an absorbed +attitude, began to make a movement with his hands as though winding +string round a top. That in fact was his occupation, and for the next +five minutes he kept thus winding the cord, flinging the top to the +ground, and intently bending down to catch it on his hand, none of the +others, not even the children, taking the slightest notice of him,--he +entirely alone there with his poor little pleasure. There seemed to me +pathos in his loneliness. Had some one spun the top with him, it would +have vanished; and presently, no doubt at the bidding of an oath I +could not hear, he hurriedly thrust the top into his pocket, and once +more joined the straining group of men. The snatched pleasure must be +put by at the call of reality; the world and its work must rush in upon +his dream. I have often thought about the top and its spinner, as I +have noted the absorbed faces of other people's pleasures in the +streets,--two lovers passing along the crowded Strand with eyes only +for each other; a student deep in his book in the corner of an omnibus; +a young mother glowing over the child in her arms; the wild-eyed +musician dreamily treading on everybody's toes, and begging nobody's +pardon; the pretty little Gaiety Girl hurrying to rehearsal with no +thought but of her own sweet self and whether there will be a letter +from Harry at the stage-door,--yes, if we are alone in our griefs, we +are no less alone in our pleasures. We spin our tops as in an +enchanted circle, and no one sees or heeds save ourselves,--as how +should they with their own tops to spin? Happy indeed is he, who has +his top and cares still to spin it; for to be tired of our tops is to +be tired of life, saith the preacher. + +As the young gipsy's little holiday came to an end, I turned with a +sigh upon my way; and here, while still on the subject, may I remark on +the curious fact that probably Borrow has lived and died without a +single gipsy having heard of him, just as the expertest anglers know +nothing of Izaak Walton. + +Has the British soldier, one wonders, yet discovered Rudyard Kipling, +or is the Wessex peasant aware of Thomas Hardy? It is odd to think that +the last people to read such authors are the very people they most +concern. For you might spend your life, say, in studying the London +street boy, and write never so movingly and humourously about him, yet +would he never know your name; and though Whitechapel makes novelists, +it does so without knowing it,--makes them to be read in Mayfair,--just +as it never wears the dainty hats and gowns its weary little milliners +and seamstresses make through the day and night. It is Capital and +Labour over again, for in literature also we reap in gladness what +others have sown in tears. + +And now, after these admirable reflections, I am about to make such +"art" as I can of another man's tragedy, as will appear in the next +chapter. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A STRANGE WEDDING + +My moralisings were cut short by my entering a village, and, it being +about the hour of noon, finding myself in the thick of a village +wedding. + +Undoubtedly the nicest way to get married is on the sly, and indeed it +is at present becoming quite fashionable. Many young couples of my +acquaintance, who have had no other reason for concealing the fact +beyond their own whim, have thus slipped off without saying a word to +anybody, and returned full-blown housekeepers, with "at home" days of +their own, and everything else like real married people,--for, as said +an old lady to me, "one can never be sure of married people nowadays +unless you have been at the wedding." + +My friend George Muncaster, who does everything charmingly different +from any one else, hit upon one of the quaintest plans for his +marriage. It was simple, and some may say prosaic enough. His days +being spent at a great office in the city, he got leave of absence for +a couple of hours, met his wife, went with her to the registrar's, +returned to his office, worked the rest of the day as usual, and then +went to his new home to find his wife and dinner awaiting him,--all +just as it was going to be every night for so many happy years. +Prosaic, you say! Not your idea of poetry, perhaps, but, after a new +and growing fashion in poetry, truly poetic. George Muncaster's +marriage is a type of the new poetry, the poetry of essentials. The old +poetry, as exemplified in the old-fashioned marriage, is a poetry of +externals, and certainly it has the advantage of picturesqueness. + +There is perhaps more to be said for it than that. Indeed, if I were +ever to get married, I am at a loss to know which way I should +choose,--George Muncaster's way or the old merry fashion, with the rice +and the old shoes and the orange-blossom. No doubt the old cheery +publicity is a little embarrassing to the two most concerned, and the +old marriage customs, the singing of the bride and bridegroom to their +nuptial couch, the frank jests, the country horse-play, must have +fretted the souls of many a lover before Shelley, who, it will be +remembered, resented the choral celebrations of his Scotch landlord and +friends by appearing at his bedroom door with a brace of pistols. + +How like Shelley! The Scotch landlord meant well, we may be sure, and +a very small pinch of humour, or even mere ordinary humanity, as +distinct from humanitarianism, would have taken in the situation. Of +course Shelley's mind was full of the sanctity of the moment, and +indignant that "the hour for which the years did sigh" should thus be +broken in upon by vulgar revelry; but while we may sympathise with his +view, and admit to the full the sacredness, not to say the solemnity, +of the marriage ceremony, yet it is to be hoped that it still retains a +naturally mirthful side, of which such public merriment is but the +crude expression. + +With all its sweet and mystical significance, surely the prevailing +feeling in the hearts of bride and bridegroom is, or should be, that of +happiness,--happiness bubbling and dancing, all sunny ripples from +heart to heart. + +Surely they can spare a little of it, just one day's sight of it, to a +less happy world,--a world long since married and done for, and with +little happiness in it save the spectacle of other people's happiness. +It is good for us to see happy people, good for the symbols of +happiness to be carried high amidst us on occasion; for if they serve +no other purpose, they inspire in us the hope that we too may some day +be happy, or remind our discontented hearts that we have been. + +If it were only for the sake of those quaint old women for whom life +would be entirely robbed of interest were it not for other people's +weddings and funerals, one feels the public ceremony of marriage a sort +of public duty, the happiness tax, so to say, due to the somewhat +impoverished revenues of public happiness. Other forms of happiness +are taxed; why not marriage? + +In a village, particularly, two people who robbed the community of its +perquisites in this respect would be looked upon as "enemies of the +people," and their joint life would begin under a social ban which it +would cost much subsequent hospitality to remove. The dramatic +instinct to which the life of towns is necessarily unfavourable, is +kept alive in the country by the smallness of the stage and the fewness +of the actors. A village is an organism, conscious of its several +parts, as a town is not. + +In a village everybody is a public man. The great events of his life +are of public as well as private significance, appropriately, +therefore, invested with public ceremonial. Thus used to living in the +public eye, the actors carry off their parts at weddings and other +dramatic ceremonials, with more spirit than is easy to a townsman, who +is naturally made self-conscious by being suddenly called upon to fill +for a day a public position for which he has had no training. That no +doubt is the real reason for the growth of quiet marriages; and the +desire for them, I suspect, comes first from the man, for there are few +women who at heart do not prefer the old histrionic display. + +However, the village wedding at which I suddenly found myself a +spectator was, for a village, a singularly quiet one. There was no +bell-ringing, and there were no bridesmaids. The bride drove up quietly +with her father, and there was a subdued note even in the murmur of +recognition which ran along the villagers as they stood in groups near +the church porch. There was an absence of the usual hilarity which +struck me. One might almost have said that there was a quite ominous +silence. + +Seating myself in a corner of the transept where I could see all and be +little seen, I with the rest awaited the coming of the overdue +bridegroom. Meanwhile the usual buzzing and bobbing of heads went on +amongst the usual little group near the foot of the altar. Now and +then one caught a glisten of tears through a widow's veil, and the +little bride, dressed quietly in grey, talked with the usual nervous +gaiety to her girl friends, and made the usual whispered confidences +about her trousseau. The father, in occasional conversation with one +and another, appeared to be avoiding the subject with the usual +self-conscious solemnity, and occasionally he looked, somewhat +anxiously, I thought, towards the church door. The bridegroom did not +keep us waiting long,--I noticed that he had a rather delicate sad +face,--and presently the service began. + +I don't know myself what getting married must feel like, but it cannot +be much more exciting than watching other people getting married. +Probably the spectators are more conscious of the impressive meaning of +it all than the brave young people themselves. I say brave, for I am +always struck by the courage of the two who thus gaily leap into the +gulf of the unknown together, thus join hands over the inevitable, and +put their signatures to the irrevocable. Indeed, I always get +something like a palpitation of the heart just before the priest utters +those final fateful words, "I declare you man and--wife." Half a second +before you were still free, half a second after you are bound for the +term of your natural life. Half a second before you had only to dash +the book from the priest's hands, and put your hand over his mouth, and +though thus giddily swinging on the brink of the precipice, you are +saved. Half a second after + + Not all the king's horses and all the king's men + Can make you a bachelor ever again. + + +It is the knife-edge moment 'twixt time and eternity. + +And, curiously enough, while my thoughts were thus running on towards +the rapids of that swirling moment, the very thing happened which I had +often imagined might happen to myself. Suddenly, with a sob, the +bridegroom covered his face with his hands, and crying, "I cannot! I +cannot!" hurriedly left the church, tears streaming down his cheeks, to +the complete dismay of the sad little group at the altar, and the +consternation of all present. + +"Poor young man! I thought he would never go through with it," said an +old woman half to herself, who was sitting near me. I involuntarily +looked my desire of explanation. + +"Well, you see," she said, "he had been married before. His first wife +died four years ago, and he loved her beyond all heaven and earth." + +That evening, I afterwards heard, the young bridegroom's body was found +by some boys as they went to bathe in the river. As I recalled once +more that sad yearning face, and heard again that terrible "I cannot! +I cannot!" I thought of Heine's son of Asra, who loved the Sultan's +daughter. + +"What is thy name, slave?" asked the princess, "and what thy race and +birthplace?" + +"My name," the young slave answered, "is Mahomet. I come from Yemen. +My race is that of Asra, and when we love, we die." + +And likewise a voice kept saying in my heart, "If ever you find your +Golden Bride, be sure she will die." + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE MYSTERIOUS PETTICOAT + +The sad thoughts with which this incident naturally left me were at +length and suddenly dispersed, as sad thoughts not infrequently are, by +a petticoat. When I say petticoat, I use the word in its literal +sense, not colloquially as a metaphor for its usual wearer, meaning +thereby a dainty feminine undergarment seen only by men on rainy days, +and one might add washing-days. It was indeed to the fortunate accident +of its being washing-day at the pretty cottage near which in the course +of my morning wanderings I had set me down to rest, that I owed the +sight of the petticoat in question. + +But first allow me to describe a little more fully my surroundings at +the moment. Not indeed that I can hope to put into words the charm of +those embowered cottages, like nests in the armpits of great trees, +tucked snugly in the hollows of those narrow, winding, almost +subterranean lanes which burrow their way beneath the warm-hearted +Surrey woodlands. + +Nothing can be straighter and smoother than a Surrey road--when it is +on the king's business; then it is a high-road and behaves accordingly: +but a Surrey bye-road is the most whimsical companion in the world. It +is like a sheep-dog, always running backwards and forwards, poking into +the most out-of-the-way corners, now climbing at a run some steep +hummock of the down, and now leisurely going miles about to escape an +ant-hill; and all the time (here, by the way, ends the sheep-dog) it is +stopping to gossip with rillets vagabond as itself, or loitering to +bedeck itself with flowers. It seems as innocent of a destination as a +boy on an errand; but, after taking at least six times as long as any +other road in the kingdom for its amount of work, you usually find it +dip down of a sudden into some lovely natural cul-de-sac, a +meadow-bottom surrounded by trees, with a stream spreading itself in +fantastic silver shallows through its midst, and a cottage half hidden +at the end. Had the lane been going to some great house, it would have +made more haste, we may be sure. + +The lane I had been following had finally dropped me down at something +of a run upon just such a scene. The cottage, built substantially of +grey stone, stood upon the side of the slope, and a broad strip of +garden, half cultivated and half wild, began near the house with +cabbages, and ended in a jungle of giant bulrushes as it touched the +stream. Golden patches of ragwort blazed here and there among a tangled +mass of no doubt worthier herbage,--such even in nature is the power of +gold,--and there were the usual birds. + +However, my business is with the week's washing, which in various +shades of white, with occasional patches of scarlet, fluttered +fantastically across a space of the garden, thereby giving unmistakable +witness to human inhabitants, male and female. + +As I lounged upon the green bank, I lazily watched these parodies of +humanity as they were tossed hither and thither with humourous +indignity by the breeze, remarking to myself on the quaint +shamelessness with which we thus expose to the public view garments +which at other times we are at such bashful pains to conceal. And thus +philosophising, like a much greater philosopher, upon clothes, I found +myself involuntarily deducing the cottage family from the family +washing. I soon decided that there must be at least one woman say of +the age of fifty, one young woman, one little child, sex doubtful, and +one man probably young. Further than this it was impossible to +conjecture. Thus I made the rough guess that a young man and his wife, +a child, and a mother-in-law were among the inhabitants of this idyllic +cottage. + +But the clothes-line presented charming evidence of still another +occupant; and here, though so far easy to read, came in something of a +puzzle. Who in this humble out-of-the-way cottage could afford to wear +that exquisite cambric petticoat edged with a fine and very expensive +lace? And surely it was on no country legs that those delicately +clocked and open-worked silk stockings walked invisible through the +world. + +Nor was the lace any ordinary expensive English lace, such as any good +shop can supply. Indeed, I recognised it as being of a Parisian design +as yet little known in England; while on the tops of the stockings I +laughingly suspected a border designed by a certain eccentric artist, +who devotes his strange gifts to decorating with fascinating miniatures +the under-world of woman. I have seen corsets thus made beautiful by +him valued at five hundred pounds, and he never paints a pair of +garters for less than a hundred. His name is not yet a famous one, as, +for obvious reasons, his works are not exhibited at public galleries, +though they are occasionally to be seen at private views. + +I am far from despising an honest red-flannel country petticoat. There +is no warmer kinder-looking garment in the world. It suggests country +laps and country breasts, with sturdy country babes greedy for the warm +white milk, and it seems dyed in country blushes. Yet, for all that, +one could not be insensible to the exotic race and distinction of that +frivolous town petticoat, daintily disporting itself there among its +country cousins, like a queen among milkmaids. + +What numberless suggestions of romance it awoke! What strange perfumes +seemed to waft across from it, perfumes laden with associations of a +world so different from the green world where it now was, a charming +world of gay intrigue and wanton pleasure. No wonder the wind chose it +so often for its partner as it danced through the garden, scorning to +notice the heavy homespun things about it. It was not every day that +that washing-day wind met so fine a lady, and it was charming to see +how gently he played about her stockings. "Ah, wind," I said, +"evidently you are a gallant born; but tell us the name of the lady. +It is somewhere on that pretty petticoat, I'll be bound." + +Is she some little danseuse with the whim to be romantically rustic for +a week? or is she somebody else's pretty wife run away with somebody +else's man? or is she some naughty little grisette with an extravagant +lover? or is she just the usual lady landscape artist, with a more than +usual taste in lingerie? + +At all events, it was fairly obvious that, for one reason or another, +the wearer of the petticoat and stockings which have now occupied us +for perhaps a sufficient number of pages, was a visitor at the cottage. + +The next thing was to get a look at her. So, remembering how fond I was +of milk from the cow, I pushed open the gate and advanced to the +cottage door. + + + +CHAPTER XV + +STILL OCCUPIED WITH THE PETTICOAT + +The door was opened by a comely young woman, with ruddy cheeks and a +bright kind eye that promised conversation. But "H'm," said I to +myself, as she went to fetch my milk, "evidently not yours, my dear." + +"A nice drying day for your washing," I said, as I slowly sipped my +milk, with a half-inclination of my head towards the clothes-line. + +"Very fine, indeed, sir," she returned, with something of a blush, and +a shy deprecating look that seemed to beg me not to notice the +peculiarly quaint antics which the wind, evidently a humourist, chose +at that moment to execute with the female garments upon the line. +However, I was for once cased in triple brass and inexorable. + +"And who," I ventured, smiling, "may be the owner of those fine things?" + +"Not those," I continued, pointing to an odd garment which the wind was +wantonly puffing out in the quaintest way, "but that pretty petticoat +and those silk stockings?" + +The poor girl had gone scarlet, scarlet as the petticoat which I was +sure WAS hers, with probably a fellow at the moment keeping warm her +buxom figure. + +"You are very bold, sir," she stammered through her blushes, but I +could see that she was not ill-pleased that the finery should attract +attention. + +"But won't you tell me?" I urged; "I have a reason for asking." + +And here I had better warn the reader that, as the result of a whim +that presently seized me, I must be content to appear mad in his eyes +for the next few pages, till I get an opportunity of explanation. + +"Well, what if they should be mine?" at length I persuaded her into +saying. + +I made the obvious gallant reply, but, "All the same," I added, "you +know they are not yours. They belong to some lady visitor, who, I'll +be bound, isn't half so pretty; now, don't they?" + +"Well, they just don't then. They're mine, as I tell you." + +"H'm," I continued, a little nonplussed, "but do you really mean there +is no lady staying with you?" + +"Certainly," she replied, evidently enjoying my bewilderment. + +"Well, then, some lady must have stayed here once," I retorted, with a +sudden inspiration, "and left them behind--" + +"You might be a detective after stolen goods," she interrupted. + +"I tell you the things are mine; and what I should like to know does a +gentleman want bothering himself about a lady's petticoat! No wonder +you blush," for, in fact, as was easy to foresee, the situation was +becoming a little ridiculous for me. + +"Now, look here," I said with an affectation of gravity, "if you'll +tell me how you came by those things, I'll make it worth your while. +They were given to you by a lady who stayed here not so long ago, now, +weren't they?" + +"Well, then, they were." + +"The lady stayed here with a gentleman?" + +"Yes, she did." + +"H'm! I thought so," I said. "Yes! that lady, it pains me to say, was +my wife!" + +This unblushing statement was not, I could see, without its effect upon +the present owner of the petticoat. + +"But she said they were brother and sister," she replied. + +"Of course she did," I returned, with a fine assumption of scorn,--"of +course she did. They always do." + +"Dear young woman," I continued, when I was able to control my emotion, +"you are happily remote from the sin and wickedness of the town, and I +am sorry to speak of such things in so peaceful a spot--but as a +strange chance has led me here, I must speak, must tell you that all +wives are not so virtuous and faithful as you, I am sure, are. There +are wives who forsake their husbands and--and go off with a handsomer +man, as the poet says; and mine, mine, alas! was one of them. It is +now some months ago that my wife left me in this way, and since then I +have spent every day in searching for her; but never till this moment +have I come upon the least trace of her. Strange, is it not? that +here, in this peaceful out-of-the-way garden, I should come upon her +very petticoat, her very stockings--" + +By this my grief had become such that the kind girl put her hand on my +arm. "Don't take on so," she said kindly, and then remembering her +treasured property, and probably fearing a counterclaim on my part to +its possession, "But how can you be sure she was here? There are lots +of petticoats like that--" + +"What was she like?" I asked through my agitation. + +"Middle height, slim and fair, with red goldy hair and big blue eyes; +about thirty, I should say." + +"The very same," I groaned, "there is no mistake; and now," I +continued, "I want you to sell me that petticoat and those stockings," +and I took a couple of sovereigns from my purse. "I want to have them +to confront her with, when I do find her. Perhaps it will touch her +heart to think of the strange way in which I came by them; and you can +buy just as pretty ones again with the money," I added, as I noticed +the disappointment on her face at the prospect of thus losing her +finery. + +"Well, it's a funny business, to be sure," she said, as still half +reluctantly she unpegged the coveted garments from the line; "but if +what you say 's true, I suppose you must have them." + +The wanton wind had been so busily kissing them all the morning that +they were quite dry, so I was able to find room for them in my knapsack +without danger to the other contents; and, with a hasty good-day to +their recent possessor, I set off at full speed to find a secure nook +where I could throw myself down on the grass, and let loose the absurd +laughter that was dangerously bottled up within me; but even before I +do that it behoves me if possible to vindicate my sanity to the reader. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +CLEARS UP MY MYSTERIOUS BEHAVIOUR OF THE LAST CHAPTER + +What a sane man should be doing carrying about with him a woman's +petticoat and silk stockings, may well be a puzzle to the most +intelligent reader. + +Whim, sir, whim! and few human actions admit of more satisfactory +solution. Like Shylock, I'll say "It is my humour." But no! I'll be +more explanatory. This madcap quest of mine, was it not understood +between us from the beginning to be a fantastic whim, a poetical +wild-goose chase, conceived entirely as an excuse for being some time +in each other's company? To be whimsical, therefore, in pursuit of a +whim, fanciful in the chase of a fancy, is surely but to maintain the +spirit of the game. Now, for the purpose, therefore, of a romance that +makes no pretence to reasonableness, I had very good reasons for buying +that petticoat, which (the reasons, not the petticoat) I will now lay +before you. + +I have been conscious all the way along through this pilgrimage of its +inevitable vagueness of direction, of my need of something definite, +some place, some name, anything at all, however slight, which I might +associate, if only for a time, with the object of my quest, a definite +something to seek, a definite goal for my feet. + +Now, when I saw that mysterious petticoat, and realised that its wearer +would probably be pretty and young and generally charming, and that +probably her name was somewhere on the waistband, the spirit of whim +rejoiced within me. "Why not," it said, "buy the petticoat, find out +the name of its owner, and, instead of seeking a vague Golden Girl, +make up your mind doggedly to find and marry her, or, failing that, +carry the petticoat with you, as a sort of Cinderella's slipper, try it +on any girl you happen to fancy, and marry her it exactly fits?" + +Now, I confess, that seemed to me quite a pretty idea, and I hope the +reader will think so too. If not, I'm afraid I can offer him no better +explanation; and in fact I am all impatience to open my knapsack, and +inform myself of the name of her to the discovery of whom my wanderings +are henceforth to be devoted. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE NAME UPON THE PETTICOAT + +So imagine me seated in a grassy corner, with my knapsack open on the +ground and my petticoat and silk stockings spread out in front of +me,--an odd picture, to be sure, for any passer by to come upon. I +suppose I could have passed for a pedlar, but undoubtedly it would have +been very embarrassing. However, as it happened, I remained +undisturbed, and was able to examine my purchases at leisure. I had +never seen a petticoat so near before,--at all events I had never given +one such close attention. What delicious dainty things they are! How +essentially womanly--as I hope no one would call a pair of trousers +essentially manly. + +How pretty it looked spread out on the grass in front of me! How soft! +how wondrously dainty the finish of every little seam! And the lace! +It almost tempts one to change one's sex to wear such things. There +was a time indeed, and not so long ago, when brave men wore garments no +less dainty. + +Rupert's Cavaliers were every bit as particular about their lace +collars and frills as the lady whose pretty limbs once warmed this +cambric. + +But where is the name? Ah! here it is! What sweet writing! "Sylvia +Joy, No. 6." + +Sylvia Joy! What a perfectly enchanting name! and as I repeated it +enthusiastically, it seemed to have a certain familiarity for my +ear,--as though it were the name of some famous beauty or some popular +actress,--yet the exact association eluded me, and obviously it was +better it should remain a name of mystery. Sylvia Joy! Who could have +hoped for such a pretty name! Indeed, to tell the truth, I had dreaded +to find a "Mary Jones" or an "Ann Williams"--but Sylvia Joy! The name +was a romance in itself. I already felt myself falling in love with +its unseen owner. With such a petticoat and such a name, Sylvia +herself could not be otherwise than delightful too. Already, you see, I +was calling her by her Christian name! And the more I thought of her, +the stronger grew the conviction--which has no doubt already forced +itself upon the romantic reader--that we were born for each other. + +But who is Sylvia, who is she? and likewise where is Sylvia, where is +she? Obviously they were questions not to be answered off-hand. Was +not my future--at all events my immediate future--to be spent in +answering them? + +Indeed, curiously enough, my recent haste to have them answered had +suddenly died down. A sort of matrimonial security possessed me. I +felt as I imagine a husband may feel on a solitary holiday--if there +are husbands unnatural enough to go holidaying without their +wives--pleasantly conscious of a home tucked somewhere beneath the +distant sunset, yet in no precipitate hurry to return there before the +appointed day. + +In fact, a chill tremor went through me as I realised that, to all +intent, I was at length respectably settled down, with quite a +considerable retrospect of happy married life. To come to a decision is +always to bring something to an end. And, with something of a pang, +resolutely stifled, I realised for a moment the true blessedness of the +single state I was so soon to leave behind. At all events, a little +golden fragment of bachelorhood remained. There was yet a fertile +strip of time wherein to sow my last handful of the wild oats of youth. +So festina lente, my destined Sylvia, festina lente! + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +IN WHICH THE NAME OF A GREAT POET IS CRIED OUT IN A SOLITARY PLACE + +As I once more shouldered my pack and went my way, the character of the +country side began to change, and, from a semi-pastoral heathiness and +furziness, took on a wildness of aspect, which if indeed melodramatic +was melodrama carried to the point of genius. + +It was a scene for which the nineteenth century has no worthy use. It +finds ignoble occupation as a gaping-ground for the vacuous +tourist,--somewhat as Heine might have imagined Pan carrying the +gentleman's luggage from the coach to the hotel. It suffers teetotal +picnic-parties to encamp amid its savage hollows, and it humbly allows +itself to be painted by the worst artists. Like a lion in a menagerie, +it is a survival of the extinct chaos entrapped and exhibited amid the +smug parks and well-rolled downs of England. + +I came upon it by a winding ledge of road, which clung to the bare side +of the hill like the battlements of some huge castle. Some two hundred +feet below, a brawling upland stream stood for the moat, and for the +enemy there was on the opposite side of the valley a great green +company of trees, settled like a cloud slope upon slope, making all +haste to cross the river and ascend the heights where I stood. Some +intrepid larches waved green pennons in the very midst of the turbulent +water, here and there a veteran lay with his many-summered head abased +in the rocky course of the stream, and here was a young foolhardy beech +that had climbed within a dozen yards of the rampart. All was wild and +solitary, and one might have declared it a scene untrodden by the foot +of man, but for the telegraph posts and small piles of broken "macadam" +at punctual intervals, and the ginger-beer bottles and paper bags of +local confectioners that lent an air of civilisation to the road. + +It was a place to quote Alastor in, and nothing but a bad memory +prevented my affrighting the oaks and rills with declamation. As it +was, I could only recall the lines + + "The Poet wandering on, through Arabie + And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste, + And o'er the aerial mountains which pour down + Indus and Oxus from their icy caves--" + +and that other passage beginning + + "At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore + He paused--" + + +This last I mouthed, loving the taste of its thunder; mouthed thrice, +as though it were an incantation,--and, indeed, from what immediately +followed, it might reasonably have seemed so. + + + "At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore + He paused--" + +I mouthed for the fourth time. And lo! advancing to me eagerly along +the causeway seemed the very sprite of Alastor himself! There was a +star upon his forehead, and around his young face there glowed an +aureole of gold and roses--to speak figuratively, for the star upon his +brow was hope, and the gold and roses encircling his head, a miniature +rainbow, were youth and health. His longish golden hair had no doubt +its share in the effect, as likewise the soft yellow silk tie that +fluttered like a flame in the speed of his going. His blue eyes were +tragically fresh and clear,--as though they had as yet been little +used. There were little wings of haste upon his feet, and he came +straight to me, with the air of the Angel Gabriel about to make his +divine announcement. For a moment I thought that he was an apparition +of prophecy charged to announce the maiden of the Lord for whom I was +seeking. However, his brief flushed question was not of these things. +He desired first to ask the time of day, and next--here, after a bump +to the earth, one's thoughts ballooned again heavenwards--"had I seen a +green copy of Shelley lying anywhere along the road?" + +Nothing so good had happened to me, I replied--but I believed that I +had seen a copy of Alastor! For a moment my meaning was lost on him; +then he flushed and smiled, thanked me and was off again, saying that +he must find his Shelley, as he wouldn't lose it for the world! + +He had presently disappeared as suddenly as he had come, but he had +left me a companion, a radiant reverberant name; and for some little +space the name of Shelley clashed silvery music among the hills. + +Its seven letters seemed to hang right across the clouds like the Seven +Stars, an apocalyptic constellation, a veritable sky sign; and again +the name was an angel standing with a silver trumpet, and again it was +a song. The heavens opened, and across the blue rift it hung in a +glory of celestial fire, while from behind and above the clouds came a +warbling as of innumerable larks. + +How strange was this miracle of fame, I pondered, this strange +apotheosis by which a mere private name becomes a public symbol! +Shelley was once a private person whose name had no more universal +meaning than my own, and so were Byron and Cromwell and Shakespeare; +yet now their names are facts as stubborn as the Rocky Mountains, or +the National Gallery, or the circulation of the blood. From their +original inch or so of private handwriting they have spread and spread +out across the world, and now whole generations of men find +intellectual accommodation within them,--drinking fountains and other +public institutions are erected upon them; yea, Carlyle has become a +Chelsea swimming-bath, and "Highland Mary" is sold for whiskey, while +Mr. Gladstone is to be met everywhere in the form of a bag. + +Does Mr. Gladstone, I wonder, instruct his valet "to pack his +Gladstone"? How strange it must seem! Try it yourself some day and +its effect on your servant. Ask him, for example, to "pack your ----" +and see how he'll stare. + +Coming nearer and nearer to earth, I wondered if Colonel Boycott ever +uses the word "boycott," and how strange it must have seemed to the +late MacAdam to walk for miles and miles upon his own name, like a +carpet spread out before him. + +Then I once more rebounded heavenwards, at the vision of the eager +dreamy lad whose question had set going all this odd clockwork of +association. He wouldn't lose his Shelley for the world! How like +twenty! And how many things that he wouldn't lose for the world will he +have to give up before he is thirty, I reflected sententiously,--give +up at last, maybe, with a stony indifference, as men on a sinking ship +take no thought of the gold and specie in the hold. + +And then, all of a sudden, a little way up the ferny grassy hillside, I +caught sight of the end of a book half hidden among the ferns. I +climbed up to it. Of course it was that very green Shelley which the +young stranger wouldn't lose for the world. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +WHY THE STRANGER WOULD NOT LOSE HIS SHELLEY FOR THE WORLD + +Picking up the book, I opened it involuntarily at the titlepage, and +then--I resisted a great temptation! I shut it again. A little flowery +plot of girl's handwriting had caught my eye, and a girl's pretty name. +When Love and Beauty meet, it is hard not to play the eavesdropper, and +it was easy to guess that Love and Beauty met upon that page. St. +Anthony had no harder fight with the ladies he was unpolite enough to +call demons, than I in resisting the temptation to take another look at +that pen-and-ink love making. Now, as I look back, I think it was +sheer priggishness to resist so human and yet so reverent an impulse. +There is nothing sacred from reverence, and love's lovers have a right +to regard themselves as the confidants of lovers, whenever they may +chance to surprise either them or their letters. + +While I was still hesitating, and wondering how I could get the book +conveyed to its romantic owner, suddenly a figure turned the corner of +the road, and there was Alastor coming back again. I slipped the book, +in distracted search for which he was evidently still engaged, under +the ferns, and, leisurely lighting a pipe, prepared to tease him. He +was presently within hail, and, looking up, caught sight of me. + +"Have you found your Shelley yet?" I called down to him, as he stood a +moment in the road. + +He shook his head. No! But he meant to find it, if he had to hunt +every square foot of the valley inch by inch. + +Wouldn't any other book do, I asked him. Would he take a Boccaccio, or +a "Golden Ass," or a "Tom Jones," in exchange?--for of such consisted +my knapsack library. He laughed a negative, and it seemed a shame to +tease him. + +"It is not so much the book itself," he said. + +"But the giver?" I suggested. + +"Of course," he blushingly replied. + +"Well, suppose I have found it?" I continued. + +"You don't mean it--" + +"But suppose I have--I'm only supposing--will you give me the pleasure +of your company at dinner at the next inn and tell me its story?" + +"Indeed I will, gladly," he replied. + +"Well, then," I said, "catch, for here it is!" + +The joy with which he recovered it was pretty to behold, and the +eagerness with which he ran through the leaves, to see that the violets +and the primroses and a spray of meadowsweet, young love's bookmarkers, +were all in their right places, touched my heart. + +He could not thank me enough; and as we stepped out to the inn, some +three or four miles on the road, I elicited something of his story. + +He was a clerk in a city office, he said, but his dreams were not +commercial. His one dream was to be a great poet, or a great writer of +some sort, and this was one of his holidays. As I looked at his +sensitive young face, unmarred by pleasure and unscathed by sorrow, +bathed daily, I surmised, in the may-dew of high philosophies--ah, so +high! washed from within by a constant radiancy of pure thoughts, and +from without by a constant basking in the shine of every beautiful and +noble and tender thing,--I thought it not unlikely that he might fulfil +his dream. + +But, alas! as he talked on, with lighted face and chin in the air, how +cruelly I realised how little I had fulfilled mine. + +And how hard it was to talk to him, without crushing some flower of his +fancy or casting doubt upon his dreams. Oh, the gulf between twenty +and thirty! I had never quite comprehended it before. And how +inexpressibly sad it was to hear him prattling on of the ideal life, of +socialism, of Walt Whitman and what not,--all the dear old +quackeries,--while I was already settling down comfortably to a +conservative middle age. He had no hope that had not long been my +despair, no aversion that I had not accepted among the more or less +comfortable conditions of the universe. He was all for nature and +liberty, whereas I had now come to realise the charm of the artificial, +and the social value of constraint. + +"Young man," I cried in my heart, "what shall I do to inherit Eternal +Youth?" + +The gulf between us was further revealed when, at length coming to our +inn, we sat down to dinner. To me it seemed the most natural thing in +the world to call for the wine-list and consult his choice of wine; +but, will you believe me, he asked to be allowed to drink water! And +when he quoted the dear old stock nonsense out of Thoreau about being +able to get intoxicated on a glass of water, I could have laughed and +cried at the same time. + +"Happy Boy!" I cried, "still able to turn water into wine by the divine +power of your youth"; and then, turning to the waiter, I ordered a +bottle of No. 37. + +"Wine is the only youth granted to middle age," I continued,--"in vino +juventus, one might say; and may you, my dear young friend, long remain +so proudly independent of that great Elixir--though I confess that I +have met no few young men under thirty who have been excellent critics +of the wine-list." + +As the water warmed him, he began to expand into further confidence, +and then he told me the story of his Shelley, if a story it can be +called. For, of course, it was simple enough, and the reader has long +since guessed that the reason why he wouldn't lose his Shelley for the +world was the usual simple reason. + +I listened to his rhapsodies of HER and HER and HER with an aching +heart. How good it was to be young! No wonder men had so desperately +sought the secret of Eternal Youth! Who would not be young for ever, +for such dreams and such an appetite? + +Here of course was the very heaven-sent confidant for such an +enterprise as mine. I told him all about my whim, just for the pleasure +of watching his face light up with youth's generous worship of all such +fantastic nonsense. You should have seen his enthusiasm and heard all +the things he said. Why, to encounter such a whimsical fellow as myself +in this unimaginative age was like meeting a fairy prince, or coming +unexpectedly upon Don Quixote attacking the windmill. I offered him +the post of Sancho Panza; and indeed what would he not give, he said, +to leave all and follow me! But then I reminded him that he had +already found his Golden Girl. + +"Of course, I forgot," he said, with I'm afraid something of a sigh. +For you see he was barely twenty, and to have met your ideal so early +in life is apt to rob the remainder of the journey of something of its +zest. + +I asked him to give me his idea of what the Blessed Maid should be, to +which he replied, with a smile, that he could not do better than +describe Her, which he did for the sixth time. It was, as I had +foreseen, the picture of a Saint, a Goddess, a Dream, very lovely and +pure and touching; but it was not a woman, and it was a woman I was in +search of, with all her imperfections on her head. I suppose no boy of +twenty really loves a WOMEN, but loves only his etherealised extract of +woman, entirely free from earthy adulteration. I noticed the words +"pure" and "natural" in constant use by my young friend. Some lines +went through my head, but I forbore to quote them:-- + + Alas I your so called purity + Is merely immaturity, + And woman's nature plays its part + Sincerely but in woman's art. + + +But I couldn't resist asking him, out of sheer waggery, whether he +didn't think a touch of powder, and even, very judiciously applied, a +touch of rouge, was an improvement to woman. His answer went to my +heart. + +"Paint--a WOMAN!" he exclaimed. + +It was as though you had said--paint an angel! + +I could bear no more of it. The gulf yawned shiveringly wide at +remarks like that; so, with the privilege of an elder, I declared it +time for bed, and yawned off to my room. + +Next morning we bade good-bye, and went our several ways. As we +parted, he handed me a letter which I was not to open till I was well +on my journey. We waved good-bye to each other till the turnings of +the road made parting final, and then, sitting down by the roadside, I +opened the letter. It proved to be not a letter, but a poem, which he +had evidently written after I had left him for bed. It was entitled, +with twenty's love for a tag of Latin, Ad Puellam Auream, and it ran +thus:-- + + The Golden Girl in every place + Hides and reveals her lovely face; + Her neither skill nor strength may find-- + 'T is only loving moves her mind. + If but a pretty face you seek, + You'll find one any day or week; + But if you look with deeper eyes, + And seek her lovely, pure, and wise, + Then must you wear the pilgrim's shoon + For many a weary, wandering moon. + + Only the pure in heart may see + That lily of all purity, + Only in clean unsullied thought + The image of her face is caught, + And only he her love may hold + Who buys her with the spirit's gold. + + Thus only shall you find your pearl, + O seeker of the Golden Girl! + She trod but now the grassy way, + A vision of eternal May. + + +The devil take his impudence! "Only the pure in heart," "clean, +unsullied thought." How like the cheek of twenty! And all the same +how true! Dear lad, how true! Certainly, the child is father to the +man. Dirige nos! O sage of the Golden Twenties! + +As I meditatively folded up the pretty bit of writing, I made a +resolution; but it was one of such importance that not only is another +chapter needed to do it honour, but it may well inaugurate another book +of this strange uneventful history. + + + + +BOOK II + + + +CHAPTER I + +IN WHICH I DECIDE TO BE YOUNG AGAIN + +Yes, I said to myself, the lad is quite right; I will follow his +advice. I'm afraid I was in danger of developing into a sad cynic, +with a taste for the humour of this world. What should have been a +lofty high-souled pilgrimage, only less transcendental than that of the +Holy Grail itself, has so far failed, no doubt, because I have +undertaken it too much in the wanton spirit of a troubadour. + +I will grow young and serious again. Yes, why not? I will take a vow +of Youth. One's age is entirely a matter of the imagination. From this +moment I am no longer thirty. Thirty falls from me like a hideous +dream. My back straightens again at the thought; my silvering hair +blackens once more; my eyes, a few moments ago lacklustre and sunken, +grow bright and full again, and the whites are clear as the finest +porcelain. Veni, veni, Mephistophile! your Faust is young +again,--young, young, and, with a boy's heart, open once more to all +the influences of the mighty world. + +I bring down my stick upon the ground with a mighty ring of resolution, +and the miracle is done. Who would take me for thirty now? From this +moment I abjure pessimism and cynicism in all their forms, put from my +mind all considerations of the complexities of human life, unravel all +by a triumphant optimism which no statistics can abash or criticism +dishearten. I likewise undertake to divest myself entirely of any +sense of humour that may have developed within me during the baneful +experiences of the last ten years, and, in short, will consent for the +future to be nothing that is not perfectly perfect and pure. These, I +take it, are the fundamental conditions of being young again. + +And as for the Quest, it shall forthwith be undertaken in an entirely +serious and high-minded spirit. From this moment I am on the look-out +for a really transcendental attachment. No "bright-eyed bar-maids," +however "refined," need apply. Ladies who are prodigal of their white +petticoats are no longer fit company for me. Indeed I shall no longer +look upon a petticoat, unless I am able first entirely to spiritualise +it. It must first be disinfected of every earthly thought. + +Yes, I am once more a young man, sound in wind and limb, with not a +tooth or an illusion lost, my mind tabula rasa, my heart to be had for +the asking. Oh, come, ye merry, merry maidens! The fairy prince is on +the fairy road. + +Incipit vita nuova! + +So in the lovely rapture of a new-born resolution--and is there any +rapture like it?--nature has no more intoxicating illusion than that of +turning over a new leaf, or beginning a new life from to-day--I sprang +along the road with a carolling heart; quite forgetting that Apuleius +and Fielding and Boccaccio were still in my knapsack--not to speak of +the petticoat. + + + +CHAPTER II + +AT THE SIGN OF THE SINGING STREAM + +Apuleius and Fielding and Boccaccio, bad companions for a petticoat, +I'm afraid, bad companions too for so young a man as I had now become. +However, as I say, I had for the time forgotten that pagan company, or, +in my puritanic zeal, I might have thrown them all to be washed clean +in the upland stream, whose pure waters one might fancy were fragrant +from their sunny day among the ferns and the heather, fragrant to the +eye, indeed, if one may so speak, with the shaken meal of the +meadowsweet. This stream had been the good angel of my thoughts all the +day, keeping them ever moving and ever fresh, cleansing and burnishing +them, quite an open-air laundry of the mind. + +We were both making for the same little town, it appeared, and as the +sun was setting we reached it together. I entered the town over the +bridge, and the stream under it, washing the walls of the high-piled, +many-gabled old inn where I proposed to pass the night. I should hear +it still rippling on with its gentle harpsichord tinkle, as I stretched +myself down among the cool lavendered sheets, and little by little let +slip the multifarious world. + +The inn windows beamed cheerily, a home of ruddy rest. Having ordered +my dinner and found my room, I threw down my knapsack and then came out +again to smoke an ante-prandial pipe, listen to the evensong of the +stream, and think great thoughts. The stream was still there, and +singing the same sweet old song. You could hear it long after it was +out of sight, in the gathering darkness, like an old nurse humming +lullabies in the twilight. + +The dinner was good, the wine was old, and oh! the rest was sweet! +Nothing fills one with so exquisite a weariness as a day spent in good +resolutions and great thoughts. There is something perilously sensuous +in the relaxation of one's muscles, both of mind and body, after a day +thus well spent. + +Lighting up my pipe once more, and drawing to the fire, I suddenly +realised a sense of loneliness. Of course, I was lonely for a +book,--Apuleius or Fielding or Boccaccio! + +An hour ago they had seemed dangerous companions for so lofty a mood; +but now, under the gentle influences of dinner, the mood had not indeed +changed--but mellowed. So to say, we would split the difference between +the ideal and the human, and be, say, twenty-five. + +It was in this genial attitude of mind that I strode up the quaint +circular staircase to fetch Fielding from my room, and, shade of Tom +Jones! what should be leaving my room, as I advanced to enter it, +but--well, it's no use, resolutions are all very well, but facts are +facts, especially when they're natural, and here was I face to face +with the most natural little natural fact, and withal the most charming +and merry-eyed, that--well, in short, as I came to enter my room I was +confronted by the roundest, ruddiest little chambermaid ever created +for the trial of mortal frailty. + +And the worst of it was that her merry eye was in partnership with a +merry tongue. Indeed, for some unexplained reason, she was bubbling +over with congested laughter, the reason for which mere embarrassment +set one inquiring. At last, between little gushes of laughter which +shook her plump shoulders in a way that aroused wistful memories of +Hebe, she archly asked me, with mock solemnity, if I should need a +lady's maid. + + +"Certainly," I replied with inane promptitude, for I had no notion of +her drift; but then she ran off in a scurry of laughter, and still +puzzled I turned into my room, TO FIND, neatly hung over the end of the +bed, nothing less than the dainty petticoat and silk stockings of +Sylvia Joy. + +You can imagine the colour of my cheeks at the discovery. No doubt I +was already the laughing-stock of the whole inn. What folly! What a +young vixen! Oh, what's to be done? Pay my bill and sneak off at once +to the next town; but how pass through the grinning line of boots, and +waiter, and chambermaid, and ironically respectful landlord and +landlady, in the hall... + +But while I thus deliberated, something soft pressed in at the door; +and, making a sudden dart, I had the little baggage who had brought +about my dilemma a prisoner in my arms. + +I stayed some days at this charming old inn, for Amaryllis--oh, yes, +you may be sure her name was Amaryllis--had not betrayed me; and indeed +she may have some share in my retrospect of the inn as one of the most +delightful which I encountered anywhere in my journeying. Would you +like to know its name? Well, I know it as The Singing Stream. If you +can find it under that name, you are welcome. And should you chance to +be put into bedroom No. 26, you can think of me, and how I used to lie +awake, listening to the stream rippling beneath the window, with its +gentle harpsichord tinkle, and little by little letting slip the +multifarious world. + +And if anything about this chapter should seem to contradict the high +ideals of the chapter preceding it, I can only say that, though the +episode should not rigidly fulfil the conditions of the transcendental, +nothing could have been more characteristic of that early youth to +which I had vowed myself. Indeed, I congratulated myself, as I looked +my last at the sign of The Singing Stream, that this had been quite in +my early manner. + + + +CHAPTER III + +IN WHICH I SAVE A USEFUL LIFE + +Though I had said good-bye to the inn, the stream and I did not part +company at the inn-door, but continued for the best part of a morning +to be fellow-travellers. Indeed, having led me to one pleasant +adventure, its purpose, I afterwards realised, was to lead me to +another, and then to go about its own bright business. + +I don't think either of us had much idea where we were or whither we +were bound. Our guiding principle seemed to be to get as much sunshine +as possible, and to find the easiest road. We avoided dull sandy +levels and hard rocky places, with the same instinctive dexterity. We +gloomed together through dark dingles, and came out on sunny reaches +with the same gilded magnificence. There are days when every stream is +Pactolus and every man is Croesus, and thanks to that first and +greatest of all alchemists, the sun, the morning I write of was a +morning when to breathe was gold and to see was silver. And to breathe +and see was all one asked. It was the first of May, and the world +shone like a great illuminated letter with which that father of +artists, the sun, was making splendid his missal of the seasons. + +The month of May was ever his tour de force. Each year he has strained +and stimulated his art to surpass himself, seeking ever a finer and a +brighter gold, a more celestial azure. Never had his gold been so +golden, his azure so dazzlingly clear and deep as on this particular +May morning; while his fancy simply ran riot in the marginal +decorations of woodland and spinney, quaint embroidered flowers and +copses full of exquisitely painted and wonderfully trained birds of +song. It was indeed a day for nature to be proud of. So seductive was +the sunshine that even the shy trout leapt at noonday, eager apparently +to change his silver for gold. + + + O silver fish in the silver stream, + O golden fish in the golden gleam, + Tell me, tell me, tell me true, + Shall I find my girl if I follow you? + + +I suppose the reader never makes nonsense rhymes from sheer gladness of +heart,--nursery doggerel to keep time with the rippling of the stream, +or the dancing of the sun, or the beating of his heart; the gibberish +of delight. As I hummed this nonsense, a trout at least three pounds +in weight, whom you would know again anywhere, leapt a yard out of the +water, and I took it, in my absurd, sun-soaked heart, as a good omen, +as though he had said, "Follow and see." + +I had no will but to follow, no desire but to see. All the same, +though I affected to take him seriously, I had little suspicion how +much that trout was to mean to me,--yes, within the course of a very +few moments. Indeed, I had hardly strolled on for another quarter of a +mile, when I was suddenly aroused from wool-gathering by his loud cries +for help. Looking up, I saw him flashing desperately in mid-air, a +lovely foot of writhing silver. In another second he was swung through +the sunlight, and laid out breathing hard in a death-bed of buttercups +and daisies. + +There was not a moment to be lost, if I were to repay the debt of +gratitude which in a flash I had seen that I owed him. + +"Madam," I said, breathlessly springing forward, as a heavenly being +was coldly tearing the hook from the gills of the unlucky trout, +"though I am a stranger, will you do me a great favour? It is a matter +of life or death..." + +She looked up at me with some surprise, but with a fine fearless +glance, and almost immediately said, "Certainly, what can I do?" + +"Spare the life of that trout--" + +"It is a singular request," she replied, "and one," she smiled, +"self-sacrificing indeed for an angler to grant, for he weighs at least +three pounds. However, since he seems a friend of yours, here goes--" +And with the gladdest, most grateful sound in the world, the happy +smack of a fish back home again in the water, after an appalling three +minutes spent on land, that prophetic trout was once more an active +unit in God's populous universe. + +"Now that's good of you," I said, with thankful eyes, "and shows a kind +heart." + +"And kind hearts, they say, are more than coronets," she replied +merrily, indulging in that derisive quotation which seems to be the +final reward of the greatest poets. + +For a moment there was a silence, during which I confess to wondering +what I should say next. However, she supplied my place. + +"But of course," she said, "you owe it to me, after this touching +display of humanitarianism, to entertain me with your reason for +interposing between me and my just trout. Was it one of those +wonderful talking fishes out of the Arabian Nights, or are you merely +an angler yourself, and did you begrudge such a record catch to a girl?" + +"I see," I replied, "that you will understand me. That trout was, so +to speak, out of the Arabian Nights. Only five minutes ago it was a +May-day madness of mine to think that he leaped out of the water and +gave me a highly important message. So I begged his life from a mere +fancy. It was just a whim, which I trust you will excuse." + +"A whim! So you are a follower of the great god Whim," she replied, +with somewhat of an eager interest in her voice. "How nice it is to +meet a fellow-worshipper!" + +"Do women ever have whims?" I respectfully asked. + +"I don't know about other women," she replied. "Indeed, I'm afraid I'm +unnatural enough to take no interest in them at all. But, as for +me,--well, what nonsense! Tell me some more about the trout. What was +the wonderful message he seemed to give you? Or perhaps I oughtn't to +ask?" + +"I'm afraid," I said, "it would hardly translate into anything +approaching common-sense." + +"Did I ask for common-sense?" she retorted. It was true, she hadn't. +But then I couldn't, with any respect for her, tell her the trout's +message, or, with any respect for myself, recall those atrocious +doggerel lines. In my dilemma, I caught sight of a pretty book lying +near her fishing-basket, and diverted the talk by venturing to ask its +name. + +"'T is of Aucassin and Nicolete," she replied, with something in her +voice which seemed to imply that the tender old story would be familiar +to me. My memory served me for once gallantly. + +I answered by humming half to myself the lines from the prologue,-- + + "Sweet the song, the story sweet, + There is no man hearkens it, + No man living 'neath the sun, + So outwearied, so foredone, + Sick and woful, worn and sad, + But is healed, but is glad + 'T is so sweet." + + +"How charming of you to know it!" she laughed. "You are the only man +in this county, or the next, or the next, who knows it, I'm sure." + +"Are the women of the county more familiar with it?" I replied. + +"But tell me about the trout," she once more persisted. + +At the same moment, however, there came from a little distance the +musical tinkle of a bell that sounded like silver, a fairy-like and +almost startling sound. + +"It is my lunch," she explained. "I'm a worshipper of the great god +Whim too, and close by here I have a little summer-house, full of books +and fishing-lines and other childishness, where, when my whim is to be +lonely, I come and play at solitude. If you'll be content with rustic +fare, and promise to be amusing, it would be very pleasant if you'd +join me." + +O! most prophetic and agreeable trout! Was it not like the old fairy +tales, the you-help-us and we'll-help-you of Psyche and the ants? + +It had been the idlest whim for me to save the life of that poor trout. +There was no real pity in it. For two pins, I had been just as ready +to cut it open, to see if by chance it carried in its belly the golden +ring wherewith I was to wed the Golden-- + +However, such is the gratitude of nature to man, that this little +thoughtless act of kindness had brought me face to face with--was it +the Golden Girl? + + + +CHAPTER IV + +'T IS OF NICOLETE AND HER BOWER IN THE WILDWOOD + +But I have all this time left the reader without any formal descriptive +introduction to this whimsical young lady angler. Not without reason, +for, like any really charming personality, she was very difficult to +picture. Paint a woman! as our young friend Alastor said. + +Faces that fall into types you can describe, or at all events label in +such a way that the reader can identify them; but those faces that +consist mainly of spiritual effect and physical bloom, that change with +everything they look upon, the light in which ebbs and flows with every +changing tide of the soul,--these you have to love to know, and to +worship to portray. + +Now the face of Nicolete, as I learnt in time to call her, was just +soul and bloom, perhaps mainly bloom. I never noticed whether she had +any other features except her eyes. I suppose she had a nose; a little +lace pocket-handkerchief I have by me at the moment is almost too small +to be evidence on that important point. + +As I walked by her side that May morning, I was only conscious of her +voice and her exquisite girlhood; for though she talked with the APLOMB +of a woman of the world, a passionate candour and simple ardour in her +manner would have betrayed her, had her face not plainly declared her +the incarnation of twenty. But if she were twenty years young, she was +equally twenty years OLD; and twenty years old, in some respects, is +the greatest age attained to by man or woman. In this she rather +differed from Alastor, of whom otherwise she was the female +counterpart. Her talk, and something rather in her voice than her +talk, soon revealed her as a curious mixture of youth and age, of +dreamer and desillusionee. + +One soon realised that she was too young, was hoping too much from +life, to spend one's days with. Yet she had just sufficiently that +touch of languor which puts one at one's ease, though indeed it was +rather the languor of waiting for what was going to happen than the +weariness of experience gone by. She was weary, not because of the +past, but because the fairy theatre of life still kept its curtain +down, and forced her to play over and over again the impatient overture +of her dreams. + +I have no doubt that it was largely nervousness that kept the +mysterious playwright so long fumbling behind the scenes, for it was +obvious that it would be no ordinary sort of play, no every-day +domestic drama, that would satisfy this young lady, to whom life had +given, by way of prologue, the inestimable blessing of wealth, and the +privilege, as a matter of course, of choosing as she would among the +grooms (that is, the bride-grooms) of the romantic British aristocracy. + +She had made youth's common mistake of beginning life with books, which +can only be used without danger by those who are in a position to test +their statements. Youth naturally believes everything that is told it, +especially in books. + +Now, books are simply professional liars about life, and the books that +are best worth reading are those which lie the most beautifully. Yet, +in fairness, we must add that they are liars, not with intent to +mislead, but merely with the tenderest purpose to console. They are +the good Samaritans that find us robbed of all our dreams by the +roadside of life, bleeding and weeping and desolate; and such is their +skill and wealth and goodness of heart, that they not only heal up our +wounds, but restore to us the lost property of our dreams, on one +condition,--that we never travel with them again in the daylight. + +A library is a better world, built by the brains and hearts of poets +and dreamers, as a refuge from the real world outside; and in it alone +is to be found the land of milk and honey which it promises. + +"Milk and honey" would have been an appropriate inscription for the +delicious little library which parents who, I surmised, doted on +Nicolete in vain, had allowed her to build in a wild woodland corner of +her ancestral park, half a mile away from the great house, where, for +all its corridors and galleries, she could never feel, at all events, +spiritually alone. All that was most sugared and musical and generally +delusive in the old library of her fathers had been brought out to this +little woodland library, and to that nucleus of old leather-bound poets +and romancers, long since dead, yet as alive and singing on their +shelves as any bird on the sunny boughs outside, my young lady's +private purse had added all that was most sugared and musical and +generally delusive in the vellum bound Japanese-paper literature of our +own luxurious day. Nor were poets and romancers from over sea--in +their seeming simple paper covers, but with, oh, such complicated and +subtle insides!--absent from the court which Nicolete held here in the +greenwood. Never was such a nest of singing-birds. All day long, to +the ear of the spirit, there was in this little library a sound of +harping and singing and the telling of tales,--songs and tales of a +world that never was, yet shall ever be. Here day by day Nicolete fed +her young soul on the nightingale's-tongues of literature, and put down +her book only to listen to the nightingale's-tongues outside. Yea, +sun, moon, and stars were all in the conspiracy to lie to her of the +loveliness of the world and the good intentions of life. And now, thus +unexpectedly, I found myself joining the nefarious conspiracy. Ah, +well! was I not twenty myself, and full of dreams! + + + +CHAPTER V + +'T IS OF AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE + +Thus it was that we lunched together amid the books and birds, in an +exquisite solitude a deux; for the ringer of the silver bell had +disappeared, having left a dainty meal in readiness--for two. + +"You see you were expected," said Nicolete, with her pretty laugh. "I +dreamed I should have a visitor to-day, and told Susan to lay the lunch +for two. You mustn't be surprised at that," she added mischievously; +"it has often happened before. I dream that dream every other night, +and Susan lays for two every day. She knows my whims,--knows that the +extra knife and fork are for the fairy knight that may turn up any +afternoon, as I tell her--" + +"To find the sleepless princess," I added, thinking at the same time +one of those irrelevant asides that will go through the brain of +thirty, that the woman who would get her share of kisses nowadays must +neither slumber nor sleep. + +A certain great poet, I think it was Byron, objected to seeing women in +the act of eating. He thought their eating should be done in private. +What a curiously perverse opinion! For surely woman never shows to +better advantage than in the dainty exercises of a dainty repast, and +there is nothing more thrilling to man than a meal alone with a woman +he loves or is about to love. Perhaps, deep down, the reason is that +there still vibrates in the masculine blood the thrilling surprise of +the moment when man first realised that the angel woman was built upon +the same carnivorous principles as his grosser self. + +That is one of the first heart-beating surprises that come upon the boy +Columbus, as he sets out to discover the New World of woman; and indeed +his surprise has not seldom deepened into admiration, as he has found +that not only does woman eat, but frequently eats a lot. + +This privilege of seeing woman eat is the earliest granted of those +delicate animal intimacies, the fuller and fuller confiding of which +plays not the least important part, and ever such a sweet one, even in +a highly transcendental affection. It is this gradual humanising of +the divine female that brings about the spiritualising of the +unregenerate male. + +In the earliest stages of love the services are small that we are +privileged to do for the loved one. But if we are allowed to sit at +meat with her,--ever a royal condescension,--it is ours at least to +pass her the salt, to see that she is never kept waiting a moment for +the mustard or the pepper, to cut the bread for her with geometrical +precision, and to lean as near her warm shoulder as we dare to pour out +for her the sacred wine. + +Yes! for sure I was twenty again, for the performance of these simple +services for Nicolete gave me a thrill of pure boyish pleasure such as +I had never expected to feel again. And did she not make a knight of +me by gently asking if I would be so kind as to carve the chicken, and +how she laughed quite disproportionally at my school-boy story of the +man who, being asked to carve a pigeon, said he thought they had better +send for a wood-carver, as it seemed to be a wood pigeon. + +And while we ate and drank and laughed and chatted, the books around us +were weaving their spells. Even before the invention of printing books +were "love's purveyors." Was it not a book that sent Paolo and +Francesca for ever wandering on that stormy wind of passion and of +death? And nowadays the part played by books in human drama is greater +than we perhaps realise. Apart from their serious influence as +determining destinies of the character, what endless opportunities they +afford to lovers, who perhaps are denied all other meeting-places than +may be found on the tell-tale pages of a marked volume. The method is +so easy and so unsuspect. You have only to put faint pencil-marks +against the tenderest passages in your favourite new poet, and lend the +volume to Her, and She has only to leave here and there the dropped +violet of a timid confirmatory initial, for you to know your fate. And +what a touchstone books thus become! Indeed they simplify love-making, +from every point of view. With books so inexpensive and accessible to +all as they are to-day, no one need run any risks of marrying the wrong +woman. He has only to put her through an unconscious examination by +getting her to read and mark a few of his favourite authors, and he is +thus in possession of the master clues of her character. With a list +of her month's reading and a photograph, a man ought to be able to make +up his mind about any given woman, even though he has never spoken to +her. "Name your favourite writer" should be one of the first questions +in the Engagement Catechism. + +There is, indeed, no such short cut to knowledge of each other as a +talk about books. One short afternoon is enough for any two +book-lovers, though they may have met for the first time in the +morning, to make up their minds whether or not they have been born for +each other. If you are agreed, say, in admiring Meredith, Hardy, Omar +Khayyam, and Maeterlinck,--to take four particularly +test-authors,--there is nothing to prevent your marrying at once. +Indeed, a love for any one of these significant writers will be enough, +not to speak of an admiration for "Aucassin and Nicolete." + +Now, Nicolete and I soon found that we had all these and many another +writer in common, and before our lunch was ended we were nearer to each +other than many old friends. The heart does not more love the heart +that loves it than the brain loves the brain that comprehends it; and, +whatever else was to befall us, Nicolete and I were already in love +with each other's brains. Whether or not the malady would spread till +it reached the heart is the secret of some future chapter. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A FAIRY TALE AND ITS FAIRY TAILORS + +As this is not a realistic novel, I do not hold myself bound, as I have +said before, to account reasonably for everything that is done--least +of all, said--within its pages. I simply say, So it happened, or So it +is, and expect the reader to take my word. If he be uncivil enough to +doubt it, we may as well stop playing this game of fancy. It is one of +the first conditions of enjoying a book, as it is of all successful +hypnotism, that the reader surrenders up his will to the writer, who, +of course, guarantees to return it to him at the close of the volume. +If you say that no young lady would have behaved as I have presently to +relate of Nicolete, that no parents were ever so accommodating in the +world of reality, I reply,--No doubt you are right, but none the less +what I have to tell is true and really did happen, for all that. And +not only did it happen, but to the whimsically minded, to the true +children of fancy, it will seem the most natural thing in the world. +No doubt they will wonder why I have made such a preamble about it, as +indeed, now I think of it, so do I. + +Again I claim exemption in this wandering history from all such +descriptive drudgery upon second, third, and fourth dramatis +personsonae as your thorough-going novelist must undertake with a good +grace. Like a host and hostess at a reception, the poor novelist has +to pretend to be interested in everybody,--in the dull as in the +brilliant, in the bore as in the beauty. I'm afraid I should never do +as a novelist, for I should waste all my time with the heroine; whereas +the true novelist is expected to pay as much attention to the heroine's +parents as though he were a suitor for her hand. Indeed, there is no +relative of hero or heroine too humble or stupid for such a novelist as +the great Balzac. He will invite the dullest of them to stay with him +for quite prolonged visits, and without a murmur set apart a suite of +chapters for their accommodation. I'm not sure that the humanity of +the reader in these cases is of such comprehensive sympathy as the +novelist's, and it may well be that the novelist undertakes all such +hard labour under a misapprehension of the desires of the reader, who, +as a rule, I fancy, is as anxious to join the ladies as the novelist +himself. Indeed, I believe that there is an opportunity for a new form +of novel, in which the novelist, as well as the reader, will skip all +the dull people, and merely indicate such of them as are necessary to +the action by an outline or a symbol, compressing their familiar +psychology, and necessary plot-interferences with the main characters, +into recognised formulae. For the benefit of readers voracious for +everything about everybody, schedule chapters might be provided by +inferior novelists, good at painting say tiresome bourgeois fathers, +gouty uncles and brothers in the army, as sometimes in great pictures +we read that the sheep in the foreground have been painted by Mr. +So-and-so, R.A. + +The Major-General and his Lady were taking the waters at Wiesbaden. +That was all I knew of Nicolete's parents, and all I needed to know; +with the exception of one good action,--at her urgent entreaty they had +left Nicolete behind them, with no other safeguard than a charming +young lady companion, whose fitness for her sacred duties consisted in +a temperament hardly less romantic and whimsical than Nicolete's own. +She was too charming to deserve the name of obstacle; and as there was +no other-- + +But I admit that the cart has got a little in front of the horse, and I +grow suddenly alarmed lest the reader should be suspecting me of an +elopement, or some such romantic vulgarity. If he will only put any +such thoughts from his mind, I promise to proceed with the story in a +brief and business-like manner forthwith. + +We are back once more at the close of the last chapter, in Nicolete's +book-bower in the wildwood. It is an hour or two later, and the +afternoon sun is flooding with a searching glory all the secret places +of the woodland. Hidden nooks and corners, unused to observation, +suddenly gleam and blush in effulgent exposure,--like lovers whom the +unexpected turning on of a light has revealed kissing in the dark,--and +are as suddenly, unlike the lovers, left in their native shade again. +It was that rich afternoon sunlight that loves to flash into teacups as +though they were crocuses, that loves to run a golden finger along the +beautiful wrinkles of old faces and light up the noble hollows of +age-worn eyes; the sunlight that loves to fall with transfiguring beam +on the once dear book we never read, or, with malicious +inquisitiveness, expose to undreamed-of detection the undusted picture, +or the gold-dusted legs of remote chairs, which the poor housemaid has +forgotten. + +So in Nicolete's bower it illuminated with strange radiancy the dainty +disorder of deserted lunch, made prisms out of the wine-glasses, +painted the white cloth with wedge-shaped rainbows, and flooded the +cavernous interiors of the half-eaten fowl with a pathetic yellow +torchlight. + +Leaving that melancholy relic of carnivorous appetite, it turned its +bold gold gaze on Nicolete. No need to transfigure her! But, heavens! +how grandly her young face took the great kiss of the god! Then it +fell for a tender moment on the jaundiced page of my old Boccaccio,--a +rare edition, which I had taken from my knapsack to indulge myself with +the appreciation of a connoisseur. Next minute "the unobstructed beam" +was shining right into the knapsack itself, for all the world like one +of those little demon electric lights with which the dentist makes a +momentary treasure-cave of your distended jaws, flashing with startled +stalactite. At the same moment Nicolete's starry eyes took the same +direction; then there broke from her her lovely laughter, merry and +inextinguishable. + +Once more, need I say, my petticoat had played me false--or should I +not say true? For there was its luxurious lace border, a thing for the +soft light of the boudoir, or the secret moonlight of love's permitted +eyes, alone to see, shamelessly brazening it out in this terrible +sunlight. Obviously there was but one way out of the dilemma, to +confess my pilgrimage to Nicolete, and reveal to her all the fanciful +absurdity to which, after all, I owed the sight of her. + +"So that is why you pleaded so hard for that poor trout," she said, +when I had finished. "Well, you are a fairy prince indeed! Now, do you +know what the punishment of your nonsense is to be?" + +"Is it very severe and humiliating?" I asked. + +"You must judge of that. It is--to take me with you!" + +"You,--what do you mean?" + +"Yes,--not for good and all, of course, but just for, say, a fortnight, +just a fortnight of rambles and adventures, and then to deliver me safe +home again where you found me--" + +"But it is impossible," I almost gasped in surprise. "Of course you +are not serious?" + +"I am, really, and you will take me, won't you?" she continued +pleadingly. "You don't know how we women envy you men those wonderful +walking-tours we can only read about in Hazlitt or Stevenson. We are +not allowed to move without a nurse or a footman. From the day we are +born to the day we die, we are never left a moment to ourselves. But +you--you can go out into the world, the mysterious world, do as you +will, go where you will, wander here, wander there, follow any bye-way +that takes your fancy, put up at old inns, make strange acquaintances, +have all kinds of romantic experiences-- Oh, to be a man for a +fortnight, your younger brother for a fortnight!" + +"It is impossible!" I repeated. + +"It isn't at all," she persisted, with a fine blush. "If you will only +be nice and kind, and help me to some Rosalind's clothes. You have only +to write to your tailors, or send home for a spare suit of +clothes,--with a little managing yours would just fit me, you're not so +much taller,--and then we could start, like two comrades, seeking +adventures. Oh, how glorious it would be!" + +It was in vain that I brought the batteries of common-sense to bear +upon her whim. I raised every possible objection in vain. + +I pointed out the practical difficulties. There were her parents. + +Weren't they drinking the waters at Wiesbaden, and weren't they to go +on drinking them for another three weeks? My fancy made a picture of +them distended with three weeks' absorption of mineral springs. Then +there was her companion. Nicolete was confident of her assistance. +Then I tried vilifying myself. How could she run the risk of trusting +herself to such intimate companionship with a man whom she hadn't known +half a dozen hours? This she laughed to scorn. Presently I was silent +from sheer lack of further objections; and need I say that all the +while there had been a traitor impulse in my heart, a weak sweetness +urging me on to accept the pretty chance which the good genius of my +pilgrimage had so evidently put in my way,--for, after all, what harm +could it do? With me Nicolete was, indeed, safe,--that, of course, I +knew,--and safely she should come back home again after her little +frolic. All that was true enough. And how charming it would be to +have such a dainty companion! then the fun, the fancy, the whim of it +all. What was the use of setting out to seek adventures if I didn't +pursue them when found. + +Well, the long and short of it was that I agreed to undertake the +adventure, provided that Nicolete could win over the lady whom at the +beginning of the chapter I declared too charming to be described as an +obstacle. + +By nine o'clock the following morning the fairy tailors, as Nicolete +called them, were at work on the fairy clothes, and, at the end of +three days, there came by parcel-post a bulky unromantic-looking +brown-paper parcel, which it was my business to convey to Nicolete +under cover of the dark. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +FROM THE MORNING STAR TO THE MOON + +I quite realise that this book is written perhaps only just in time for +the motive of these two or three chapters to be appreciated in its +ancient piquancy. Very soon, alas! the sexes will be robbed of one of +the first and most thrilling motives of romance, the motive of As You +Like It, the romance of wearing each other's clothes. Alas, that every +advance of reason should mean a corresponding retreat of romance! It +is only reasonable that woman, being--have you yet realised the +fact?--a biped like her brothers, should, when she takes to her +brothers' recreations, dress as those recreations demand; and yet the +death of Rosalind is a heavy price to pay for the lady bicyclist. So +soon as the two sexes wear the same clothes, they may as well wear +nothing; the game of sex is up. In this matter, as in others, we +cannot both have our cake and eat it. All romance, like all +temptation, is founded on the Fascination of the Exception. So soon as +the exception becomes, instead of merely proving, the rule, that +particular avenue of romance is closed. The New Woman of the future +will be the woman with the petticoats, she who shall restore the +ancient Eleusinian mysteries of the silk skirt and the tea-gown. + +Happily for me, my acquaintance among the Rosalinds of the bicycle, at +this period of my life, was but slight, and thus no familiarity with +the tweed knickerbocker feminine took off the edge of my delight on +first beholding Nicolete clothed in like manhood with ourselves, and +yet, delicious paradox! looking more like a woman than ever. + +During those three days while the fairy tailors were at work our +friendship had not been idle. Indeed, some part of each day we had +spent diligently learning each other, as travellers to distant lands +across the Channel work hard at phrase-book and Baedeker the week +before their departure. Meanwhile too I had made the acquaintance of +the charming lady Obstacle,--as it proved so unfair to call her,--and +by some process of natural magnetism we had immediately won each +other's hearts, so that on the moonlight night on which I took the +river path with my brown-paper parcel there was no misgiving in my +heart,--nothing but harping and singing, and blessings on the river +that seemed all silver with the backs of magic trout. As I thought of +all I owed that noble fish, I kneeled by the river's bearded lip, among +the nettles and the meadowsweet, and swore by the inconstant moon that +trout and I were henceforth kinsmen, and that between our houses should +be an eternal amity. The chub and the dace and the carp, not to speak +of that Chinese pirate the pike, might still look to it, when I came +forth armed with rod and line; but for me and my house the trout is +henceforth sacred. By the memory of the Blessed Saint Izaak, I swore it! + +My arrival at Beaucaire was one of great excitement. Nicolete and the +Obstacle were both awaiting me, for the mysteries of masculine attire +were not to be explored alone. The parcel was snatched quite +unceremoniously from my hands, the door shut upon me, and I laughingly +bidden go listen to the nightingale. I was not long in finding one, +nor, being an industrious phrase-maker, did I waste my time, for, +before I was summoned to behold Nicolete in all her boyhood, I had +found occasion and moonlight to remark to my pocket-book that, Though +all the world has heard the song of the Nightingale to the Rose, only +the Nightingale has heard the answer of the Rose. This I hurriedly hid +in my heart for future conversation, as the pre-arranged tinkle of the +silver bell called me to the rose. + +Would, indeed, that I were a nightingale to sing aright the beauty of +that rose with which, think of it, I was to spend a whole +fortnight,--yes, no less than fourteen wonderful days. + +The two girls were evidently proud of themselves at having succeeded so +well with the mysterious garments. There were one or two points on +which they needed my guidance, but they were unimportant; and when at +last Nicolete would consent to stand up straight and let me have a good +look at her,--for, poor child! she was as shy and shrinking as though +she had nothing on,--she made a very pretty young man indeed. + +She didn't, I'm afraid, look like a young man of our degenerate day. +She was far too beautiful and distinguished for that. Besides, her dark +curling hair, quite short for a woman, was too long, and her eyes--like +the eyes of all poets--were women's eyes. She looked, indeed, like one +of those wonderful boys of the Italian Renaissance, whom you may still +see at the National Gallery, whose beauty is no denial, but rather the +stamp of their slender, supple strength, young painters and sculptors +who held the palette for Leonardo, or wielded the chisel for +Michelangelo, and anon threw both aside to take up sword for Guelf or +Ghibelline in the narrow streets of Florence. + +Her knapsack was already packed, and its contents included a serge +skirt "in case of emergencies." Already, she naughtily reminded me, we +possessed a petticoat between us. + +The brief remainder of the evening passed in excited chatter and +cigarettes, and in my instructing Nicolete in certain tricks of +masculine deportment. The chief difficulty I hardly like mentioning; +and if the Obstacle had not been present, I certainly dare not have +spoken of it to Nicolete. I mean that she was so shy about her pretty +legs. She couldn't cross them with any successful nonchalance. + +"You must take your legs more for granted, dear Nicolete," I summoned +courage to say. "The nonchalance of the legs is the first lesson to be +learnt in such a masquerade as this. You must regard them as so much +bone and iron, rude skeleton joints and shins, as though they were the +bones of the great elk or other extinct South Kensington +specimen,"--"not," I added in my heart, "as the velvet and ivory which +they are." + +We had agreed to start with the sun on the morrow, so as to get clear +of possible Peeping Toms; and when good-nights had been said, and I was +once more swinging towards my inn, it seemed but an hour or two, as +indeed it was, before I heard four o'clock drowsily announced through +my bedroom door, and before I was once more striding along that +river-bank all dew-silvered with last night's moonlight, the sun +rubbing his great eye on the horizon, the whole world yawning through +dainty bed-clothes of mist, and here and there a copse-full of birds +congratulating themselves on their early rising. + +Nicolete was not quite ready, so I had to go listen to the lark, about +whom, alas! I could find nothing to say to my pocket-book, before +Nicolete, armed cap-a-pie with stick and knapsack, appeared at the door +of her chalet. + +The Obstacle was there to see us start. She and Nicolete exchanged many +kisses which were hard to bear, and the first quarter of an hour of our +journey was much obstructed by the farewells of her far-fluttering +handkerchief. When at last we were really alone, I turned and looked +at Nicolete striding manfully at my side, just to make sure that it was +really true. + +"Well, we're in for it now," I said; "aren't you frightened?" + +"Oh, it's wonderful," she replied; "don't spoil it by talking." + +And I didn't; for who could hope to compete with the sun, who was +making the whole dewy world shake with laughter at his brilliancy, or +with the birds, any one of whom was a poet at least equal to Herrick? + +Presently we found ourselves at four crossroads, with a four-fingered +post in the centre. We had agreed to leave our destination to chance. +We read the sign-post. + +"Which shall we choose?" I said,-- + +"Aucassin, true love and fair, To what land do we repair?" + + +"Don't you think this one," she replied, "this one?--To the Moon!" + +"Certainly, we couldn't find a prettier place; but it's a long way," I +replied, looking up at the sky, all roses and pearls,--"a long way from +the Morning Star to the Moon." + +"All the longer to be free," cried Nicolete, recklessly. + +"So be it," I assented. "Allons--to the Moon!" + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE KIND OF THING THAT HAPPENS IN THE MOON + +Two friends of my youth, with whom it would be hopeless to attempt +competition, have described the star-strewn journey to the moon. It is +not for me to essay again where the ingenious M. Jules Verne and Mr. +William Morris have preceded me. Besides, the journey is nowadays much +more usual, and therefore much less adventurous, than when those +revered writers first described it. In the middle ages a journey to the +moon with a woman you loved was a very perilous matter indeed. Even in +the last century the roads were much beset with danger; but in our own +day, like most journeys, it is accomplished with ease and safety in a +few hours. + +However, to the latter-day hero, whose appetite for dragons is not +keen, this absence of adventure is perhaps rather pleasurable than +otherwise; and I confess that I enjoyed the days I spent on foot with +Nicolete none the less because they passed in tranquil +uneventfulness,--that is, without events of the violent kind. Of +course, all depends on what you call an event. We were not waylaid by +robbers, we fed and slept unchallenged at inns, we escaped collision +with the police, and we encountered no bodily dangers of any kind; yet +should I not call the journey uneventful, nor indeed, I think, would +Nicolete. + +To me it was one prolonged divine event, and, with such daily +intercourse with Nicolete, I never dreamed of craving for any other +excitement. To walk from morning to evening by her side, to minister +to her moods, to provide such entertainment as I might for her brain, +and watch like a father over her physical needs; to note when she was +weary and too proud to show it, and to pretend to be done up myself; to +choose for her the easiest path, and keep my eyes open for wayside +flowers and every country surprise,--these, and a hundred other +attentions, kept my heart and mind in busy service. + +To picnic by some lonely stream-side on a few sandwiches, a flask of +claret, and a pennyworth of apples; to talk about the books we loved; +to exchange our hopes and dreams,--we asked nothing better than this +simple fare. + +And so a week went by. But, though so little had seemed to happen, and +though our walking record was shamefully modest, yet, imperceptible as +the transition had been, we were, quite insensibly indeed, and +unacknowledged, in a very different relation to each other than when we +had started out from the Morning Star. In fact, to make no more words +about it, I was head over heels in love with Nicolete, and I think, +without conceit, I may say that Nicolete was rapidly growing rather +fond of me. Apart from anything else, we were such excellent chums. We +got along together as if indeed we had been two brothers, equable in +our tempers and one in our desires. + +At last the feeling on my side became so importunate that I could no +longer keep silence. + +We were seated together taking tea at a small lonely inn, whose windows +looked out over a romantic little lake, backed by Salvator Rosa +pine-woods. The sun was beginning to grow dreamy, and the whole world +to wear a dangerously sentimental expression. + +I forget exactly what it was, but something in our talk had set us +glowing, had touched tender chords of unexpected sympathy, and +involuntarily I stretched out my hand across the corner of the table +and pressed Nicolete's hand as it rested on the cloth. She did not +withdraw it, and our eyes met with a steady gaze of love. + +"Nicolete," I said presently, when I could speak, "it is time for you +to be going back home." + +"Why?" she asked breathlessly. + +"Because," I answered, "I must love you if you stay." + +"Would you then bid me go?" she said. + +"Nicolete," I said, "don't tempt me. Be a good girl and go home." + +"But supposing I don't want to go home," she said; "supposing--oh, +supposing I love you too? Would you still bid me go?" + +"Yes," I said. "In that case it would be even more imperative." + +"Aucassin!" + +"It is true, it is true, dear Nicolete." + +"Then, Aucassin," she replied, almost sternly, in her great girlish +love, "this is true also,--I love you. I have never loved, shall never +love, any man but you!" + +"Nicolete!" + +"Aucassin!" + +There were no more words spoken between us for a full hour that +afternoon. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +WRITTEN BY MOONLIGHT + +I knew deep down in my heart that it couldn't last, yet how deny myself +these roses, while the opportunity of gathering them was mine!--the +more so, as I believed it would do no harm to Nicolete. At all events, +a day or two more or less of moonshine would make no matter either way. +And so all next day we walked hand in hand through Paradise. + +It has been said by them of old time, and our fathers have told us, +that the kiss of first love, the first kiss of the first woman we love, +is beyond all kisses sweet; and true it is. But true is it also that +no less sweet is the first kiss of the last woman we love. + +Putting my faith in old saws, as a young man will, I had never dreamed +to know again a bliss so divinely passionate and pure as came to me +with every glance of Nicolete's sweet eyes, with every simple pressure +of her hand; and the joy that was mine when sometimes, stopping on our +way, we would press together our lips ever so gravely and tenderly, +seems too holy even to speak of. + +The holy angels could not have loved Nicolete with a purer love, a love +freer from taint of any earthly thought, than I, a man of thirty, +blase, and fed from my youth upon the honeycomb of woman. + +It was curious that the first difficulty of our pilgrimage should +befall us the very next day. Coming towards nightfall to a small inn +in a lonely unpopulated countryside, we found that the only +accommodation the inn afforded was one double-bedded room, and there +was no other inn for at least ten miles. I think I was more troubled +than Nicolete. When, after interviewing the landlady, I came and told +her of the dilemma, where she sat in the little parlour wearied out +with the day's walk, she blushed, it is true, but seemed little put +about. Indeed, she laughed, and said it was rather fun, "like +something out of Sterne,"--of such comfort is a literary reference in +all seasons and circumstances,--and then she added, with a sweet look +that sent the blood rioting about my heart, "It won't matter so much, +will it, love, NOW?" + +There proved nothing for it but to accept the situation, and we made +the arrangement that Nicolete was to slip off to bed first, and then +put out the light and go to sleep. However, when I followed her, +having sat up as long as the landlady's patience would endure, I found +that, though she had blown out the candle, she had forgotten to put out +the moon, which shone as though it were St. Agnes' Eve across half the +room. + +I stole in very shyly, kept my eyes sternly from Nicolete's white bed, +though, as I couldn't shut my ears, the sound of her breathing came to +me with indescribable sweetness. After I had lain among the sheets +some five or ten minutes, I was suddenly startled by a little voice +within the room saying,-- + +"I'm not asleep." + +"Well, you should be, naughty child. Now shut your eyes and go to +sleep,--and fair dreams and sweet repose," I replied. + +"Won't you give me one little good-night kiss?" + +"I gave you one downstairs." + +"Is it very wicked to want another?" + +There was not a foot between our two beds, so I bent over and took her +soft white shoulders in my arms and kissed her. All the heaped-up +sweetness of the whitest, freshest flowers of the spring seemed in my +embrace as I kissed her, so soft, so fragrant, so pure; and as the +moonlight was the white fire in our blood. Softly I released her, +stroked her brown hair, and turned again to my pillow. Presently the +little voice was in the room again,-- + +"Mayn't I hold your hand? Somehow I feel lonely and frightened." + +So our hands made a bridge across which our dreams might pass through +the night, and after a little while I knew that she slept. + +As I lay thus holding her hand, and listening to her quiet breathing, I +realised once more what my young Alastor had meant by the purity of +high passion. For indeed the moonlight that fell across her bosom was +not whiter than my thoughts, nor could any kiss--were it even such a +kiss as Venus promised to the betrayer of Psyche--even in its fiercest +delirium, be other than dross compared with the wild white peace of +those silent hours when we lay thus married and maiden side by side. + + + +CHAPTER X + +HOW ONE MAKES LOVE AT THIRTY + +My sleeplessness while Nicolete slept had not been all ecstasy, for I +had come to a bitter resolution; and next morning, when we were once +more on our way, I took a favourable opportunity of conveying it to +Nicolete. + +"Nicolete," I said, as we rested awhile by the roadside, "I have +something serious to say to you." + +"Yes, dear," she said, looking rather frightened. + +"Well, dear, it is this,--our love must end with our holiday. No good +can come of it." + +"But oh, why? I love you." + +"Yes, and I love you,--love you as I never thought I could love again. +Yet I know it is all a dangerous dream,--a trick of our brains, an +illusion of our tastes." + +"But oh, why? I love you." + +"Yes, you do to-day, I know; but it couldn't last. I believe I could +love you for ever; but even so, it wouldn't be right. You couldn't go +on loving me. I am too old, too tired, too desillusione, perhaps too +selfish." + +"I will love you always!" said girl Nicolete. + +"Whereas you," I continued, disregarding the lovely refrain of her +tear-choked voice, "are standing on the wonderful threshold of life, +waiting in dreamland for the dawn. And it will come, and with it the +fairy prince, with whom you shall wander hand in hand through all its +fairy rose-gardens; but I, dear Nicolete,--I am not he." + +Nicolete did not speak. + +"I know," I continued, pressing her hand, "that I may seem young enough +to talk like this, but some of us get through life quicker than others, +and when we say, 'It is done,' it is no use for onlookers to say, 'Why, +it is just beginning!' Believe me, Nicolete, I am not fit husband for +you." + +"Then shall I take no other," said Nicolete, with set face. + +"Oh, yes, you will," I rejoined; "let but a month or two pass, and you +will see how wise I was, after all. Besides, there are other reasons, +of which there is no need to speak--" + +"What reasons?" + +"Well," I said, half laughing, "there is the danger that, after all, we +mightn't agree. There is nothing so perilously difficult as the daily +intercourse of two people who love each other. You are too young to +realise its danger. And I couldn't bear to see our love worn away by +the daily dropping of tears, not to speak of its being rent by the +dynamite of daily quarrels. We know each other's tastes, but we know +hardly anything of each other's natures." + +Nicolete looked at me strangely. 'Troth, it was a strange way to make +love, I knew. + +"And what else?" she asked somewhat coldly. + +"Well, then, though it's not a thing one cares to speak of, I'm a poor +man--" + +Nicolete broke through my sentence with a scornful exclamation. + +"You," I continued straight on,--"well, you have been accustomed to a +certain spaciousness and luxury of life. This it would be out of my +power to continue for you. These are real reasons, very real reasons, +dear Nicolete, though you may not think so now. The law of the world +in these matters is very right. For the rich and the poor to marry is +to risk, terribly risk, the very thing they would marry for--their +love. Love is better an unmarried than a married regret." + +Nicolete was silent again. + +"Think of your little woodland chalet, and your great old trees in the +park,--you couldn't live without them. I have, at most, but one tree +worth speaking of to offer you--" + +I purposely waived the glamour which my old garden had for my mind, and +which I wouldn't have exchanged for fifty parks. + +"Trees!" retorted Nicolete,--"what are trees?" + +"Ah, my dear girl, they are a good deal,--particularly when they are +genealogical, as my one tree is not." + +"Aucassin," she said suddenly, almost fiercely, "can you really jest? +Tell me this,--do you love me?" + +"I love you," I said simply; "and it is just because I love you so much +that I have talked as I have done. No man situated as I am who loved +you could have talked otherwise." + +"Well, I have heard it all, weighed it all," said Nicolete, presently; +"and to me it is but as thistledown against the love within my heart. +Will you cast away a woman who loves you for theories? You know you +love me, know I love you. We should have our trials, our ups and +downs, I know; but surely it is by those that true love learns how to +grow more true and strong. Oh, I cannot argue! Tell me again, do you +love me?" + +And there she broke down and fell sobbing into my arms. I consoled her +as best I might, and presently she looked up at me through her tears. + +"Tell me again," she said, "that you love me, just as you did +yesterday, and promise never to speak of all those cruel things again. +Ah! have you thought of the kind of men you would give me up to?" + +At that I confess I shuddered, and I gave her the required assurance. + +"And you won't be wise and reasonable and ridiculous any more?" + +"No," I answered; adding in my mind, "not, at all events, for the +present." + + + +CHAPTER XI + +HOW ONE PLAYS THE HERO AT THIRTY + +Had we only been able to see a day into the future, we might have +spared ourselves this agonising, for all our doubts and fears were +suddenly dispersed in an entirely unexpected manner. Happily these +interior problems are not infrequently resolved by quite exterior +forces. + +We were sitting the following afternoon in one of those broad bay +windows such as one finds still in some old country inns, just thinking +about starting once more on our way, when suddenly Nicolete, who had +been gazing out idly into the road, gave a little cry. I followed her +glance. A carriage with arms on its panels had stopped at the inn, and +as a smart footman opened the door, a fine grey-headed military-looking +man stepped out and strode hurriedly up the inn steps. + +"Aucassin," gasped Nicolete, "it is my father!" + +It was too true. The old man's keen eye had caught sight of Nicolete +at the window also, and in another moment we were all three face to +face. I must do the Major-General the justice of saying that he made +as little of a "scene" of it as possible. + +"Now, my girl," he said, "I have come to put an end to this nonsense. +Have you a petticoat with you? Well, go upstairs and get it on. I +will wait for you here... On you, sir, I shall waste no words. From +what I have heard, you are as moonstruck as my daughter." + +"Of course," I stammered, "I cannot expect you to understand the +situation, though I think, if you would allow me, I could in a very few +words make it somewhat clearer,--make you realise that, after all, it +has been a very innocent and childish escapade, in which there has been +no harm and a great deal of pleasure--" + +But the Major-General cut me short. + +"I should prefer," he said, "not to discuss the matter. I may say that +I realise that my daughter has been safe in your hands, however +foolish,"--for this I thanked him with a bow,--"but I must add that +your eccentric acquaintance must end here--" + +I said him neither yea nor nay; and while we stood in armed and +embarrassed silence, Nicolete appeared with white face at the door, +clothed in her emergency petticoat. Alas! it was for no such emergency +as this that it had been destined that merry night when she had packed +it in her knapsack. With a stern bow her father turned from me to join +her; but she suddenly slipped past him, threw her arms round me, and +kissed me one long passionate kiss. + +"Aucassin, be true," she cried, "I will never forget you,--no one shall +come between us;" and then bursting into tears, she buried her face in +her hands and followed her father from the room. + +In another moment she had been driven away, and I sat as one stupefied +in the inn window. But a few short minutes ago she had been sitting +merrily prattling by my side, and now I was once more as lonely as if +we had never met. Presently I became conscious in my reverie of a +little crumpled piece of paper on the floor. I picked it up. It was a +little note pencilled in her bedroom at the last moment. "Aucassin," +it ran, just like her last passionate words, "be true. I will never +forget you. Stay here till I write to you, and oh, write to me soon!-- +Your broken-hearted Nicolete." + +As I read, I saw her lovely young face, radiant with love and sorrow as +I had last seen it, and pressing the precious little letter to my lips, +I said fervently, "Yes, Nicolete, I will be true." + + + +CHAPTER XII + +IN WHICH I REVIEW MY ACTIONS AND RENEW MY RESOLUTIONS + +No doubt the youthful reader will have but a poor opinion of me after +the last two chapters. He will think that in the scene with the +Major-General I acted with lamentably little spirit, and that generally +my friend Alastor would have proved infinitely more worthy of the +situation. It is quite true, I confess it. The whole episode was made +for Alastor. Nicolete and he were born for each other. Alas! it is +one of the many drawbacks of experience that it frequently prevents our +behaving with spirit. + +I must be content to appeal to the wiser and therefore sadder reader, +of whom I have but a poor opinion if he too fails to understand me. +He, I think, will understand why I didn't promptly assault the +Major-General, seize Nicolete by the waist, thrust her into her +ancestral carriage, haul the coachman from his box, and, seizing the +reins, drive away in triumph before astonishment had time to change +into pursuit. Truly it had been but the work of a moment, and there was +only one consideration which prevented my following this +now-I-call-that-heroic course. It is a consideration I dare hardly +venture to write, and the confession of which will, I know, necessitate +my changing my age back again to thirty on the instant. Oh, be +merciful, dear romantic reader! I didn't strike the Major-General, +because, oh, because I AGREED WITH HIM! + +I loved Nicolete, you must have felt that. She was sweet to me as the +bunch of white flowers that, in their frail Venetian vase, stand so +daintily on my old bureau as I write, doing their best to sweeten my +thoughts. Dear was she to me as the birds that out in the old garden +yonder sing and sing their best to lift up my leaden heart. She was +dear as the Spring itself, she was only less dear than Autumn. + +Yes, black confession! after the first passion of her loss, the +immediate ache of her young beauty had passed, and I was able to +analyse what I really felt, I not only agreed with him, I thanked God +for the Major-General! He had saved me from playing the terrible part +of executioner. He had just come in time to behead the Lady Jane Grey +of our dreams. + +I should have no qualms about tightening the rope round the neck of +some human monster, or sticking a neat dagger or bullet into a +dangerous, treacherous foe, but to kill a dream is a sickening +business. It goes on moaning in such a heart-breaking fashion, and you +never know when it is dead. All on a sudden some night it will come +wailing in the wind outside your window, and you must blacken your +heart and harden your face with another strangling grip of its slim +appealing throat, another blow upon its angel eyes. Even then it will +recover, and you will go on being a murderer, making for yourself day +by day a murderer's face, without the satisfaction of having really +murdered. + +But what of Nicolete? do you exclaim. Have you no thought for her, +bleeding her heart away in solitude? Can you so soon forget those +appealing eyes? Yes, I have thought for her. Would God that I could +bear for her those growing pains of the heart! and I shall never forget +those farewell eyes. But then, you see, I had firmly realised this, +that she would sooner recover from our separation than from our +marriage; that her love for me, pretty and poignant and dramatic while +it lasted, was a book-born, book-fed dream, which must die soon or +late,--the sooner the better for the peace of the dreams that in the +course of nature would soon spring up to take its place. + +But while I realised all this, and, with a veritable aching of the +heart at the loss of her, felt a curious satisfaction at the turn of +events, still my own psychology became all the more a puzzle to me, and +I asked myself, with some impatience, what I would be at, and what it +was I really wanted. + +Here had I but a few moments ago been holding in my hands the very +dream I had set out to find, and here was I secretly rejoicing to be +robbed of it! If Nicolete did not fulfil the conditions of that +mystical Golden Girl, in professed search for whom I had set out that +spring morning, well, the good genius of my pilgrimage felt it time to +resign. Better give it up at once, and go back to my books and my +bachelorhood, if I were so difficult to please. No wonder my kind +providence felt provoked. It had provided me with the sweetest +pink-and-porcelain dream of a girl, and might reasonably have concluded +that his labours on my behalf were at an end. + +But, really, there is no need to lecture me upon the charms and virtues +of Nicolete, for I loved them from the first moment of our strange +introduction, and I dream of them still. There was indeed only one +quality of womanhood in which she was lacking, and in which, after much +serious self-examination, I discovered the reason of my instinctive +self-sacrifice of her,--SHE HAD NEVER SUFFERED. As my heart had warned +me at the beginning, "she was hoping too much from life to spend one's +days with." She lacked the subtle half-tones of experience. She lacked +all that a pretty wrinkle or two might have given. There was no +shadowy melancholy in her sky-clear eyes. She was gay indeed, and had +a certain childish humour; but she had none of that humour which comes +of the resigned perception that the world is out of joint, and that you +were never born to set it right. These characteristics I had yet to +find in woman. There was still, therefore, an object to my quest. +Indeed my experience had provided me with a formula. I was in search +of a woman who, in addition to every other feminine charm and virtue, +was a woman who had suffered. + +With this prayer I turned once more to the genius of my pilgrimage. +"Grant me," I asked, "but this--A WOMAN WHO HAS SUFFERED!" and, +apparently as a consequence, he became once more quite genial. He +seemed to mean that a prayer so easy to grant would put any god into a +good temper; and possibly he smiled with a deeper meaning too. + + + + +BOOK III + + + +CHAPTER I + +IN WHICH I RETURN TO MY RIGHT AGE AND ENCOUNTER A COMMON OBJECT OF THE +COUNTRY + +And so when the days of my mourning for Nicolete were ended (and in +this sentence I pass over letters to and fro,--letters wild from +Nicolete, letters wise from Aucassin, letters explanatory and +apologetic from the Obstacle--how the Major-General had suddenly come +home quite unexpectedly and compelled her to explain Nicolete's +absence, etc., etc. Dear Obstacle! I should rather have enjoyed a +pilgrimage with her too)--I found myself one afternoon again upon the +road. The day had been very warm and dusty, and had turned sleepy +towards tea-time. + +I had now pretty clearly in my mind what I wanted. This time it was, +all other things equal, to be "a woman who had suffered," and to this +end, I had, before starting out once more, changed my age back again at +the inn and written "Aetat. 30" after my name in the visitors' book. +As a young man I was an evident failure, and so, having made the +countersign, I was speedily transformed to my old self; and I must say +that it was a most comfortable feeling, something like getting back +again into an old coat or an old pair of shoes. I never wanted to be +young again as long as I lived. Youth was too much like the Sunday +clothes of one's boyhood. Moreover, I had a secret conviction that the +woman I was now in search of would prefer one who had had some +experience at being a man, who would bring her not the green plums of +his love, but the cunningly ripened nectarines, a man to whom love was +something of an art as well as an inspiration. + +It was in this frame of mind that I came upon the following scene. + +The lane was a very cloistral one, with a ribbon of gravelly road, +bordered on each side with a rich margin of turf and a scramble of +blackberry bushes, green turf banks and dwarf oak-trees making a rich +and plenteous shade. My attention was caught firstly by a bicycle +lying carelessly on the turf, and secondly and lastly by a graceful +woman's figure, recumbent and evidently sleeping against the turf bank, +well tucked in among the afternoon shadows. My coming had not aroused +her, and so I stole nearer to her on tiptoe. + +She was a pretty woman, of a striking modern type, tall, +well-proportioned, strong, I should say, with a good complexion that +had evidently been made just a little better. But her most striking +feature was an opulent mass of dark red hair, which had fallen in some +disorder and made quite a pillow for her head. Her hat was off, lying +in its veil by her side, and a certain general abandon of her +figure,--which was clothed in a short cloth skirt, cut with that +unmistakable touch which we call style--betokened weariness that could +no longer wait for rest. + +Poor child! she was tired out. She must never be left to sleep on +there, for she seemed good to sleep till midnight. + +I turned to her bicycle, and, examining it with the air of a man who +had won silver cups in his day, I speedily discovered what had been the +mischief. The tire of the front wheel had been pierced, and a great +thorn was protruding from the place. Evidently this had been too much +for poor Rosalind, and it was not unlikely that she had cried herself +to sleep. + +I bent over her to look--yes, there were traces of tears. Poor thing! +Then I had a kindly human impulse. I would mend the tire, having +attended ambulance classes, do it very quietly so that she wouldn't +hear, like the fairy cobblers who used to mend people's boots while +they slept, and then wait in ambush to watch the effect upon her when +she awoke. + +What do you think of the idea? + +But one important detail I have omitted from my description of the +sleeper. Her left hand lay gloveless, and of the four rings on her +third finger one was a wedding-ring. + +"Such red hair,--and a wedding-ring!" I exclaimed inwardly. "How this +woman must have suffered!" + + + +CHAPTER II + +IN WHICH I HEAL A BICYCLE AND COME TO THE WHEEL OF PLEASURE + +Moving the bicycle a little away, so that my operations upon it might +not arouse her, I had soon made all right again, and when I laid it +once more where she had left it, she was still sleeping as sound as +ever. She had only to sleep long enough, a sly thought suggested, to +necessitate her ending her day's journey at the same inn as myself, +some five miles on the road. One virtue at least the reader will allow +to this history,--we are seldom far away from an inn in its pages. +When I thought of that I sat stiller than ever, hardly daring to turn +over the pages of Apuleius, which I had taken from my knapsack to +beguile the time, and, I confess, to give my eyes some other occupation +than the dangerous one of gazing upon her face, dangerous in more ways +than one, but particularly dangerous at the moment, because, as +everybody knows, a steady gaze on a sleeping face is apt to awake the +sleeper. And she wasn't to be disturbed! + +"No! she mustn't waken before seven at the latest," I said to myself, +holding my breath and starting in terror at every noise. Once a great +noisy bee was within an ace of waking her, but I caught him with +inspired dexterity, and he buzzed around her head no more. + +But despite the providential loneliness of the road, there were one or +two terrors that could not be disposed of so summarily. The worst of +all was a heavy miller's cart which one could hardly crush to silence +in one's handkerchief; but it went so slowly, and both man and horses +were so sleepy, that they passed unheard and unnoticing. + +A sprightly tramp promised greater difficulty, and nothing but some +ferocious pantomime and a shilling persuaded him to forego a choice +fantasia of cockney humour. + +A poor tired Italian organ-grinder, tramping with an equally tired +monkey along the dusty roads, had to be bought off in a similar +manner,--though he only cost sixpence. He gave me a Southern smile and +shrug of comprehension, as one acquainted with affairs of the +heart,--which was a relief after the cockney tramp's impudent +expression of, no doubt, a precisely similar sentiment. + +And then at last, just as my watch pointed to 6.50 (how well I remember +the exact moment!) Rosalind awoke suddenly, as women and children do, +sitting straight up on the instant, and putting up her hands to her +tousled hair, with a half-startled "Where am I?" When her hair was +once more "respectable," she gave her skirts a shake, bent sideways to +pull up her stockings and tighten her garters, looked at her watch, and +then with an exclamation at the lateness of the hour, went over, with +an air of desperate determination, to her bicycle. + +"Now for this horrid puncture!" were the first words I was to hear fall +from her lips. + +She sought for the wound in the india-rubber with growing bewilderment. + +"Goodness!" was her next exclamation, "why, there's nothing wrong with +it. Can I have been dreaming?" + +"I hope your dreams have been pleasanter than that," I ventured at this +moment to stammer, rising, a startling apparition, from my ambush +behind a mound of brambles; and before she had time to take in the +situation I added that I hoped she'd excuse my little pleasantry, and +told her how I had noticed her and the wounded bicycle, et cetera, et +cetera, as the reader can well imagine, without giving me the trouble +of writing it all out. + +She was sweetness itself on the instant. + +"Excuse you!" she said, "I should think so. Who wouldn't? You can't +tell the load you've taken off my mind. I'm sure I must have groaned +in my sleep--for I confess I cried myself to sleep over it." + +"I thought so," I said with gravity, and eyes that didn't dare to smile +outright till they had permission, which, however, was not long +withheld them. + +"How did you know?" + +"Oh, intuition, of course--who wouldn't have cried themselves to sleep, +and so tired too!" + +"You're a nice sympathetic man, anyhow," she laughed; "what a pity you +don't bicycle!" + +"Yes," I said, "I would give a thousand pounds for a bicycle at this +moment." + +"You ought to get a good one for that," she laughed,--"all bright parts +nickel, I suppose; indeed, you should get a real silver frame and gold +handle-bars for that, don't you think? Well, it would be nice all the +same to have your company a few miles, especially as it's growing +dark," she added. + +"Especially as it's growing dark," I repeated. + +"You won't be going much farther to-night. Have you fixed on your +inn?" I continued innocently. She had--but that was in a town too far +to reach to-night, after her long sleep. + +"You might have wakened me," she said. + +"Yes, it was stupid of me not to have thought of it," I answered, +offering no explanation of the dead bee which at the moment I espied a +little away in the grass, and saying nothing of the merry tramp and the +melancholy musician. + +Then we talked inns, and thus she fell beautifully into the pit which I +had digged for her; and it was presently arranged that she should ride +on to the Wheel of Pleasure and order a dinner, which she was to do me +the honour of sharing with me. + +I was to follow on foot as speedily as might be, and it was with a high +heart that I strode along the sunset lanes, hearing for some time the +chiming of her bell in front of me, till she had wheeled it quite out +of hearing, and it was lost in the distance. + +I never did a better five miles in my life. + + + +CHAPTER III + +TWO TOWN MICE AT A COUNTRY INN. + +When I reached the Wheel of Pleasure, I found Rosalind awaiting me in +the coffee-room, looking fresh from a traveller's toilette, and with +the welcome news that dinner was on the way. By the time I had washed +off the day's dust it was ready, and a merry meal it proved. Rosalind +had none of Alastor's objections to the wine-list, so we drank an +excellent champagne; and as there seemed to be no one in the hotel but +ourselves, we made ourselves at home and talked and laughed, none +daring to make us afraid. + +At first, on sitting down to table, we had grown momentarily shy, with +one of those sudden freaks of self-consciousness which occasionally +surprise one, when, midway in some slightly unconventional situation to +which the innocence of nature has led us, we realise it--"for an +instant and no more." + +Positively, I think that in the embarrassment of that instant I had +made some inspired remark to Rosalind about the lovely country which +lay dreamy in the afterglow outside our window. Oh, yes, I remember the +very words. They were "What a heavenly landscape!" or something +equally striking. + +"Yes," Rosalind had answered, "it is almost as beautiful as the Strand!" + +If I'd known her better, I should have exclaimed, "You dear!" and I +think it possible that I did say something to that effect,--perhaps +"You dear woman!" At all events, the veil of self-consciousness was +rent in twain at that remark, and our spirits rushed together at this +touch of London nature thus unexpectedly revealed. + +London! I hadn't realised till this moment how I had been missing it +all these days of rustication, and my heart went out to it with a vast +homesickness. + +"Yes! the Strand," I repeated tenderly, "the Strand--at night!" + +"Indeed, yes! what is more beautiful in the whole world?" she joined in +ardently. + +"The wild torrents of light, the passionate human music, the hansoms, +the white shirts and shawled heads, the theatres--" + +"Don't speak of them or you'll make me cry," said Rosalind. + +"The little suppers after the theatre--" + +"Please don't," she cried, "it is cruel;" and I saw that her eyes were +indeed glistening with tears. + +"But, of course," I continued, to give a slight turn aside in our talk, +"it is very wrong of us to have such sophisticated tastes. We ought to +love these lonely hills and meadows far more. The natural man revels in +solitude, and wants no wittier company than birds and flowers. +Wordsworth made a constant companion of a pet daisy. He seldom went +abroad without one or two trotting at his side, and a skylark would +keep Shelley in society for a week." + +"But they were poets," retorted Rosalind; "you don't call poets +natural. Why, they are the most unnatural of men. The natural person +loves the society of his kind, whereas the poet runs away from it." + +"Well, of course, there are poets and poets, poets sociable and poets +very unsociable. Wordsworth made the country, but Lamb made the town; +and there is quite a band of poets nowadays who share his distaste for +mountains, and take London for their muse. If you'll promise not to cry +again, I'll recall some lines by a friend of mine which were written +for town-tastes like ours. But perhaps you know them?" + +It will gratify my friend to learn that Rosalind had the verses I refer +to by heart, and started off humming,-- + + "Ah, London, London, our delight, + Great flower that opens but at night, + Great city of the midnight sun, + Whose day begins when day is done... + Like dragon-flies the hansoms hover + With jewelled eyes to catch the lover;" + +and so on, with a gusto of appreciation that must have been very +gratifying to the author had he been present. + +Thus perceiving a taste for a certain modern style of poetry in my +companion, I bethought me of a poem which I had written on the roadside +a few days before, and which, I confess, I was eager to confide to some +sympathetic ear. I was diffident of quoting it after such lines as +Rosalind had recalled, but by the time we had reached our coffee, I +plucked up courage to mention it. I had, however, the less diffidence +in that it would have a technical interest for her, being indeed no +other than a song of cycling a deux which had been suggested by one of +those alarmist danger-posts always placed at the top of the pleasantest +hills, sternly warning the cyclist that "this hill is dangerous,"--just +as in life there is always some minatory notice-board frowning upon us +in the direction we most desire to take. + +But I omit further preface and produce the poem:-- + + "This hill is dangerous," I said, + As we rode on together + Through sunny miles and sunny miles + Of Surrey heather; + "This hill is dangerous--don't you think + We'd better walk it?" + "Or sit it out--more danger still!" + She smiled--"and talk it?" + + "Are you afraid?" she turned and cried + So very brave and sweetly,-- + Oh that brave smile that takes the heart + Captive completely! + + "Afraid?" I said, deep in her eyes + Recklessly gazing; + "For you I'd ride into the sun + And die all blazing!" + + "I never yet saw hill," I said, + "And was afraid to take it; + I never saw a foolish law, + And feared to break it. + Who fears a hill or fears a law + With you beside him? + Who fears, dear star, the wildest sea + With you to guide him?" + + Then came the hill--a cataract, + A dusty swirl, before us; + The world stood round--a village world-- + In fearful chorus. + Sure to be killed! Sure to be killed! + O fools, how dare ye! + Sure to be killed--and serve us right! + Ah! love, but were we? + + The hill was dangerous, we knew, + And knew that we must take it; + The law was strong,--that too we knew + Yet dared to break it. + And those who'd fain know how we fared + Follow and find us, + Safe on the hills, with all the world + Safely behind us. + + +Rosalind smiled as I finished. "I'm afraid," she said, "the song is as +dangerous as the hill. Of course it has more meanings than one?" + +"Perhaps two," I assented. + +"And the second more important than the first." + +"Maybe," I smiled; "however, I hope you like it." + +Rosalind was very reassuring on that point, and then said musingly, as +if half to herself, "But that hill is dangerous, you know; and young +people would do well to pay attention to the danger-board!" + +Her voice shook as she spoke the last two or three words, and I looked +at her in some surprise. + +"Yes, I know it," she added, her voice quite broken; and before I +realised what was happening, there she was with her beautiful head down +upon the table, and sobbing as if her heart would break. + +"Forgive me for being such a fool," she managed to wring out. + +Now, usually I never interrupt a woman when she is crying, as it only +encourages her to continue; but there was something so unexpected and +mysterious about Rosalind's sudden outburst that it was impossible not +to be sympathetic. I endeavoured to soothe her with such words as +seemed fitting; and as she was crying because she really couldn't help +it, she didn't cry long. + +These tears proved, what certain indications of manner had already +hinted to me, that Rosalind was more artless than I had at first +supposed. She was a woman of the world, in that she lived in it, and +loved its gaieties, but there was still in her heart no little of the +child, as is there not in the hearts of all good women--or men? + +And this you will realise when I tell you the funny little story which +she presently confided to me as the cause of her tears. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MARRIAGE A LA MODE + +For Rosalind was no victim of the monster man, as you may have supposed +her, no illustration of his immemorial perfidies. On the contrary, she +was one half of a very happy marriage, and, in a sense, her sufferings +at the moment were merely theoretical, if one may so describe the +sufferings caused by a theory. But no doubt the reader would prefer a +little straightforward narrative. + +Well, Rosalind and Orlando, as we may as well call them, are two newly +married young people who've been married, say, a year, and who find +themselves at the end of it loving each other more than at the +beginning,--for you are to suppose two of the tenderest, most devoted +hearts that ever beat as one. However, they are young people of the +introspective modern type, with a new theory for everything. + +About marriage and the law of happiness in that blessed estate, they +boasted the latest philosophical patents. To them, among other +matters, the secret of unhappy marriages was as simple as can be. It +was in nothing more or less than the excessive "familiarity" of +ordinary married life, and the lack of personal freedom allowed both +parties to the contract. Thus love grew commonplace, and the unhappy +ones to weary of each other by excessive and enforced association. +This was obvious enough, and the remedy as obvious,--separate bedrooms, +and a month's holiday in each year to be spent apart (notoriously all +people of quality had separate bedrooms, and see how happy they were!). +These and similar other safeguards of individual liberty they had in +mock-earnest drawn up and signed on their marriage eve, as a sort of +supplemental wedding service. + +It would not be seemly to inquire how far certain of these conditions +had been kept,--how often, for example, Orlando's little hermit's bed +had really needed remaking during those twelve months! Answer, ye +birds of the air that lie in your snug nests, so close, so close, +through the tender summer nights, and maybe with two or three little +ones besides,--unless, indeed, ye too have felt the influence of the +Zeit-geist, and have taken to sleeping in separate nests. + +The condition with which alone we have here to concern ourselves was +one which provided that each of the two lovers, hereafter to be called +the husband of the one part and the wife of the other part, solemnly +bound themselves to spend one calendar month of each year out of each +other's society, with full and free liberty to spend it wheresoever, +with whomsoever, and howsoever they pleased; and that this condition +was rigidly to be maintained, whatever immediate effort it might cost, +as the parties thereto believed that so would their love the more +likely maintain an enduring tenderness and an unwearied freshness. And +to this did Orlando and his Rosalind set their hands and hearts and +lips. + +Now, wisdom is all very well till the time comes to apply it; and as +that month of June approached in which they had designed to give their +love a holiday, they had found their courage growing less and less. +Their love didn't want a holiday; and when Orlando had referred to the +matter during the early days of May, Rosalind had burst into tears, and +begged him to reconsider a condition which they had made before they +really knew what wedded love was. But Orlando, though in tears himself +(so Rosalind averred), had a higher sense of their duty to their ideal, +and was able, though in tears, to beg her look beyond the moment, and +realise what a little self-denial now might mean in the years to come. +They hadn't kept any other of their resolutions,--thus Rosalind let it +out!--this must be kept. + +And thus it had come about that Orlando had gone off for his month's +holiday with a charming girl, who, with the cynic, will no doubt +account for his stern adherence to duty; and Rosalind had gone off for +hers with a pretty young man whom she'd liked well enough to go to the +theatre and to supper with,--a young man who was indeed a dear friend, +and a vivacious, sympathetic companion, but whom, as a substitute for +Orlando, she immediately began to hate. Such is the female heart! + +The upshot of the experiment, so far as she was concerned, was that she +had quarrelled with her companion, and had gone off in search of her +husband, on which search she was embarked at the moment of my +encountering her. The tears, therefore,--that is, the first lot of +tears by the roadside,--had not been all on account of the injured +bicycle, you see. + +Now the question was, How had Orlando been getting on? I had an +intuition that in his case the experiment had proved more enjoyable, +but I am not one to break the bruised reed by making such a suggestion. +On the contrary, I expressed my firm conviction that Orlando was +probably even more miserable than she was. + +"Do you really think so?" she asked eagerly, her poor miserable face +growing bright a moment with hope and gratitude. + +"Undoubtedly," I answered sententiously. "To put the case on the most +general principles, apart from Orlando's great love for you, it is an +eternal truth of masculine sentiment that man always longs for the +absent woman." + +"Are you quite sure?" asked Rosalind, with an unconvinced half-smile. + +"Absolutely." + +"I thought," she continued, "that it was just the other way about; that +it was presence and not absence that made the heart of man grow fonder, +and that if a man's best girl, so to say, was away, he was able to make +himself very comfortable with his second-best!" + +"In some cases, of course, it's true," I answered, unmoved; "but with a +love like yours and Orlando's, it's quite different." + +"Oh, do you really mean it?" + +"Certainly I do; and your mistake has been in supposing that an +experiment which no few every-day married couples would be only too +glad to try, was ever meant for two such love-birds as you. Laws and +systems are meant for the unhappy and the untractable, not for people +like you, for whom Love makes its own laws." + +"Yes, that is what we used to say; and indeed, we thought that this was +one of love's laws,--this experiment, as you call it." + +"But it was quite a mistake," I went on in my character as matrimonial +oracle. "Love never made a law so cruel, a law that would rob true +lovers of each other's society for a whole month in a year, stretching +them on the rack of absence--" There my period broke down, so I began +another less ambitiously planned. + +"A whole month in a year! Think what that would mean in a lifetime. +How long do you expect to live and love together? Say another fifty +years at the most. Well, fifty ones are fifty. Fifty months +equal--four twelves are forty-eight and two over--four years and two +months. Yes, out of the short life God allows even for the longest +love you would voluntarily throw away four years and two months!" + +This impressive calculation had a great effect on poor Rosalind; and it +is a secondary matter that it and its accompanying wisdom may have less +weight with the reader, as for the moment Rosalind was my one concern. + +"But, of course, we have perfect trust in each other," said Rosalind +presently, with charming illogicality. + +"No doubt," I said; "but Love, like a good householder (ahem!), does +well not to live too much on trust." + +"But surely love means perfect trust," said Rosalind. + +"Theoretically, yes; practically, no. On the contrary, it means +exactly the opposite. Trust, perfect trust, with loved ones far away! +No, it is an inhuman ideal, and the more one loves the less one lives +up to it. If not, what do these tears mean?" + +"Oh, no!" Rosalind retorted, with a flush, "you mustn't say that. I +trust Orlando absolutely. It isn't that; it's simply that I can't bear +to be away from him." + +What women mean by "trusting" might afford a subject for an interesting +disquisition. However, I forbore to pursue the matter, and answered +Rosalind's remark in a practical spirit. + +"Well, then," I said, "if that's all, the thing to do is to find +Orlando, tell him that you cannot bear it, and spend the rest of your +holiday, you and he, together." + +"That's what I thought," said Rosalind. + +"Unfortunately," I continued, "owing to your foolish arrangement not to +tell each other where you were going and not to write, as being +incompatible with Perfect Trust, you don't know where Orlando is at the +present moment." + +"No; but I have a good guess," said Rosalind. "There's a smart little +watering-place, not so many miles from here, called Yellowsands, a sort +of secret little Monaco, which not many people know of, a +wicked-innocent gay little place, where we've often talked of going. I +think it's very likely that Orlando has gone there; and that's just +where I was going when we met." + +I will tell the reader more about Yellowsands in the next chapter. +Meanwhile, let us complete Rosalind's arrangements. The result of our +conversation was that she was to proceed to Yellowsands on the morrow, +and that I was to follow as soon as possible, so as to be available +should she chance to need any advice, and at all events to give myself +the pleasure of meeting her again. + +This arranged, we said good-night, Rosalind with ever such a +brightened-up face, of which I thought for half an hour and then fell +asleep to dream of Yellowsands. + + + +CHAPTER V + +CONCERNING THE HAVEN OF YELLOWSANDS + +On the morrow, at the peep of day, Rosalind was off to seek her lord. +An hour or so after I started in leisurely pursuit. + +Yellowsands! I had heard in a vague way of the place, as a whim of a +certain young nobleman who combined brains with the pursuit of +pleasure. Like most ideas, it was simple enough when once conceived. +Any one possessing a mile or two of secluded seaboard, cut off on the +land side by precipitous approaches, and including a sheltered river +mouth ingeniously hidden by nature, in the form of a jutting wall of +rock, from the sea, might have made as good use of these natural +opportunities as the nobleman in question, had they only been as wise +and as rich. William Blake proposed to rebuild Jerusalem in this green +and pleasant land. My lord proposed to erect a miniature Babylon amid +similar pleasant surroundings, a little dream-city by the sea, a home +for the innocent pleasure-seeker stifled by the puritanism of the great +towns, refugium peccatorum in this island of the saints. + +"Once it was the Puritan Fathers who left our coasts," he is recorded +to have said; "nowadays it is our Prodigal Sons." + +No doubt it was in further elaboration of this aphorism that the little +steamboat that sailed every other day from Yellowsands to the beckoning +shores of France was called "the Mayflower." + +My lord's plan had been simple. By the aid of cunning architects he +had first blasted his harbour into shape, then built his hotels and +pleasure-palaces, and then leased them to dependants of his who knew +the right sort of people, and who knew that it was as much as their +lease was worth to find accommodation for teetotal amateur +photographers or wistful wandering Sunday-school treats. As, +unfortunately, the Queen's highway ran down in tortuous descent to the +handful of fishermen's cottages that had clung there limpet-like for +ages, there was always a chance of such a stray visitation; but it was +remote, and the whole place, hand and heart, was in the pocket of my +lord. + +So much to give the reader some idea of the secret watering-place of +Yellowsands, situated at the mouth of that romantic little torrent, the +river Sly. Such further description as may be needed may be kept till +we come within sight of its gilded roofs and marble terraces. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE MOORLAND OF THE APOCALYPSE + +I reckoned that it would take me two or three days, leisurely walking, +to reach Yellowsands. Rosalind would, of course, arrive there long +before me; but that I did not regret, as I was in a mood to find +company in my own thoughts. + +Her story gave me plenty to think of. I dwelt particularly on the +careless extravagance of the happy. Here were two people to whom life +had given casually what I was compelled to go seeking lonely and +footsore through the world, and with little hope of finding it at the +end; and yet were they so little aware of their good fortune as to risk +it over a trumpery theory, a shadow of pseudo-philosophy. Out of the +deep dark ocean of life Love had brought them his great moon-pearl, and +they sat on the boat's edge carelessly tossing it from one to the +other, unmindful of the hungry fathoms on every side. A sudden slip, +and they had lost it for ever, and might only watch its shimmering fall +to the bottom of the world. Theories! Theories are for the unknown and +the unhappy. Who will trouble to theorise about Heaven when he has +found Heaven itself? Theories are for the poor-devil outcast,--for him +who stands outside the confectioner's shop of life without a penny in +his pocket, while the radiant purchasers pass in and out through the +doors,--for him who watches with wistful eyes this and that sugared +marvel taken out of the window by mysterious hands, to bless some happy +customer inside. He is not fool enough even to hope for one of those +glistering masterpieces of frosted sugar and silk flowers, which rise +to pinnacles of snowy sweetness, white mountains of blessedness, rich +inside, they say, with untold treasures for the tooth that is sweet. +No! he craves nothing but a simple Bath-bun of happiness, and even that +is denied him. + +Would I ever find my Bath-bun? I disconsolately asked myself. I had +been seeking it now for some little time, and seemed no nearer than +when I set out. I had seen a good many Bath-buns on my pilgrimage, it +is true. Some I have not had space to confide to the reader; but +somehow or other they had not seemed the unmistakably predestined for +which I was seeking. + +And oh, how I could love a girl, if she would only give me the +chance,--that is, be the right girl! Oh, Sylvia Joy! where art thou? +Why so long dost thou remain hidden "in shady leaves of destiny"? + + + "Seest thou thy lover lowly laid, + Hear'st thou the sighs that rend his breast?" + + +And then, as the novelists say, "a strange thing happened." + +The road I was tramping at the moment was somewhat desolate. It ran up +from a small market town through a dreary undulating moorland, forking +off here and there to unknown villages of which the horizon gave no +hint. Its cheerless hillocks were all but naked of vegetation, for a +never very flourishing growth of heather had recently been burnt right +down to the unkindly-looking earth, leaving a dwarf black forest of +charred sticks very grim to the eye and heart; while the dull surface +of a small lifeless-looking lake added the final touch to the Dead-Sea +mournfulness of the prospect. + +Suddenly I became aware of the fluttering of a grey dress a little +ahead of me. Unconsciously I had been overtaking a tall young woman +walking in the same direction as myself, with a fine athletic carriage +of her figure and a noble movement of her limbs. + +She walked manfully, and as I neared her I could hear the sturdy ring +of her well-shod feet upon the road. There was an air of expectancy +about her walk, as though she looked to be met presently by some one +due from the opposite direction. + +It was curious that I had not noticed her before, for she must have +been in sight for some time. No doubt my melancholy abstraction +accounted for that, and perhaps her presence there was to be explained +by a London train which I had listlessly observed come in to the town +an hour before. This surmise was confirmed, as presently,--over the +brow of a distant undulation in the road, I descried a farmer's gig +driven by another young woman. The gig immediately hoisted a +handkerchief; so did my pedestrian. At this moment I was within a yard +or two of overtaking her. And it was then the strange thing happened. + +Distance had lent no enchantment which nearness did not a hundred times +repay. The immediate impression of strength and distinction which the +first glimpse of her had made upon me was more and more verified as I +drew closer to her. The carriage of her head was no whit less noble +than the queenly carriage of her limbs, and her glorious chestnut hair, +full of warm tints of gold, was massed in a sumptuous simplicity above +a neck that would have made an average woman's fortune. This glowing +description, however, must be lowered or heightened in tone by the +association of these characteristics with an undefinable simplicity of +mien, a certain slight rusticity of effect. The town spoke in her +well-cut gown and a few simple adornments, but the dryad still moved +inside. + +I suppose most men, even in old age, feel a certain anxiety, conscious +or not, as they overtake a woman whose back view is in the least +attractive. I confess that I felt a more than usual, indeed a quite +irrational, perturbation of the blood, as, coming level with her, I +dared to look into her face. As I did so she involuntarily turned to +look at me--turned to look at me, did I say? "To look" is a feeble +verb indeed to express the unexpected shock of beauty to which I was +suddenly exposed. I cannot describe her features, for somehow features +always mean little to me. They were certainly beautifully moulded, and +her skin was of a lovely pale olive, but the life of her face was in +her great violet eyes and her wonderful mouth. Thus suddenly to look +into her face was like unexpectedly to come upon moon and stars +reflected in some lonely pool. I suppose the look lasted only a second +or two; but it left me dazzled as that king in the Eastern tale, who +seemed to have lived whole dream-lives between dipping his head into a +bowl of water and taking it out again. Similarly in that moment I +seemed to have dived into this unknown girl's eyes, to have walked +through the treasure palaces of her soul, to have stood before the +flaming gates of her heart, to have gathered silver flowers in the +fairy gardens of her dreams. I had followed her white-robed spirit +across the moonlit meadows of her fancy, and by her side had climbed +the dewy ladder of the morning star, and then suddenly I had been +whirled up again to the daylight through the magic fountains of her +eyes. + +I'll tell you more about that look presently! Meanwhile the gig +approached, and the two girls exchanged affectionate greetings. + +"Tom hasn't come with you, then?" said the other girl, who was +evidently her sister, and who was considerably more rustic in style and +accent. She said it with a curious mixture of anxiety and relief. + +"No," answered the other simply, and I thought I noticed a slight +darkening of her face. Tom was evidently her husband. So she was +married! + +"Yes!" said a fussy hypocrite of reason within me, "and what's that to +do with you?" + +"Everything, you fool!" answered a robuster voice in my soul, kicking +the feeble creature clean out of my head on the instant. + +For, absurd as it may sound, with that look into those Arabian Nights' +eyes, had come somewhere out of space an overwhelming intuition, nay, +an unshakable conviction, that the woman who was already being rolled +away from me down the road in that Dis's car of a farmer's gig, was now +and for ever and before all worlds the woman God had created for me, +and that, unless I could be hers and she mine, there would be no home, +no peace for either of us so long as we lived. + +And yet she was being carried away further and further every moment, +while I gazed after her, aimlessly standing in the middle of the road. +Why did I not call to her, overtake her? In a few moments she would be +lost to me for ever-- + +Though I was unaware of it, this hesitation was no doubt owing to a +stealthy return of reason by the back-door of my mind. In fact, he +presently dared to raise his voice again. "I don't deny," he ventured, +ready any moment to flee for his life, "that she is written yours in +all the stars, and particularly do I see it written on the face of the +moon; but you mustn't forget that many are thus meant for each other +who never meet, not to speak of marrying. It is such contradictions +between the purposes and performance of the Creator that make +life--life; you'll never see her again, so make your mind easy--" + +At that moment the gig was on the point of turning a corner into a dark +pine-wood; but just ere it disappeared,--was it fancy?--I seemed to +have caught the flash of a momentarily fluttering handkerchief. "Won't +I? you fool!" I exclaimed, savagely smiting reason on the cheek, as I +sprang up wildly to wave mine; but the road was already blank. + +At this a sort of panic possessed me, and like a boy I raced down the +road after her. To lose her like this, at the very moment that she had +been revealed to me. It was more than I could bear. + +Past the dreary lake, through the little pine-wood I ran, and then I +was brought to a halt, panting, by cross-roads and a finger-post. An +involuntary memory of Nicolete sang to me as I read the quaint names of +the villages to one of which the Vision was certainly wending. Yes! I +was bound on one more journey to the moon, but alas! there was no +heavenly being by my side to point the way. Oh, agony, which was the +road she had taken? + +It never occurred to me till the following day that I might have been +able to track her by the wheel-marks of the gig on the dusty summer +road. Instead I desperately resorted to the time-honoured expedient of +setting up a stick and going in the direction of its fall. Like most +ancient guide-posts, it led me quite wrong, down into a pig's-trough of +a hamlet whither I felt sure she couldn't have been bound. Then I ran +back in a frenzy, and tried the other road,--as if it could be any use, +with at least three quarters of an hour gone since I had lost sight of +her. Of course I had no luck; and finally, hot and worn out with +absurd excitement, I threw myself down in a meadow and called myself an +ass,--which I undoubtedly was. + +For of all the fancies that had obsessed my moonstruck brain, this was +surely the maddest. Suppose I had overtaken the girl, what could I +have said to her? And, suppose she had listened to me, how did I know +she was the girl I imagined her to be? But this was sheer reason again, +and has no place in a fantastic romance. So I hasten to add that the +mood was one of brief duration, and that no cold-water arguments were +able to quench the fire which those eyes had set aflame within me, no +daylight philosophy had any power to dispel the dream of a face which +was now my most precious possession, as I once more took up my stick +and listlessly pursued my way to Yellowsands. + +For I had one other reason than my own infatuation, or thought I had. +Yes, brief and rapid as our glance at each other had been, I had +fancied in her eyes a momentary kindling as they met mine, a warm +summer-lightning which seemed for a second to light up for me the inner +heaven of her soul. + +Of one feeling, however, I was sure,--that on my side this apocalyptic +recognition of her, as it had seemed, was no mere passionate +correspondence of sex, no mere spell of a beautiful face (for such +passion and such glamour I had made use of opportunities to study), but +was indeed the flaming up of an elemental affinity, profounder than +sex, deeper than reason, and ages older than speech. + +But it was a fancy, for all that? Yes, one of those fancies that are +fancies on earth, but facts in heaven. Perhaps you don't believe in +them. Well, I'm afraid that cannot be helped. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +"COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS!" + +Nothing further happened to me till I reached Yellowsands, except an +exciting ride on the mail-coach, which connected it with the nearest +railway-station some twenty miles away. For the last three or four +miles the road ran along the extreme precipitous verge of cliffs that +sloped, a giant's wall of grassy mountain, right away down to a dreamy +amethystine floor of sea, miles and miles, as it seemed, below. To +ride on that coach, as it gallantly staggered betwixt earth and heaven, +was to know all the ecstasy of flying, with an added touch of danger, +which birds and angels, and others accustomed to fly, can never +experience. And then at length the glorious mad descent down three +plunging cataracts of rocky road, the exciting rattling of the harness, +the grinding of the strong brakes, the driver's soothing calls to his +horses, and the long burnished horn trailing wild music behind us, like +invisible banners of aerial brass,--oh, it stirred the dullest blood +amongst us thus as it were to tear down the sky towards the white roofs +of Yellowsands, glittering here and there among the clouds of trees +which filled the little valley almost to the sea's edge, while floating +up to us came soft strains of music, silken and caressing, as though +the sea itself sang us a welcome. Had you heard it from aboard the +Argo, you would have declared it to be the sirens singing, and it would +have been found necessary to lash you to the mast. But there were no +masts to lash you to in Yellowsands--and of the sirens it is not yet +time to speak. + +It was the golden end of afternoon as the coach stopped in front of the +main hotel, The Golden Fortune; and for the benefit of any with not too +long purses who shall hereafter light on Yellowsands, and be alarmed at +the name and the marble magnificence of that delightful hotel, I may +say that the charges there were surprisingly "reasonable," owing to one +other wise provision of the young lord and master of that happy place, +who had had the wit to realise that the nicest and brightest and +prettiest people were often the poorest. Yellowsands, therefore, was +carried on much like a club, to which you had only to be the right sort +of person to belong. I was relieved to find that the hotel people +evidently considered me the right sort of person, and didn't take me +for a Sunday-school treat,--for presently I found myself in a charming +little corner bedroom, whence I could survey the whole extent of the +little colony of pleasure. The Golden Fortune was curiously situated, +perched at the extreme sea-end of a little horse-shoe bay hollowed out +between two headlands, the points of which approached each other so +closely that the river Sly had but a few yards of rocky channel through +which to pour itself into the sea. The Golden Fortune, therefore, +backed by towering woodlands, looked out to sea at one side, across to +the breakwater headland on another, and on its land side commanded a +complete view of the gay little haven, with its white houses built +terrace on terrace upon its wooded slopes, connected by flights of +zigzag steps, by which the apparently inaccessible shelves and +platforms circulated their gay life down to the gay heart of the +place,--the circular boulevard, exquisitely leafy and cool, where one +found the great casino and the open-air theatre, the exquisite +orchestra, into which only the mellowest brass and the subtlest strings +were admitted, and the Cafe du Ciel, charmingly situated among the +trees, where the boulevard became a bridge, for a moment, at the mouth +of the river Sly. Here one might gaze up the green rocky defile through +which the Sly made pebbly music, and through which wound romantic walks +and natural galleries, where far inland you might wander + + "From dewy dawn to dewy night, + And have one with you wandering," + +or where you might turn and look across the still lapping harbour, out +through the little neck of light between the headlands to the +shimmering sea beyond,--your ears filled with a melting tide of sweet +sounds, the murmur of the streams and the gentle surging of the sea, +the rippling of leaves, the soft restless whisper of women's gowns, and +the music of their vowelled voices. It was here I found myself sitting +at sunset, alone, but so completely under the spell of the place that I +needed no companion. The place itself was companion enough. The +electric fairy lamps had popped alight; and as the sun sank lower, +Yellowsands seemed like a glowing crown of light floating upon the +water. + +I had as yet failed to catch any sight of Rosalind; so I sat alone, and +so far as I had any thoughts or feelings, beyond a consciousness of +heavenly harmony with my surroundings, they were for that haunting +unknown face with the violet eyes and the heavy chestnut hair. + +Presently, close by, the notes of a guitar came like little gold +butterflies out of the twilight, and then a woman's voice rose like a +silver bird on the air. It was a gay wooing measure to which she sang. +I listened with ears and heart. "All ye," it went,-- + + All ye who seek for pleasure, + Here find it without measure-- + No one to say + A body nay, + And naught but love and leisure. + + All ye who seek forgetting, + Leave frowns and fears and fretting, + Here by the sea + Are fair and free + To give you peace and petting. + + All ye whose hearts are breaking + For somebody forsaking, + We'll count you dear, + And heal you here, + And send you home love-making." + + +"Bravo!" I cried involuntarily, as the song ended amid multitudinous +applause; and I thus attracted the attention of another who sat near me +as lonely as myself, but evidently quite at home in the place. + +"You haven't heard our sirens sing before?" he said, turning to me with +a pleasant smile, and thus we fell into talk of the place and its +pleasures. + +"There's one feature of the place I might introduce you to if you care +for a stroll," he said presently. "Have you heard of The Twelve +Golden-Haired Bar-maids?" I hadn't, but the fantastic name struck my +fancy. It was, he explained, the name given to a favourite buffet at +the Hotel Aphrodite, which was served by twelve wonderful girls, not +one under six feet in height, and all with the most glorious golden +hair. It was a whim of the management, he said. + +So, of course, we went. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE TWELVE GOLDEN-HAIRED BAR-MAIDS. + +Now it was not without some boyish nervousness that I followed my newly +made friend, for I confess that I have ever been a poor hand at talking +to bar-maids. It is, I am convinced, an art apart, an art like any +other,--needing first the natural gift, then the long patient training, +and finally the courageous practice. Alas for me, I possessed neither +gift, training, nor courage. Courage I lacked most of all. It was in +vain that I said to myself that it was like swimming,--all that was +needed was "confidence." That was the very thing I couldn't muster. No +doubt I am handicapped by a certain respectful homage which I always +feel involuntarily to any one in the shape of woman, for anything +savouring of respect is the last thing to win the bar-maid heart +divine. The man to win her is he who calls loudly for his drink, +without a "Please" or a "Thank you," throws his hat at the back of his +head, gulps down half his glass, and, while drawing breath for the +other half, takes a hard, indifferent look at her, and in an off-hand +voice throws her some fatuous, mirthless jest. + +Now, I've never been able to do this in the convincing grand manner of +the British male; and whatever I have said, the effect has been the +same. I've talked about theatres and music-halls, of events of the +day, I've even--Heaven help me--talked of racing and football, but I +might as well have talked of Herbert Spencer. I suppose I didn't talk +about them in the right way. I'm sure it must be my fault somewhere, +for certainly they seem easy enough to please, poor things! However, my +failure remains, and sometimes even I find it extremely hard to attract +their attention in the ordinary way of business. I don't mind my +neighbour being preferred before me, but I do object to his being +served before me! + +So, I say, I couldn't but tremble at the vision of those golden-haired +goddesses, standing with immobile faces by their awful altars. Indeed, +had I realised how superbly impressive they were going to be, I think I +must have declined the adventure altogether,--for, robed in lustrous +ivory-white linen were those figures of undress marble, the wealth of +their glorious bodies pressing out into bosoms magnificent as magnolias +(nobler lines and curves Greece herself has never known), towering in +throats of fluted alabaster, and flowering in coiffures of imperial +gold. + +Nor was their temple less magnificent. To make it fair, Ruskin had +relit the seven lamps of architecture, and written the seven labours of +Hercules; for these windows through a whole youth Burne Jones had +worshipped painted glass at Oxford, and to breathe romance into these +frescos had Rossetti been born, and Dante born again. Men had gone to +prison and to death that this temple of Whiskey-and-Soda might be fair. + +Strange, in truth, are the ministrations to which Beauty is called. +Out of the high heaven is she summoned, from mystic communion with her +own perfection, from majestic labours in the Sistine Chapel of the +Stars,--yea, she must put aside her gold-leaf and purples and leave +unfinished the very panels of the throne of God,--that Circe shall have +her palace, and her worshippers their gilded sty. + +As there were at least a score of "worshippers" round each Circe, my +nervousness became unimportant, and therefore passed. Thus, as my +companion and I sat at one of the little tables, from which we might +gaze upon the sea without and Aphrodite within, my eyes were able to +fly like bees from one fair face to another. Finally, they settled upon +a Circe less besieged of the hoarse and grunting mob. She was +conspicuously less in height, her hair was rather bright red than +golden, and her face had more meanings than the faces of her fellows. + +"Why," in a flash it came to me, "it's Rosalind!" and clean forgetting +to be shy, or polite to my companion, I hastened across to her, to be +greeted instantly in a manner so exclusively intimate that the little +crowd about her presently spread itself among the other crowds, and we +were left to talk alone. + +"Well," I said, "you're a nice girl! Whatever are you doing here?" + +"Yes, I'm afraid you'll have but a strange opinion of me," she said; +"but I love all experience,--it's such fun,--and when I heard that +there was a sudden vacancy for a golden-haired beauty in this place, I +couldn't resist applying, and to my surprise they took me--and here I +am! Of course I shall only stay till Orlando appears--which," she +added mournfully--"he hasn't done yet." + +Her hours were long and late, but she had two half-days free in the +week, and for these of course I engaged myself. + +Meanwhile I spent as much time as I decently could at her side; but it +was impossible to monopolise her, and the rest of my time there was no +difficulty in filling up, you may be sure, in so gay a place. + +Two or three nights after this, a little before dinner-time, while I +was standing talking to her, she suddenly went very white, and in a +fluttering voice gasped, "Look yonder!" I looked. A rather slight +dark-haired young man was entering the bar, with a very stylish pretty +woman at his side. As they sat down and claimed the waiter, some +distance away, Rosalind whispered, "That's my husband!" + +"Oh!" I said; "but that's no reason for your fainting. Pull yourself +together. Take a drop of brandy." But woman will never take the most +obvious restorative, and Rosalind presently recovered without the +brandy. She looked covertly at her husband, with tragic eyes. + +"He's much younger than I imagined him," I said,--reserving for myself +the satisfaction which this discovery had for me. + +"Oh, yes, he's really quite a boy," said Rosalind; adding under her +breath, "Dear fellow! how I love him!" + +"And hate him too!" she superadded, as she observed his evident +satisfaction with his present lot. Indeed the experiment appeared to +be working most successfully with him; nor, looking at his companion, +could I wonder. She was a sprightly young woman, very smart and merry +and decorously voluptuous, and of that fascinating prettiness that wins +the hearts of boys and storms the footlights. One of her +characteristics soothed the heart of Rosalind. She had splendid red +hair, almost as good as her own. + +"He's been faithful to my hair, at all events," she said, trying to be +nonchalant. + +"And the eyes are not unlike," I added, meaning well. + +"I'm sorry you think so," said Rosalind, evidently piqued. + +"Well, never mind," I tried to make peace, "she hasn't your hands,"--I +knew that women cared more about their hands than their faces. + +"How do you know?" she retorted; "you cannot see through her gloves." + +"Would any gloves disguise your hands?" I persisted. "They would shine +through the mittens of an Esquimau." + +"Well, enough of that! See--I know it's wickedly mean of me--but +couldn't you manage to sit somewhere near them and hear what they are +saying? Of course you needn't tell me anything it would be mean to +hear, but only what--" + +"You would like to know." + +But this little plot died at its birth, for that very minute the +threatened couple arose, and went out arm in arm, apparently as +absurdly happy as two young people can be. + +As they passed out, one of Rosalind's fellow bar-maids turned to her +and said,-- + +"You know who that was?" + +"Who?" said Rosalind, startled. + +"That pretty woman who went out with that young Johnny just now?" + +"No; who is she?" + +"Why, that's"--and readers with heart-disease had better brace +themselves up for a great shock--"that's SYLVIA JOY, the famous dancer!" + + + +CHAPTER IX + +SYLVIA JOY + +Sylvia Joy! And I hadn't so much as looked at her petticoat for weeks! +But I would now. The violet eyes and the heavy chestnut hair rose up +in moralising vision. Yes! God knows, they were safe in my heart, but +petticoats were another matter. Sylvia Joy! + +Well, did you ever? Well, I'm d----d! Sylvia Joy! + +I should have been merely superhuman had I been able to control the +expression of surprise which convulsed my countenance at the sound of +that most significant name. + +"The name seems familiar to you," said Rosalind, a little surprised and +a little eagerly; "do you know the lady?" + +"Slightly," I prevaricated. + +"How fortunate!" exclaimed Rosalind; "you'll be all the better able to +help me!" + +"Yes," I said; "but since things have turned out so oddly, I may say +that our relations are of so extremely delicate a nature that I shall +have very carefully to think out what is best to be done. Meanwhile, +do you mind lending me that ring for a few hours?" + +It was a large oblong opal set round with small diamonds,--a ring of +distinguished design you could hardly help noticing, especially on a +man's hand, for which it was too conspicuously dainty. I slipped it on +the little finger of my left hand, and, begging Rosalind to remain +where she was meanwhile, and to take no steps without consulting me, I +mysteriously, not to say officiously, departed. + +I left the twelfth Golden-Haired Bar-maid not too late to stalk her +husband and her under-study to their hotel, where they evidently +proposed to dine. There was, therefore, nothing left for me but to +dine also. So I dined; and when the courses of my dining were ended, I +found myself in a mellow twilight at the Cafe du Ciel. And it was +about the hour of the sirens' singing. Presently the little golden +butterflies flitted once more through the twilight, and again the +woman's voice rose like a silver bird on the air. + +As I have a partiality for her songs, I transcribe this Hymn of the +Daughters of Aphrodite, which you must try to imagine transfigured by +her voice and the sunset. + + + Queen Aphrodite's + Daughters are we, + She that was born + Of the morn + And the sea; + White are our limbs + As the foam on the wave, + Wild are our hymns + And our lovers are brave! + + Queen Aphrodite, + Born of the sea, + Beautiful dutiful daughters + Are we! + + + You who would follow, + Fear not to come, + For love is for love + As dove is for dove; + The harp of Apollo + Shall lull you to rest, + And your head find its home + On this beautiful breast. + + + Queen Aphrodite, + Born of the sea, + Beautiful dutiful daughters + Are we! + + + Born of the Ocean, + Wave-like are we! + Rising and falling + Like waves of the sea; + Changing for ever, + Yet ever the same, + Music in motion + And marble in flame. + + + Queen Aphrodite, + Born of the sea, + Beautiful dutiful daughters + Are we! + + +When I alighted once more upon the earth from the heaven of this song, +who should I find seated within a table of me but the very couple I was +at the moment so unexpectedly interested in? But they were far too +absorbed in each other to notice me, and consequently I was able to +hear all of importance that was said. I regret that I cannot gratify +the reader with a report of their conversation, for the excuse I had +for listening was one that is not transferable. A woman's happiness +was at stake. No other consideration could have persuaded me to means +so mean save an end so noble. I didn't even tell Rosalind all I heard. +Mercifully for her, the candour of fools is not among my superstitions. +Suffice it for all third persons to know--what Rosalind indeed has +never known, and what I hope no reader will be fool enough to tell +her--that Orlando was for the moment hopelessly and besottedly +faithless to his wife, and that my services had been bespoken in the +very narrowest nick of time. + +Having, as the reader has long known, a warm personal interest in his +attractive companion, and desiring, therefore, to think as well of her +as possible, I was pleased to deduce, negatively, from their +conversation, that Sylvia Joy knew nothing of Rosalind, and believed +Orlando to be a free, that is, an unmarried man. From the point of +view, therefore, of her code, there was no earthly reason why she +should not fall in with Orlando's proposal that they should leave for +Paris by the "Mayflower" on the following morning. Orlando, I could +hear, wished to make more extended arrangements, and references to that +well-known rendezvous, "Eternity," fell on my ears from time to time. +Evidently Sylvia had no very saving belief in Eternity, for I heard her +say that they might see how they got on in Paris for a start. Then it +would be time enough to talk of Eternity. This and other remarks of +Sylvia's considerably predisposed me towards her. Having concluded +their arrangements for the heaven of the morrow, they rose to take a +stroll along the boulevards. As they did so, I touched Orlando's +shoulder and begged his attention for a moment. Though an entire +stranger to him, I had, I said, a matter of extreme importance to +communicate to him, and I hoped, therefore, that it would suit his +convenience to meet me at the same place in an hour and a half. As I +said this, I flashed his wife's ring in the light so obviously that he +was compelled to notice it. + +"Wherever did you get that?" he gasped, no little surprised and +agitated. + +"From your wife," I answered, rapidly moving away. "Be sure to be here +at eleven." + +I slipped away into the crowd, and spent my hour and a half in +persuading Rosalind that her husband was no doubt a little infatuated, +but nevertheless the most faithful husband in the world. If she would +only leave all to me, by this time to-morrow night, if not a good many +hours before, he should be in her arms as safe as in the Bank. It did +my heart good to see how happy this artistic adaptation of the truth +made her; and I must say that she never had a wiser friend. + +When eleven came, I was back in my seat at the Cafe du Ciel. Orlando +too was excitedly punctual. + +"Well, what is it?" he hurried out, almost before he had sat down. + +"What will you do me the honour of drinking?" I asked calmly. + +"Oh, drink be d----d!" he said; "what have you to tell me?" + +"I'm glad to hear you rap out such a good honest oath," I said; "but I +should like a drink, for all that, and if I may say so, you would be +none the worse for a brandy and soda, late as it is." + +When the drinks had come, I remarked to him quietly, but not without +significance: "The meaning of this ring is that your wife is here, and +very wretched. By an accident I have been privileged with her +friendship; and I may say, to save time, that she has told me the whole +story. + +"What happily she has not been able to tell me, and what I need hardly +say she will never know from me, I overheard, in the interests of your +joint happiness, an hour or so ago." + +The man who is telling the story has a proverbial great advantage; but +I hope the reader knows enough of me by this to believe that I am far +from meanly availing myself of it in this narrative. I am well and +gratefully aware that in this interview with Orlando my advantages were +many and fortunate. For example, had he been bigger and older, or had +he not been a gentleman, my task had been considerably more arduous, +not to say dangerous. + +But, as Rosalind had said, he was really quite a boy, and I confess I +was a little ashamed for him, and a little piqued, that he showed so +little fight. The unexpectedness of my attack had, I realised, given +me the whip-hand. So I judged, at all events, from the fact that he +forbore to bluster, and sat quite still, with his head in his hands, +saying never a word for what seemed several minutes. Then presently he +said very quietly,-- + +"I love my wife all the same." + +"Of course you do," I answered, eagerly welcoming the significant +announcement; "and if you'll allow me to say so, I think I understand +more about the whole situation than either of you, bachelor though +unfortunately I am. As a famous friend of mine is fond of saying, +lookers-on see most of the game." + +Then I rapidly told him the history of my meeting with his wife, and +depicted, in harrowing pigments of phrase, the distress of her mind. + +"I love my wife all the same," he repeated, as I finished; "and," he +added, "I love Sylvia too." + +"But not quite in the same way?" I suggested. + +"I love Sylvia very tenderly," he said. + +"Yes, I know; I don't think you could do anything else. No man worth +his salt could be anything but tender to a dainty little woman like +that. But tenderness, gentleness, affection, even +self-sacrifice,--these may be parts of love; but they are merely the +crude untransformed ingredients of a love such as you feel for your +wife, and such as I know she feels for you." + +"She still loves me, then," he said pitifully; "she hasn't fallen in +love with you." + +"No fear," I answered; "no such luck for me. If she had, I'm afraid I +should hardly have been talking to you as I am at this moment. If a +woman like Rosalind, as I call her, gave me her love, it would take +more than a husband to rob me of it, I can tell you." + +"Yes," he repeated, "on my soul, I love her. I have never been false +to her, in my heart; but--" + +"I know all about it," I said; "may I tell you how it all +was,--diagnose the situation?" + +"Do," he replied; "it is a relief to hear you talk." + +"Well," I said, "may I ask one rather intimate question? Did you ever +before you were married sow what are known as wild oats?" + +"Never," he answered indignantly, flashing for a moment. + +"Well, you should have done," I said; "that's just the whole trouble. +Wild oats will get sown some time, and one of the arts of life is to +sow them at the right time,--the younger the better. Think candidly +before you answer me." + +"I believe you are right," he replied, after a long pause. + +"You are a believer in theories," I continued, "and so am I; but you +can take my word that on these matters not all, but some, of the old +theories are best. One of them is that the man who does not sow his +wild oats before marriage will sow them afterwards, with a whirlwind +for the reaping." + +Orlando looked up at me, haggard with confession. + +"You know the old story of the ring given to Venus? Well, it is the +ruin of no few men to meet Venus for the first time on their marriage +night. Their very chastity, paradoxical as it may seem, is their +destruction. No one can appreciate the peace, the holy satisfaction of +monogamy till he has passed through the wasting distractions, the +unrest of polygamy. Plunged right away into monogamy, man, +unexperienced in his good fortune, hankers after polygamy, as the +monotheistic Jew hankered after polytheism; and thus the monogamic +young man too often meets Aphrodite for the first time, and makes +future appointments with her, in the arms of his pure young wife. If +you have read Swedenborg, you will remember his denunciation of the +lust of variety. Now, that is a lust every young man feels, but it is +one to be satisfied before marriage. Sylvia Joy has been such a +variant for you; and I'm afraid you're going to have some little +trouble to get her off your nerves. Tell me frankly," I said, "have +you had your fill of Aphrodite? It is no use your going back to your +wife till you have had that." + +"I'm not quite a beast," he retorted. "After all, it was an experiment +we both agreed to try." + +"Certainly," I answered, "and I hope it may have the result of +persuading you of the unwisdom of experimenting with happiness. You +have the realities of happiness; why should you trouble about its +theories? They are for unhappy people, like me, who must learn to +distil by learned patience the aurum potabile from the husks of life, +the peace which happier mortals find lying like manna each morn upon +the meadows." + +"Well," I continued, "enough of the abstract; let us have another +drink, and tell me what you propose to do." + +"Poor Sylvia!" sighed Orlando. + +"Shall I tell you about Sylvia?" I said. "On second thoughts, I won't. +It would hardly be fair play; but this, I may say, relying on your +honour, that if you were to come to my hotel, I could show you +indisputable proof that I know at least as much about Sylvia Joy as +even such a privileged intimate as yourself." + +"It is strange, then, that she never recognised you just now," he +retorted, with forlorn alertness. + +"Of course she didn't. How young you are! It is rather too bad of a +woman of Sylvia's experience." + +"And I've bought our passages for to-morrow. I cannot let her go +without some sort of good-bye." + +"Give the tickets to me. I can make use of them. How much are they? +Let's see." + +The calculation made and the money passed across, I said abruptly,-- + +"Now supposing we go and see your wife." + +"You have saved my life," he said hoarsely, pressing my hand as we rose. + +"I don't know about that," I said inwardly; "but I do hope I have saved +your wife." + +As I thought of that, a fear occurred to me. + +"Look here," I said, as we strolled towards the Twelve Golden-Haired, +"I hope you have no silly notions about confession, about telling the +literal truth and so on. Because I want you to promise me that you will +lie stoutly to your wife about Sylvia Joy. You must swear the whole +thing has been platonic. It's the only chance for your happiness. +Your wife, no doubt, will lure you on to confession by saying that she +doesn't mind this, that, and the other, so long as you don't keep it +from her; and no doubt she will mean it till you have confessed. But, +however good their theories, women by nature cannot help confusing body +and soul, and what to a man is a mere fancy of the senses, to them is a +spiritual tragedy. Promise me to lie stoutly on this point. It is, I +repeat, the only chance for your future happiness. As has been wisely +said, a lie in time saves nine; and such a lie as I advise is but one +of the higher forms of truth. Such lying, indeed, is the art of +telling the truth. The truth is that you love her body, soul, and +spirit; any accidental matter which should tend to make her doubt that +would be the only real lie. Promise me, won't you?" + +"Yes, I will lie," said Orlando. + +"Well, there she is," I said; "and God bless you both." + + + +CHAPTER X + +IN WHICH ONCE MORE I BECOME OCCUPIED IN MY OWN AFFAIRS + +During a pause in my matrimonial lecture, Orlando had written a little +farewell note to Sylvia,--a note which, of course, I didn't read, but +which it is easy to imagine "wild with all regret." This I undertook +to have delivered to her the same night, and promised to call upon her +on the morrow, further to illuminate the situation, and to offer her +every consolation in my power. To conclude the history of Orlando and +his Rosalind, I may say that I saw them off from Yellowsands by the +early morning coach. There was a soft brightness in their faces, as +though rain had fallen in the night; but it was the warm sweet rain of +joy that brings the flowers, and is but sister to the sun. They are, at +the time of my writing, quite old friends of mine, and both have an +excessive opinion of my wisdom and good-nature. + +"That lie," Orlando once said to me long after, "was the truest thing I +ever said in my life,"--a remark which may not give the reader a very +exalted idea of his general veracity. + +As the coach left long before pretty young actresses even dreamed of +getting up, I had to control my impatient desire to call on +Mademoiselle Sylvia Joy till it was fully noon. And even then she was +not to be seen. I tried again in the afternoon with better success. + +Rain had been falling in the night with her too, I surmised, but it had +failed to dim her gay eyes, and had left her complexion unimpaired. Of +course her little affair with Orlando had never been very serious on +her side. She genuinely liked him. "He was a nice kind boy," was the +height of her passionate expression, and she was, naturally, a little +disappointed at having an affectionate companion thus unexpectedly +whisked off into space. Her only approach to anger was on the subject +of his deceiving her about his wife. Little Sylvia Joy had no very +long string of principles; but one generous principle she did hold +by,--never, if she knew it, to rob another woman of her husband. And +that did make her cross with Orlando. He had not played the game fair. + +There is no need to follow, step by step, the progression by which +Sylvia Joy and I, though such new acquaintances, became in the course +of a day or two even more intimate than many old friends. We took to +each other instinctively, even on our first rather difficult interview, +and very gently and imperceptibly I bid for the vacant place in her +heart. + +That night we dined together. + +The next day we lunched and dined together. + +The next day we breakfasted, lunched, and dined together. + +And on the next I determined to venture on the confession which, as you +may imagine, it had needed no little artistic control not to make on +our first meeting. + +She looked particularly charming this evening, in a black silk gown, +exceedingly simple and distinguished in style, throwing up the lovely +firm whiteness of her throat and bosom, and making a fine contrast with +her lurid hair. + +It was sheer delight to sit opposite her at dinner, and quietly watch +her without a word. Shall I confess that I had an exceedingly boyish +vanity in thus being granted her friendship? It is almost too boyish to +confess at my time of life. It was simply in the fact that she was an +actress,--a real, live, famous actress, whose photographs made shop +windows beautiful,--come right out of my boy's fairyland of the +theatre, actually to sit eating and drinking, quite in a real way, at +my side. This, no doubt, will seem pathetically naive to most modern +young men, who in this respect begin where I leave off. An actress! +Great heavens! an actress is the first step to a knowledge of life. +Besides, actresses off the stage are either brainless or soulful, and +the choice of evils is a delicate one. Well, I have never set up for a +man of the world, though sometimes when I have heard the Lovelaces of +the day hinting mysteriously at their secret sins or boasting of their +florid gallantries, I have remembered the last verse of Suckling's +"Ballad of a Wedding," which, no doubt, the reader knows as well as I, +and if not, it will increase his acquaintance with our brave old poetry +to look it up. + +"You are very beautiful to-night," I said, in one of the meditative +pauses between the courses. + +"Thank you, kind sir," she said, making a mock courtesy; "but the +compliment is made a little anxious for me by your evident implication +that I didn't look so beautiful this morning. You laid such a marked +emphasis on to-night." + +"Nay," I returned, "'for day and night are both alike to thee.' I +think you would even be beautiful--well, I cannot imagine any moment or +station of life you would not beautify." + +"I must get you to write that down, and then I'll have it framed. It +would cheer me of a morning when I curl my hair," laughed Sylvia. + +"But you are beautiful," I continued, becoming quite impassioned. + +"Yes, and as good as I'm beautiful." + +And she was too, though perhaps the beauty occasionally predominated. + +When the serious business of dining was dispatched, and we were +trifling with our coffee and liqueurs, my eyes, which of course had +seldom left her during the whole meal, once more enfolded her little +ivory and black silk body with an embrace as real as though they had +been straining passionate arms; and as I thus nursed her in my eyes, I +smiled involuntarily at a thought which not unnaturally occurred to me. + +"What is that sly smile about?" she asked. Now I had smiled to think +that underneath that stately silk, around that tight little waist, was +a dainty waistband bearing the legend "Sylvia Joy," No. 4, perhaps, or +5, but NOT No. 6; and a whole wonderful underworld of lace and linen +and silk stockings, the counterpart of which wonders, my clairvoyant +fancy laughed to think, were at the moment--so entirely unsuspected of +their original owner--my delicious possessions. + +Everything a woman wears or touches immediately incarnates something of +herself. A handkerchief, a glove, a flower,--with a breath she endues +them with immortal souls. How much, therefore, of herself must inhere +in a garment so confidential as a petticoat, or so close and constant a +companion as a stocking! + +Now that I knew Sylvia Joy, I realised how absolutely true my instinct +had been, when on that far afternoon in that Surrey garden I had said, +"With such a petticoat and such a name, Sylvia herself cannot be +otherwise than charming." + +Indeed, now I could see that the petticoat was nothing short of a +portrait of her, and that any one learned in the physiognomy of clothes +would have been able to pick Sylvia out of a thousand by that spirited, +spoilt, and petted garment. + +"What is that sly smile about?" she repeated presently. + +"I only chanced to think of an absurd little fairy story I read the +other day," I said, "which is quite irrelevant at the moment. You know +the idle way things come and go through one's head." + +"I don't believe you," she replied, "but tell me the story. I love +fairy tales." + +"Certainly," I said, for I wasn't likely to get a better opportunity. +"There's nothing much in it; it's merely a variation of Cinderella's +slipper. Well, once upon a time there was an eccentric young prince +who'd had his fling in his day, but had arrived at the lonely age of +thirty without having met a woman whom he could love enough to make his +wife. He was a rather fanciful young prince, accustomed to follow his +whims; and one day, being more than usually bored with existence, he +took it into his head to ramble incognito through his kingdom in search +of his ideal wife,--'The Golden Girl,' as he called her. He had hardly +set out when in a country lane he came across a peasant girl hanging +out clothes to dry, and he fell to talk with her while she went on with +her charming occupation. Presently he observed, pegged on the line, +strangely incongruous among the other homespun garments, a wonderful +petticoat, so exquisite in material and design that it aroused his +curiosity. At the same moment he noticed a pair of stockings, round +the tops of which one of the daintiest artists in the land had wrought +an exquisite little frieze. The prince was learned in every form of +art, and had not failed to study this among other forms of decoration. +No sooner did he see this petticoat than the whim seized him that he +would find and marry the wearer, whoever she might be--" + +"Rather rash of him," interrupted Sylvia, "for it is usually old ladies +who have the prettiest petticoats. They can best afford them--" + +"He questioned the girl as to their owner," I continued, "and after +vainly pretending that they were her own, she confessed that they had +belonged to a young and beautiful lady who had once lodged there and +left them behind. Then the prince gave her a purse of gold in exchange +for the finery, and on the waistband of the petticoat he read a +beautiful name, and he said, 'This and no other shall be my wife, this +unknown beautiful woman, and on our marriage night she shall wear this +petticoat.' And then the prince went forth seeking--" + +"There's not much point in it," interrupted Sylvia. + +"No," I said, "I'm afraid I've stupidly missed the point." + +"Why, what was it?" + +"The name upon the petticoat!" + +"Why, what name was it?" she asked, somewhat mystified. + +"The inscription upon the petticoat was, to be quite accurate, 'Sylvia +Joy, No. 6.'" + +"Whatever are you talking about?" she said with quite a stormy blush. +"I'm afraid you've had more than your share of the champagne." + +As I finished, I slipped out of my pocket a dainty little parcel softly +folded in white tissue paper. Very softly I placed it on the table. +It contained one of the precious stockings; and half opening it, I +revealed to Sylvia's astonished eyes the cunning little frieze of +Bacchus and Ariadne, followed by a troop of Satyrs and Bacchantes, +which the artist had designed to encircle one of the white columns of +that little marble temple which sat before me. + +"You know," I said, "how in fairy tales, when the wandering hero or the +maiden in distress has a guiding dream, the dream often leaves +something behind on the pillow to assure them of its authenticity. +'When you wake up,' the dream will say, 'you will find a rose or an +oak-leaf or an eagle's feather, or whatever it may be, on your pillow.' +Well, I have brought this stocking--for which, if I might but use them, +I have at the moment a stock of the most appropriately endearing +adjectives--for the same purpose. By this token you will know that the +fairy tale I have been telling you is true, and to-morrow, if you will, +you shall see your autograph petticoat." + +"Why, wherever did you come across them? And what a mad creature you +must be! and what an odd thing that you should really meet me, after +all!" exclaimed Sylvia, all in a breath. "Of course, I remember," she +said frankly, and with a shade of sadness passing over her face. "I +was spending a holiday with Jack Wentworth,--why, it must be nearly two +years ago. Poor Jack! he was killed in the Soudan," and poor Jack +could have wished no prettier resurrection than the look of tender +memory that came into her face as she spoke of him, and the soft baby +tears filled her eyes. + +"I'm so sorry," I said. "Of course I didn't know. Let's come for a +little stroll. There seems to be a lovely moon." + +"Of course you didn't," she said, patting my cheek with a kind little +hand. "Yes, do let us go for a stroll." + + + +CHAPTER XI + +"THE HOUR FOR WHICH THE YEARS DID SIGH" + +This unexpected awakening of an old tenderness naturally prevented my +speaking any more of my mind to Sylvia that evening. No doubt the +reader may be a little astonished to hear that I had decided to offer +her marriage,--not taking my serious view of a fanciful vow. Doubtless +Sylvia was not entirely suitable to me, and to marry her was to be +faithless to that vision of the highest, that wonderful unknown woman +of the apocalyptic moorland, whose face Sylvia had not even momentarily +banished from my dreams, and whom, with an unaccountable certitude, I +still believed to be the woman God had destined for me; but, all things +considered, Sylvia was surely as pretty an answer to prayer as a man +could reasonably hope for. Many historic vows had met with sadly less +lucky fulfilment. + +So, after dinner the following evening, I suggested that we should for +once take a little walk up along the river-side; and when we were quiet +in the moonlight, dappling the lovers' path we were treading, and +making sharp contrasts of ink and silver down in the river-bed,--I +spoke. + +"Sylvia," I said, plagiarising a dream which will be found in Chapter +IV.,--"Sylvia, I have sought you through the world and found you at +last; and with your gracious permission, having found you, I mean to +stick to you." + +"What do you mean, silly boy?" she said, as an irregularity in the road +threw her soft weight the more fondly upon my arm. + +"I mean, dear, that I want you to be my wife." + +"Your wife? Not for worlds!--no, forgive me, I didn't mean that. +You're an awful dear boy, and I like you very much, and I think you're +rather fond of me; but--well, the truth is, I was never meant to be +married, and don't care about it--and when you think of it, why should +I?" + +"You mean," I said, "that you are fortunate in living in a society +where, as in heaven, there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, +where in fact nobody minds whether you're married or not, and where +morals are very properly regarded as a personal and private matter--" + +"Yes, that's what I mean," said Sylvia; "the people I care about--dear +good people--will think no more of me for having a wedding-ring, and no +less for my being without; and why should one put a yoke round one's +neck when nobody expects it? A wedding-ring is like a top-hat,--you +only wear it when you must--But it's very sweet of you, all the same, +and you can kiss me if you like. Here's a nice sentimental patch of +moonlight." + +I really felt very dejected at this not of course entirely unexpected +rejection,--if one might use the word for a situation on which had just +been set the seal of so unmistakable a kiss; but the vision in my heart +seemed to smile at me in high and happy triumph. To have won Sylvia +would have been to have lost her. My ideal had, as it were, held her +breath till Sylvia answered; now she breathed again. + +"At all events, we can go on being chums, can't we?" I said. + +For answer Sylvia hummed the first verse of that famous song writ by +Kit Marlowe. + +"Yes!" she said presently. "I will sing for you, dance for you, +and--perhaps--flirt with you; but marry you--no! it's best not, for +both of us." + +"Well, then," I said, "dance for me! You owe me some amends for an +aching heart." As I said this, the path suddenly broadened into a +little circular glade into which the moonlight poured in a silver +flood. In the centre of the space was a boulder some three or four +feet high, and with a flat slab-like surface of some six feet or so. + +"I declare I will," said Sylvia, giving me an impulsive kiss, and +springing on to the stone; "why, here is a ready-made stage." + +"And there," I said, "are the nightingale and the nightjar for +orchestra." + +"And there is the moon," said she, "for lime-light man." + +"Yes," I said; "and here is a handful of glow-worms for the footlights." + +Then lifting up her heavy silk skirt about her, and revealing a +paradise of chiffons, Sylvia swayed for a moment with her face full in +the moon, and then slowly glided into the movements of a mystical dance. + +It was thus the fountains were dancing to the moon in Arabia; it was +thus the Nixies shook their white limbs on the haunted banks of the +Rhine; it was thus the fairy women flashed their alabaster feet on the +fairy hills of Connemara; it was thus the Houris were dancing for +Mahomet on the palace floors of Paradise. + +"It was over such dancing," I said, "that John the Baptist lost his +head." + +"Give me a kiss," she said, nestling exhausted in my arms. "I always +want some one to kiss when I have danced with my soul as well as my +body." + +"I think we always do," I said, "when we've done anything that seems +wonderful, that gives us the thrill of really doing--" + +"And a poor excuse is better than none, isn't it, dear?" said Sylvia, +her face full in the cataract of the moonlight. + +As a conclusion for this chapter I will copy out a little song which I +extemporised for Sylvia on our way home to Yellowsands--too artlessly +happy, it will be observed, to rhyme correctly:-- + + Sylvia's dancing 'neath the moon, + Like a star in water; + Sylvia's dancing to a tune + Fairy folk have taught her. + + Glow-worms light her little feet + In her fairy theatre; + Oh, but Sylvia is sweet! + Tell me who is sweeter! + + + +CHAPTER XII + +AT THE CAFE DE LA PAIX + +As love-making in which we have no share is apt to be either +tantalising or monotonous, I propose to skip the next fortnight and +introduce myself to the reader at a moment when I am once more alone. +It is about six o'clock on a summer afternoon, I am in Paris, and +seated at one of the little marble tables of the Cafe de la Paix, +dreamily watching the glittering tide of gay folk passing by,-- + + "All happy people on their way + To make a golden end of day." + + +Meditatively I smoke a cigarette and sip a pale greenish liquor +smelling strongly of aniseed, which isn't half so interesting as a +commonplace whiskey and soda, but which, I am told, has the +recommendation of being ten times as wicked. I sip it with a delicious +thrill of degeneration, as though I were Eve tasting the apple for the +first time,--for "such a power hath white simplicity." Sin is for the +innocent,--a truth which sinners will be the first to regret. It was +so, I said to myself, Alfred de Musset used to sit and sip his absinthe +before a fascinated world. It is a privilege for the world to look on +greatness at any moment, even when it is drinking. So I sat, and +privileged the world. + +It will readily be surmised from this exordium that--incredible as it +may seem in a man of thirty--this was my first visit to Paris. You may +remember that I had bought Orlando's tickets, and it had occurred to +Sylvia and me to use them. Sylvia was due in London to fulfil a +dancing engagement within a fortnight after our arrival; so after a +tender good-bye, which there was no earthly necessity to make final, I +had remained behind for the purposes of study. Though, logically, my +pilgrimage had ended with the unexpected discovery of Sylvia Joy, yet +there were two famous feminine types of which, seeing that I was in +Paris, I thought I might as well make brief studies, before I returned +to London and finally resumed the bachelorhood from which I had +started. These were the grisette of fiction and the American girl of +fact. Pending these investigations, I meditated on the great city in +the midst of which I sat. + +A city! How much more it was than that! Was it not the most portentous +symbol of modern history? Think what the word "Paris" means to the +emancipated intellect, to the political government, to the humanised +morals, of the world; not to speak of the romance of its literature, +the tradition of its manners, and the immortal fame of its women. +France is the brain of the world, as England is its heart, and Russia +its fist. Strange is the power, strange are the freaks and revenges, +of association, particularly perhaps of literary association. Here +pompous official representatives may demur; but who can doubt that it +is on its literature that a country must rely for its permanent +representation? The countries that are forgotten, or are of no +importance in the councils of the world, are countries without +literature. Greece and Rome are more real in print than ever they were +in marble. Though, as we know, prophets are not without honour save in +their own countries and among their own kindred, the time comes when +their countries and kindred are entirely without honour save by reason +of those very prophets they once despised, rejected, stoned, and +crucified. Subtract its great men from a nation, and where is its +greatness? + +Similarly, everything, however trifling, that has been written about, +so long as it has been written about sufficiently well, becomes +relatively enduring and representative of the country in which it is +found. To an American, for example, the significance of a skylark is +that Shelley sang it to skies where even it could never have mounted; +and any one who has heard the nightingale must, if he be open-minded, +confess its tremendous debt to Keats: a tenth part genuine song, the +rest moon, stars, silence, and John Keats,--such is the nightingale. +The real truth about a country will never be known till every +representative type and condition in it have found their inspired +literary mouthpiece. Meanwhile one country takes its opinion of another +from the apercus of a few brilliant but often irresponsible or +prejudiced writers,--and really it is rather in what those writers +leave out than in what they put in that one must seek the more reliable +data of national character. + +A quaint example of association occurs to me from the experience of a +friend of mine, "rich enough to lend to the poor." Having met an +American friend newly landed at Liverpool, and a hurried quarter of an +hour being all that was available for lunch, "Come let us have a +pork-pie and a bottle of Bass" he had suggested. + +"Pork-pies!" said the American, with a delighted sense of discovering +the country,--"why, you read about them in Dickens!" Who shall say but +that this instinctive association was an involuntary severe, but not +inapplicable, criticism? A nightingale suggests Keats; a pork-pie, +Dickens. + +Similarly with absinthe, grisettes, the Latin Quarter, and so on. + +Why, you read about them in Murger, in Musset, in Balzac, and in +Flaubert; and the fact of your having read about them is, I may add, +their chief importance. + +So rambled my after-dinner reflections as I sat that evening smoking +and sipping, sipping and smoking, at the Cafe de la Paix. + +Presently in my dream I became aware of English voices near me, one of +which seemed familiar, and which I couldn't help overhearing. The +voice of the husband said,--you can never mistake the voice of the +husband,-- + + 'T was the voice of the husband, + I heard him complain,-- + +the voice of the husband said: "Dora, I forbid you! I will NOT allow +my wife to be seen again in the Latin Quarter. I permitted you to go +once, as a concession, to the Cafe d'Harcourt; but once is enough. You +will please respect my wishes!" + +"But," pleaded the dear little woman, whom I had an immediate impulse, +Perseus-like, to snatch from the jaws of her monster, and turning to +the other lady of the party of four,--"but Mrs. ---- has never been, +and she cannot well go without a chaperone. Surely it cannot matter for +once. It isn't as if I were there constantly." + +"No!" said the husband, with the absurd pomposity of his tribe. + +"I'm very sorry. Mrs. ---- will, of course, act as she pleases; but I +cannot allow you to do it, Dora." + +At last the little wife showed some spirit. + +"Don't talk to me like that, Will," she said. "I shall go if I please. +Surely I am my own property." + +"Not at all!" at once flashed out the husband, wounded in that most +vital part of him, his sense of property. "There you mistake. You are +my property, MY chattel; you promised obedience to me; I bought you, +and you do my bidding!" + +"Great heavens!" I ejaculated, and, springing up, found myself face to +face with a well-known painter whom you would have thought the most +Bohemian fellow in London. And Bohemian he is; but Bohemians are seldom +Bohemians for any one save themselves. They are terrible sticklers for +convention and even etiquette in other people. + +We recognised each other with a laugh, and presently were at it, hammer +and tongs. I may say that we were all fairly intimate friends, and thus +had the advantage of entire liberty of speech. I looked daggers at the +husband; he looked daggers at me, and occasionally looking at his wife, +gave her a glance which was like the opening of Bluebeard's closet. +You could see the poor murdered bodies dangling within the shadowy +cupboard of his eye. Of course we got no further. Additional +opposition but further enraged him. He recapitulated what he would no +doubt call his arguments,--they sounded more like threats,--and as he +spoke I saw dragons fighting for their dams in the primeval ooze, and +heard savage trumpetings of masculine monsters without a name. + +I told him so. + +"You are," I said,--"and you will forgive my directness of +expression,--you are the Primeval Male! You are the direct descendant +of those Romans who carried off the Sabine women. Nay! you have a much +longer genealogy. You come of those hairy anthropoid males who hunted +their mates through the tangle of primeval forests, and who finally +obtained their consent--shall we say?--by clubbing them on the head +with a stone axe. You talk a great deal of nonsense about the New +Woman, but you, Sir, are THE OLD MALE; and," I continued, "I have only +to obtain your wife's consent to take her under my protection this +instant." + +Curiously enough, "The Old Male," as he is now affectionately called, +became from this moment quite a bosom friend. Nothing would satisfy us +but that we should all lodge at the same pension together, and there +many a day we fought our battles over again. But that poor little wife +never, to my knowledge, went to the Cafe d'Harcourt again. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE INNOCENCE OF PARIS + +This meeting with William and Dora was fortunate from the point of view +of my studies; for that very night, as I dined with them en pension, I +found that providence, with his usual foresight, had placed me next to +a very charming American girl of the type that I was particularly +wishful to study. She seemed equally wishful to be studied, and we got +on amazingly from the first moment of our acquaintance. By the middle +of dinner we were pressing each other's feet under the table, and when +coffee and cigarettes had come, we were affianced lovers. "Why should +I blush to own I love?" was evidently my quaint little companion's +motto; and indeed she didn't blush to own it to the whole table, and +publicly to announce that I was the dearest boy, and absolutely the +most lovable man she had met. There was nothing she wouldn't do for +me. Would she brave the terrors of the Latin Quarter with me, I asked, +and introduce me to the terrible Cafe d'Harcourt, about which William +and Dora had suffered such searchings of heart? "Why, certainly; there +was nothing in that," she said. So we went. + +Nothing is more absurd and unjust than those crude labels of national +character which label one country virtuous and another vicious, one +musical and another literary. Thus France has an unjust reputation for +vice, and England an equally unjust reputation for virtue. + +I had always, I confess, been brought up to think of Paris as a sort of +Sodom and Gomorrah in one. Good Americans might go to Paris, according +to the American theory of a future state; but, certainly I had thought, +no good Englishman ever went there--except, maybe, on behalf of the +Vigilance Society. Well, it may sound an odd thing to say, but what +impressed me most of all was the absolute innocence of the place. + +I mean this quite seriously. For surely one important condition of +innocence is unconsciousness of doing wrong. The poor despised +Parisian may be a very wicked and depraved person, but certainly he +goes about with an absolute unconsciousness of it upon his gay and +kindly countenance. + +"Seeing the world" usually means seeing everything in it that most +decent people won't look at; but when you come to look at these +terrible things and places, what do you find? Why, absolute +disappointment! + +Have you ever read that most amusing book, "Baedeker on Paris"? + +I know nothing more delightful than the notes to the Montmartre and +Latin Quarters. The places to which you, as a smug Briton, may or may +not take a lady! The scale of wickedness allowed to the waxwork +British lady is most charmingly graduated. I had read that the cafe +where we were sitting was one of the most terrible places in +Paris,--the Cafe d'Harcourt, where the students of the Latin Quarter +take their nice little domestic mistresses to supper. But Baedeker was +dreadfully Pecksniffian about these poor innocent etudiantes, many of +whom love their lovers much more truly than many a British wife loves +her husband, and are much better loved in return. If you doubt it, +dare to pay attention to one of these young ladies, and you will +probably have to fight a duel for it. In fact, these romantic +relations are much more careful of honour than conventional ones; for +love, and not merely law, keeps guard. + +I looked around me. Where were those terrible things I had read of? +Where was this hell which I had reasonably expected would gape leagues +of sulphur and blue flame beneath the little marble table? I mentally +resolved to bring an action against Baedeker for false information. +For what did I see? Simply pairs and groups of young men and women +chattering amiably in front of their "bocks" or their "Americains." +Here and there a student would have his arm round a waist every one +else envied him. One student was prettily trying a pair of new gloves +upon his little woman's hand. Here and there blithe songs would spring +up, from sheer gladness of heart; and never was such a buzz of happy +young people, not even at a Sunday-school treat. To me it seemed +absolutely Arcadian, and I thought of Daphnis and Chloe and the early +world. Nothing indecorous or gross; all perfectly pretty and seemly. + +On our way home Semiramis was so sweet to me, in her innocent, artless +frankness, that I went to bed with an intoxicating feeling that I must +be irresistible indeed, to have so completely conquered so true a heart +in so few hours. I was the more flattered because I am not a vain man, +and am not, like some, accustomed to take hearts as the Israelites took +Jericho with the blast of one's own trumpet. + +But, alas! my dream of universal irresistibility was but short-lived, +for next afternoon, as William and I sat out at some cafe together, I +found myself the object of chaff. + +"Well," said William, "how goes the love-affair?" + +I flushed somewhat indignantly at his manner with sanctities. + +"I see!" he said, "I see! You are already corded and labelled, and +will be shipped over by the next mail,--'To Miss Semiramis Wilcox, 1001 +99th St., Philadelphia, U.S.A. Man with care.' Well, I did think +you'd got an eye in your head. Look here, don't be a fool! I suppose +she said you were the first and last. The last you certainly were. +There are limits even to the speed of American girls; but the first, my +boy! You are more like the twelfth, to my ocular knowledge. Here +comes Dubois the poet. He can tell you something about Miss Semiramis. +Eh! Dubois, you know Miss Semiramis Wilcox, don't you?" + +The Frenchman smiled and shrugged. + +"Un peu," he said. + +"Don't be an ass and get angry," William continued; "it's all for your +own good." + +"The little Semiramis has been seducing my susceptible friend here. +Like many of us, he has been captivated by her naturalness, her +naivete, her clear good eyes,--that look of nature that is always art! +May I relate the idyl of your tragic passion, dear Dubois, as an object +lesson?" + +The Frenchman bowed, and signed William to proceed. + +"You dined with us one evening, and you thus met for the first time. +You sat together at table. What happened with the fish?" + +"She swore I was the most beautiful man she had ever seen,--and I am +not beautiful, as you perceive." + +If not beautiful, the poet was certainly true. + +"What happened at the entree?" + +"Oh, long before that we were pressing our feet under the table." + +"And the coffee--" + +"Mon Dieu! we were Tristram and Yseult, we were all the great lovers in +the Pantheon of love." + +"And what then?" + +"Oh, we went to the Cafe d'Harcourt--mon ami." + +"Did she wear a veil?" I asked. + +"Oui, certainement!" + +"And did you say, 'Why do you wear a veil,--setting a black cloud +before the eyes and gates of heaven'?" + +"The very words," said the Frenchman. + +"And did she say, 'Yes, but the veil can be raised?'" + +"She did, mon pauvre ami," said the poet. + +"And did you raise it?" + +"I did," said the poet. + +"And so did I," I answered. And as I spoke, there was a crash of white +marble in my soul, and lo! Love had fallen from his pedestal and been +broken into a thousand pieces,--a heavy, dead thing he lay upon the +threshold of my heart. + +We had appointed a secret meeting in the salon of the pension that +afternoon. I was not there! (Nor, as I afterwards learnt, was +Semiramis.) When we did meet, I was brutally cold. I evaded all her +moves; but when at last I decided to give her a hearing, I confess it +needed all my cynicism to resist her air of innocence, of pathetic +devotion. + +If I couldn't love her, she said, might she go on loving me? Might she +write to me sometimes? She would be content if now and again I would +send her a little word. Perhaps in time I would grow to believe in her +love, etc. + +The heart-broken abandonment with which she said this was a sore trial +to me; but though love may be deceived, vanity is ever vigilant, and +vanity saved me. Yet I left her with an aching sense of having been a +brute, and on the morning of my departure from Paris, as I said +good-bye to William and Dora, I spoke somewhat seriously of Semiramis. +Dora, Dora-like, had believed in her all along,--not having enjoyed +William's opportunities of studying her,--and she reproached me with +being rather hard-hearted. + +"Nonsense," said William, "if she really cared, wouldn't she have been +up to bid you good-bye?" + +The words were hardly gone from his lips when there came a little knock +at the door. It was Semiramis; she had come to say good-bye. Was it in +nature not to be touched? "Good-bye," she said, as we stood a moment +alone in the hall. "I shall always think of you; you shall not be to +me as a ship that has passed in the night, though to me you have +behaved very like an iceberg." + +We parted in tears and kisses, and I lived for some weeks with that +sense of having been a Nero, till two months after I received a much +glazed and silvered card to the usual effect. + +And so I ceased to repine for the wound I had made in the heart of +Semiramis Wilcox. + +Of another whom I met and loved in that brief month in Paris, I cherish +tenderer memories. Prim little Pauline Deschapelles! How clearly I can +still see the respectable brass plate on the door of your little +flat--"Mademoiselle Deschapelles--Modes et Robes;" and indeed the +"modes et robes" were true enough. For you were in truth a very +hard-working little dressmaker, and I well remember how impressed I was +to sit beside you, as you plied your needle on some gown that must be +finished by the evening, and meditate on the quaint contrast between +your almost Puritanic industry and your innocent love of pleasure. I +don't think I ever met a more conscientious little woman than little +Pauline Deschapelles. + +There was but one drawback to our intercourse. She didn't know a word +of English, and I couldn't speak a word of French. So we had to make +shift to love without either language. But sometimes Pauline would +throw down her stitching in amused impatience, and, going to her dainty +secretaire, write me a little message in the simplest baby +French--which I would answer in French which would knit her brows for a +moment or two, and then send her off in peals of laughter. + +It WAS French! I know. Among the bric-a-brac of my heart I still +cherish some of those little slips of paper with which we made +international love--question and answer. + +"Vous allez m'oublier, et ne plus penser a moi--ni me voir. Les +hommes--egoistes--menteurs, pas dire la verite..." so ran the +questions, considerably devoid of auxiliary verbs and such details of +construction. + +"Je serais jamais t'oublier," ran the frightful answers! + +Dear Pauline! Shall I ever see her again? She was but twenty-six. +She may still live. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +END OF BOOK THREE + +So ended my pilgrimage. I had wandered far, had loved many, but I came +back to London without the Golden Girl. I had begun my pilgrimage with +a vision, and it was with a vision that I ended it. From all my goings +to and fro upon the earth, I had brought back only the image of a +woman's face,--the face of that strange woman of the moorland, still +haunting my dreams of the night and the day. + +It was autumn in my old garden, damp and forsaken, and the +mulberry-tree was hung with little yellow shields. My books looked +weary of awaiting me, and they and the whole lonely house begged me to +take them where sometimes they might be handled by human fingers, +mellowed by lamplight, cheered by friendly laughter. + +The very chairs begged mutely to be sat upon, the chill white beds to +be slept in. Yes, the very furniture seemed even lonelier than myself. + +So I took heed of their dumb appeal. + +"I know," I answered them tenderly,--"I too, with you, have looked on +better days, I too have been where bells have knoll'd to church, I too +have sat at many a good man's feast,--yes! I miss human society, even +as you, my books, my bedsteads, and my side-boards,--so let it be. It +is plain our little Margaret is not coming back, our little Margaret, +dear haunted rooms, will never come back; no longer shall her little +silken figure flit up and down your quiet staircases, her hands filled +with flowers, and her heart humming with little songs. Yes, let us go, +it is very lonely; we shall die if we stay here all so lonely together; +it is time, let us go." + +So thereon I wrote to a furniture-remover, and went out to walk round +the mossy old garden for the last time, and say good-bye to the great +mulberry, under whose Dodonaesque shade we had sat half frightened on +starry nights, to the apple-trees whose blossom had seemed like +fairy-land to Margaret and me, town-bred folk, to the apricots and the +peaches and the nectarines that it had seemed almost wicked to own,--as +though we had gone abroad in silk and velvet,--to the little grassy +orchard, and to the little green corner of it, where Margaret had +fallen asleep that summer afternoon, in the great wicker-chair, and I +had brought a dear friend on tiptoe to gaze on her asleep, with her +olive cheeks delicately flushed, her great eyelids closed like the +cheeks of roses, and her gold hair tumbled about her neck... + +Well, well, good-bye,--tears are foolish things. They will not bring +Margaret back. Good-bye, old garden, good-bye, I shall never see you +again,--good-bye. + + + + +BOOK IV + +THE POSTSCRIPT TO A PILGRIMAGE + + + +CHAPTER I + +SIX YEARS AFTER + +This book is like a woman's letter. The most important part of it is +the postscript. + +Six years lie between the end of the last chapter and the beginning of +this. Meanwhile, I had moved to sociable chambers within sound of the +city clocks, and had lived the life of a lonely man about town, sinking +more and more into the comfortable sloth of bachelorhood. I had long +come to look back upon my pilgrimage as a sort of Indian-summer youth, +being, as the reader can reckon for himself, just on thirty-seven. As +one will, with one's most serious experiences, hastening to laugh lest +one should weep, as the old philosopher said, I had made some fun out +of my quest, in the form of a paper for a bookish society to which I +belonged, on "Woman as a Learned Pursuit." It is printed among the +transactions of the society, and is accessible to the curious only by +loan from the members, and I regret that I am unable to print any +extracts here. Perhaps when I am dead the society will see the +criminal selfishness of reserving for itself what was meant for mankind. + +Meanwhile, however, it is fast locked and buried deep in the archives +of the club. I have two marriages to record in the interval: one that +of a young lady whom I must still think of as 'Nicolete' to Sir +Marmaduke Pettigrew, Bart., of Dultowers Hall, and the other the +well-known marriage of Sylvia Joy... + +Sylvia Joy married after all her fine protestations! Yes! but I'm sure +you will forgive her, for she was married to a lord. When one is twenty +and romantic one would scorn a woman who would jilt us for wealth and +position; at thirty, one would scorn any woman who didn't. Ah me! how +one changes! No one, I can honestly say, was happier over these two +weddings than I, and I sent Sylvia her petticoat as a wedding present. + + +But it was to tell of other matters that I reopen this book and once +more take up my pen--matters so near to my heart that I shrink from +writing of them, and am half afraid that the attempt may prove too hard +for me after all, and my book end on a broken cry of pain. Yet, at the +same time, I want to write of them, for they are beautiful and solemn, +and good food for the heart. + +Besides, though my pilgrimage had been ended so long, they are really a +part, yea, the part for which, though I knew it not, all the rest has +been written--for they tell how I came to find by accident her whom so +long I had sought of design. + +How shall I tell of Thee who, first and last of all women, gave and +awoke in me that love which is the golden key of the world, the mystic +revelation of the holy meaning of life, love that alone may pass +through the awful gates of the stars, and gaze unafraid into the blue +abysses beyond? + +Ah! Love, it seemed far away indeed from the stars, the place where we +met, and only by the light of love's eyes might we have found each +other--as only by the light of love's eyes... But enough, my Heart, +the world waits to hear our story,--the world once so unloving to you, +the world with a heart so hard and anon so soft for love. When the +story is ended, my love, when the story is ended-- + + + +CHAPTER II + +GRACE O' GOD + +It was a hard winter's night four years ago, lovely and merciless; and +towards midnight I walked home from a theatre to my rooms in St. +James's Street. The Venusberg of Piccadilly looked white as a nun with +snow and moonlight, but the melancholy music of pleasure, and the sad +daughters of joy, seemed not to heed the cold. For another hour death +and pleasure would dance there beneath the electric lights. + +Through the strange women clustering at the corners I took my +way,--women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and +Hittites,--and I thought, as I looked into their poor painted +faces,--faces but half human, vampirish faces, faces already waxen with +the look of the grave,--I thought, as I often did, of the poor little +girl whom De Quincey loved, the good-hearted little 'peripatetic' as he +called her, who had succoured him during those nights, when, as a young +man, he wandered homeless about these very streets,--that good, kind +little Ann whom De Quincey had loved, then so strangely lost, and for +whose face he looked into women's faces as long as he lived. Often +have I stood at the corner of Titchfield Street, and thought how De +Quincey had stood there night after night waiting for her to come, but +all in vain, and how from the abyss of oblivion into which some cruel +chance had swept her, not one cry from her ever reached him again. + +I thought, too, as I often did, what if the face I seek should be here +among these poor outcasts,--golden face hidden behind a mask of shame, +true heart still beating true even amidst this infernal world! + +Thus musing, I had walked my way out of the throng, and only a figure +here and there in the shadows of doorways waited and waited in the cold. + +It was something about one of these waiting figures,--some movement, +some chance posture,--that presently surprised my attention and +awakened a sudden sense of half recognition. She stood well in the +shadow, seeming rather to shrink from than to court attention. As I +walked close by her and looked keenly into her face, she cast down her +eyes and half turned away. Surely, I had seen that tall, noble figure +somewhere before, that haughty head; and then with the apparition a +thought struck me--but, no! it couldn't be she! not HERE! + +"It is," said my soul, as I turned and walked past her again; "you +missed her once, are you going to miss her again?" + +"It is," said my eyes, as they swept her for the third time; "but she +had glorious chestnut hair, and the hair of this woman is--gilded." + +"It is she," said my heart; "thank God, it is she!" + +So it was that I went up to that tall, shy figure. + +"It must be very cold here," I said; "will you not join me in some +supper?" + +She assented, and we sought one of the many radiating centres of +festivity in the neighbourhood. She was very tired and cold,--so tired +she seemed hardly to have the spirit to eat, and evidently the cold had +taken tight clutch of her lungs, for she had a cough that went to my +heart to hear, and her face was ghastly pale. When I had persuaded her +to drink a little wine, she grew more animated and spots of suspicious +colour came into her cheeks. So far she had seemed all but oblivious +of my presence, but now she gave me a sweet smile of gratitude, one of +those irradiating transfiguring smiles that change the whole face, and +belong to few faces, the heavenly smile of a pure soul. + +Yes, it was she! The woman who sat in front of me was the woman whom I +had met so strangely that day on that solitary moorland, and whom in +prophecy still more strange my soul had declared to be, "now and for +ever and before all worlds the woman God had created for me, and that +unless I could be hers and she mine, there could be no home, no peace, +for either of us so long as we lived--" and now so strangely met again. + +Yes, it was she! + +For the moment my mind had room for no other thought. I cared not to +conjecture by what devious ways God had brought her to my side. I +cared not what mire her feet had trodden. She had carried her face +pure as a lily through all the foul and sooty air. There was a pure +heart in her voice. Sin is of the soul, and this soul had not sinned! +Let him that is without sin amongst you cast the first stone. + +"Why did you dye that wonderful chestnut hair?" I asked her +presently--and was sorry next minute for the pain that shot across her +face, but I just wanted to hint at what I designed not to reveal fully +till later on, and thus to hint too that it was not as one of the +number of her defilers that I had sought her. + +"Why," she said, "how do you know the colour of my hair? We have never +met before." + +"Yes, we have," I said, "and that was why I spoke to you to-night. +I'll tell you where it was another time." + +But after all I could not desist from telling her that night, for, as +afterwards at her lodging we sat over the fire, talking as if we had +known each other all our lives, there seemed no reason for an arbitrary +delay. + +I described to her the solitary moorland road, and the grey-gowned +woman's figure in front of me, and the gig coming along to meet her, +and the salutation of the two girls, and I told her all one look of her +face had meant for me, and how I had wildly sought her in vain, and +from that day to this had held her image in my heart. + +And as I told her, she sobbed with her head against my knees and her +great hair filling my lap with gold. In broken words she drew for me +the other side of the picture of that long-past summer day. + +Yes, the girl in the gig was her sister, and they were the only +daughters of a farmer who had been rich once, but had come to ruin by +drink and misfortune. They had been brought up from girls by an old +grandmother, with whom the sister was living at the time of my seeing +them. Yes, Tom was her husband. He was a doctor in the neighbourhood +when he married her, and a man, I surmised, of some parts and promise, +but, moving to town, he had fallen into loose ways, taken to drinking +and gambling, and had finally deserted her for another woman--at the +very moment when their first child was born. The child died "Thank +God!" she added with sudden vehemence, and "I--well, you will wonder +how I came to this, I wonder myself--it has all happened but six months +ago, and yet I seem to have forgotten--only the broken-hearted and the +hungry would understand, if I could remember--and yet it was not life, +certainly not life I wanted--and yet I couldn't die--" + +The more I came to know Elizabeth and realise the rare delicacy of her +nature, the simplicity of her mind, and the purity of her soul, the +less was I able to comprehend the psychology of that false step which +her great misery had forced her to take. For hers was not a sensual, +pleasure-loving nature. In fact, there was a certain curious +Puritanism about her, a Puritanism which found a startlingly +incongruous and almost laughable expression in the Scripture almanac +which hung on the wall at the end of her bed, and the Bible, and two or +three Sunday-school stories which, with a copy of "Jane Eyre," were the +only books that lay upon the circular mahogany table. + +Once I ventured gently to chaff her about this religiosity of hers. + +"But surely you believe in God, dear," she had answered, "you're not an +atheist!" + +I think an atheist, with all her experience of human monsters, was for +her the depth of human depravity. + +"No, dear," I had answered; "if you can believe in God, surely I can!" + +I repeat that this gap in Elizabeth's psychology puzzled me, and it +puzzles me still, but it puzzled me only as the method of working out +some problem which after all had "come out right" might puzzle one. It +was only the process that was obscure. The result was gold, whatever +the dark process might be. Was it simply that Elizabeth was one of +that rare few who can touch pitch and not be defiled?--or was it, I +have sometimes wondered, an unconscious and after all a sound casuistry +that had saved Elizabeth's soul, an instinctive philosophy that taught +her, so to say, to lay a Sigurd's sword between her soul and body, and +to argue that nothing can defile the body without the consent of the +soul. + +In deep natures there is always what one might call a lover's leap to +be taken by those that would love them--something one cannot understand +to be taken on trust, something even that one fears to be gladly +adventured ... all this, and more, I knew that I could safely venture +for Elizabeth's sake, ere I kissed her white brow and stole away in the +early hours of that winter's morning. + +As I did so I had taken one of the sumptuous strands of her hair into +my hand and kissed it too. + +"Promise me to let this come back to its own beautiful colour," I had +said, as I nodded to a little phial labelled "Peroxide of Hydrogen" on +her mantelshelf. + +"Would you like to?" she had said. + +"Yes, do it for me." + +One day some months after I cut from her dear head one long thick lock, +one half of which was gold and the other half chestnut. I take it out +and look at it as I write, and, as when I first cut it, it seems still +a symbol of Elizabeth's life, the sun and the shadow, only that the +gold was the shadow, and the chestnut was the sun. + +The time came when the locks, from crown to tip, were all chestnut--but +when it came I would have given the world for them to be gold again; +for Elizabeth had said a curious thing when she had given me her +promise. + +"All right, dear," she had said, "but something tells me that when they +are all brown again our happiness will be at an end." + +"How long will that take?" I had said, trying to be gay, though an +involuntary shudder had gone through me, less at her words than because +of the strange conviction of her manner. + +"About two years,--perhaps a little more," she said, answering me quite +seriously, as she gravely measured the shining tresses, half her body's +length, with her eye. + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE GOLDEN GIRL + +One fresh and sunny morning, some months after this night, Elizabeth +and I stood before the simple altar of a little country church, for the +news had come to us that her husband was dead, and thus we were free to +belong to each other before all the world. The exquisite stillness in +the cool old church was as the peace in our hearts, and the rippling +sound of the sunlit leaves outside seemed like the very murmur of the +stream of life down which we dreamed of gliding together from that hour. + +It was one of those moments which sometimes come and go without any +apparent cause, when life suddenly takes a mystical aspect of +completeness, all its discords are harmonised by some unseen hand of +the spirit, and all its imperfections fall away. The lover of beauty +and the lover of God alike know these strange moments, but none know +them with such a mighty satisfaction as a man and a woman who love as +loved Elizabeth and I. + +Love for ever completes the world, for it is no future of higher +achievement, no expectation of greater joy. It lives for ever in a +present made perfect by itself. Love can dream of no greater +blessedness than itself, of no heaven but its own. God himself could +have added no touch of happiness to our happy hearts that grave and +sunny morning. You philosophers who go searching for the meaning of +life, thinkers reading so sadly, and let us hope so wrongly, the riddle +of the world--life has but one meaning, the riddle but one +answer--which is Love. To love is to put yourself in harmony with the +spheral music of creation, to stand in the centre of the universe, and +see it good and whole as it appears in the eye of God. + +Even Death himself, the great and terrible King of kings, though he may +break the heart of love with agonies and anguish and slow tortures of +separation, may break not his faith. No one that has loved will dream +even death too terrible a price to pay for the revelation of love. For +that revelation once made can never be recalled. As a little sprig of +lavender will perfume a queen's wardrobe, so will a short year of love +keep sweet a long life. And love's best gifts death can never take +away. Nay, indeed, death does not so much rob as enrich the gifts of +love. The dead face that was fair grows fairer each spring, sweet +memories grow more sweet, what was silver is now gold, and as years go +by, the very death of love becomes its immortality. + +I think I shall never hear Elizabeth's voice again, never look into her +eyes, never kiss her dear lips--but Elizabeth is still mine, and I am +hers, as in that morning when we kissed in that little chancel amid the +flickering light, and passed out into the sun and down the lanes, to +our little home among the meadow-sweet. + +She is still as real to me as the stars,--and, alas, as far away! I +think no thought that does not fly to her, I have no joys I do not +share with her, I tell her when the spring is here, and we sit beneath +the moon and listen to the nightjar together. Sometimes we are merry +together as in the old time, and our laughter makes nightfaring folk to +cross themselves; my work, my dreams, my loves, are all hers, and my +very sins are sinned for her sake. + +Two years did Elizabeth and I know the love that passeth all +understanding, and day by day the chestnut upon her head was more and +the gold less, till the day came that she had prophesied, and with the +day a little child, whose hair had stolen all her mother's gold, as her +heart had drained away her mother's life. + +Ah! reader, may it be long before you kneel at the bedside of her you +love best in the world, and know that of all your love is left but a +hundred heart-beats, while opposite sits Death, watch in hand, and +fingers upon her wrist. + +"Husband," whispered Elizabeth, as we looked at each other for the last +time, "let her be your little golden girl..." + +And then a strange sweetness stole over her face, and the dream of +Elizabeth's life was ended. + +As I write I hear in the still house the running of little feet, a +fairy patter sweet and terrible to the heart. + +Little feet, little feet--perhaps if I follow you I shall find again +our mother that is lost. Perhaps Elizabeth left you with me that I +should not miss the way. + +Tout par soullas. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Quest of the Golden Girl, by +Richard le Gallienne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN GIRL *** + +***** This file should be named 461.txt or 461.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/6/461/ + +Produced by Charles Keller. HTML version by Al Haines. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Scanned by Charles Keller with +OmniPage Professional OCR software +donated by Caere Corporation, 1-800-535-7226. +Contact Mike Lough <Mikel@caere.com> + + + + + +THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN GIRL + +A ROMANCE BY + +RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + + + + + +TO +PRIOR AND LOUISE CHRISTIAN, +WITH AFFECTION. + + + + +CONTENTS + +BOOK I + +CHAPTER +I. AN OLD HOUSE AND ITS BACHELOR + +II. IN WHICH I DECIDE TO GO ON PILGRIMAGE + +III. AN INDICTMENT OF SPRING + +IV. IN WHICH I EAT AND DREAM + +V. CONCERNING THE PERFECT WOMAN, AND THEREFORE CONCERNING ALL + FEMININE READERS + +VI. IN WHICH THE AUTHOR ANTICIPATES DISCONTENT ON THE PART OF + HIS READER + +VII. PRANDIAL + +VIII. STILL PRANDIAL + +IX. THE LEGEND OF HEBES OR THE HEAVENLY HOUSEMAID + +X. AGAIN ON FOOT-THE GIRLS THAT NEVER CAN BE MINE + +XI. AN OLD MAN OF THE HILLS, AND THE SCHOOLMASTER'S STORY + +XII. THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GIPSIES + +XIII. A STRANGE WEDDING + +XIV. THE MYSTERIOUS PETTICOAT + +XV. STILL OCCUPIED WITH THE PETTICOAT + +XVI. CLEARS UP MY MYSTERIOUS BEHAVIOUR OF THE LAST CHAPTER + +XVII. THE NAME UPON THE PETTICOAT + +XVIII. IN WHICH THE NAME OF A GREAT POET IS CRIED OUT IN A + SOLITARY PLACE + +XIX. WHY THE STRANGER WOULD NOT LOSE HIS SHELLEY FOR THE WORLD + + +BOOK II + +I. IN WHICH I DECIDE TO BE YOUNG AGAIN + +II. AT THE SIGN OF THE SINGING STREAM + +III. IN WHICH I SAVE A USEFUL LIFE + +IV. 'T IS OF NICOLETE AND HER BOWER IN THE WILDWOOD + +V. 'T IS OF AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE + +VI. A FAIRY TALE AND ITS FAIRY TAILORS + +VII. FROM THE MORNING STAR TO THE MOON + +VIII. THE KIND OF THING THAT HAPPENS IN THE MOON + +IX. WRITTEN BY MOONLIGHT + +X. HOW ONE MAKES LOVE AT THIRTY + +XI. HOW ONE PLAYS THE HERO AT THIRTY + +XII. IN WHICH I REVIEW MY ACTIONS AND RENEW MY RESOLUTIONS + + +BOOK III + +I. IN WHICH I RETURN TO MY RIGHT AGE AND ENCOUNTER A COMMON + OBJECT OF THE COUNTRY + +II. IN WHICH I HEAL A BICYCLE AND COME TO THE WHEEL OF + PLEASURE + +III. TWO TOWN MICE AT A COUNTRY INN + +IV. MARRIAGE A LA MODE + +V. CONCERNING THE HAVEN OF YELLOW SANDS + +VI. THE MOORLAND OF THE APOCALYPSE + +VII. "COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS!" + +VIII. THE TWELVE GOLDEN-HAIRED BAR-MAIDS + +IX. SYLVIA JOY + +X. IN WHICH ONCE MORE I BECOME OCCUPIED IN MY OWN AFFAIRS + +XI. "THE HOUR FOR WHICH THE YEARS FOR WHICH I DID SIGH" + +XII. AT THE CAFE DE LA PAIX + +XIII. THE INNOCENCE OF PARIS + +XIV. END OF BOOK THREE + + +BOOK IV + +THE POSTSCRIPT TO A PILGRIMAGE + +I. SIX YEARS AFTER + +II. GRACE O' GOD + +III. THE GOLDEN GIRL + + + + + +Gennem de Mange til En! + + + +BOOK I + + +CHAPTER I + +AN OLD HOUSE AND ITS BACHELOR + +When the knell of my thirtieth birthday sounded, I suddenly +realised, with a desolate feeling at the heart, that I was alone +in the world. It was true I had many and good friends, and I was +blessed with interests and occupations which I had often declared +sufficient to satisfy any not too exacting human being. +Moreover, a small but sufficient competency was mine, allowing me +reasonable comforts, and the luxuries of a small but choice +library, and a small but choice garden. These heavenly blessings +had seemed mere than enough for nearly five years, during which +the good sister and I had kept house together, leading a life of +tranquil happy days. Friends and books and flowers! It was, we +said, a good world, and I, simpleton,--pretty and dainty as +Margaret was,--deemed it would go on forever. But, alas! one day +came a Faust into our garden,--a good Faust, with no friend +Mephistopheles,--and took Margaret from me. It is but a month +since they were married, and the rice still lingers in the +crevices of the pathway down to the quaint old iron-work gate. +Yes! they have gone off to spend their honeymoon, and Margaret +has written to me twice to say how happy they are together in the +Hesperides. Dear happiness! Selfish, indeed, were he who would +envy you one petal of that wonderful rose--Rosa Mundi--God has +given you to gather. + +But, all the same, the reader will admit that it must be lonely +for me, and not another sister left to take pity on me, all +somewhere happily settled down in the Fortunate Isles. + +Poor lonely old house! do you, too, miss the light step of your +mistress? No longer shall her little silken figure flit up and +down your quiet staircases, no more deck out your silent rooms +with flowers, humming the while some happy little song. + +The little piano is dumb night after night, its candles +unlighted, and there is no one to play Chopin to us now as the +day dies, and the shadows stoop out of their corners to listen in +vain. Old house, old house! We are alone, quite alone,--there +is no mistake about that,--and the soul has gone out of both of +us. And as for the garden, there is no company there; that is +loneliest of all. The very sunlight looks desolation, falling +through the thick-blossoming apple-trees as through the chinks +and crevices of deserted Egyptian cities. + +While as for the books--well, never talk to me again about the +companionship of books! For just when one needs them most of all +they seem suddenly to have grown dull and unsympathetic, not a +word of comfort, not a charm anywhere in them to make us forget +the slow-moving hours; whereas, when Margaret was here--but it is +of no use to say any more! Everything was quite different when +Margaret was here: that is enough. Margaret has gone away to the +Fortunate Isles. Of course she'll come to see us now and again; +but it won't be the same thing. Yes! old echoing silent House of +Joy that is Gone, we are quite alone. Now, what is to be done? + + + +CHAPTER II + +IN WHICH I DECIDE TO GO ON PILGRIMAGE + +Though I have this bad habit of soliloquising, and indeed am +absurd enough to attempt conversation with a house, yet the +reader must realise from the beginning that I am still quite a +young man. I talked a little just now as though I were an +octogenarian. Actually, as I said, I am but just gone thirty, and +I may reasonably regard life, as the saying is, all before me. I +was a little down-hearted when I wrote yesterday. Besides, I +wrote at the end of the afternoon, a melancholy time. The +morning is the time to write. We are all--that is, those of us +who sleep well--optimists in the morning. And the world is sad +enough without our writing books to make it sadder. The rest of +this book, I promise you, shall be written of a morning. This +book! oh, yes, I forgot!--I am going to write +a book. A book about what? Well, that must be as God wills. +But listen! As I lay in bed this morning between sleeping and +waking, an idea came riding on a sunbeam into my room,--a mad, +whimsical idea, but one that suits my mood; and put briefly, it +is this: how is it that I, a not unpresentable young man, a man +not without accomplishments or experience, should have gone all +these years without finding that + + + "Not impossible she +Who shall command my heart and me,"-- + + +without meeting at some turning of the way the mystical Golden +Girl,--without, in short, finding a wife? + +"Then," suggested the idea, with a blush for its own absurdity, +"why not go on pilgrimage and seek her? I don't believe you'll +find her. She isn't usually found after thirty. But you'll no +doubt have good fun by the way, and fall in with many pleasant +adventures." + +"A brave idea, indeed!" I cried. "By Heaven, I will take +stick and knapsack and walk right away from my own front door, +right away where the road leads, and see what happens. "And +now, if the reader please, we will make a start. + + + +CHAPTER III + +AN INDICTMENT OF SPRING + +"Marry! an odd adventure!" I said to myself, as I stepped along +in the spring morning air; for, being a pilgrim, I was +involuntarily in a mediaeval frame of mind, and "Marry! an odd +adventure!" came to my lips as though I had been one of that +famous company that once started from the Tabard on a day in +spring. + +It had been the spring, it will be remembered, that had prompted +them to go on pilgrimage; and me, too, the spring was filling +with strange, undefinable longings, and though I flattered myself +that I had set out in pursuance of a definitely taken resolve, I +had really no more freedom in the matter than the children who +followed at the heels of the mad piper. + +A mad piper, indeed, this spring, with his wonderful lying +music,--ever lying, yet ever convincing, for when was Spring +known to keep his word? Yet year after year we give eager belief +to his promises. He may have consistently broken them for fifty +years, yet this year he will keep them. This year the dream will +come true, the ship come home. This year the very dead we have +loved shall come back to us again: for Spring can even lie like +that. There is nothing he will not promise the poor hungry human +heart, with his innocent-looking daisies and those practised +liars the birds. Why, one branch of hawthorn against the sky +promises more than all the summers of time can pay, and a pond +ablaze with yellow lilies awakens such answering splendours and +enchantments in mortal bosoms,--blazons, it would seem, so august +a message from the hidden heart of the world,--that ever +afterwards, for one who has looked upon it, the most fortunate +human existence must seem a disappointment. + +So I, too, with the rest of the world, was following in the wake +of the magical music. The lie it was drawing me by is perhaps +Spring's oldest, commonest lie,--the lying promise of the Perfect +Woman, the Quite Impossible She. Who has +not dreamed of her,--who that can dream at all? I suppose that +the dreams of our modern youth are entirely commercial. In the +morning of life they are rapt by intoxicating visions of some +great haberdashery business, beckoned to by the voluptuous +enticements of the legal profession, or maybe the Holy Grail they +forswear all else to seek is a snug editorial chair. These +quests and dreams were not for me. Since I was man I have had +but one dream,--namely, Woman. Alas! till this my thirtieth year +I have found only women. No! that is disloyal, disloyal to my +First Love; for this is sadly true,--that we always find the +Golden Girl in our first love, and lose her in our second. + +I wonder if the reader would care to hear about my First Love, of +whom I am naturally thinking a good deal this morning, under the +demoralising influences of the fresh air, blue sky, and various +birds and flowers. More potent intoxicants these than any that +need licenses for their purveyance, responsible-- see the +poets--for no end of human foolishness. + +I was about to tell the story of my First Love, but on second +thoughts I decide not. It will keep, and I feel hungry, and +yonder seems a dingle where I can lie and open my knapsack, eat, +drink, and doze among the sun-flecked shadows. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IN WHICH I EAT AND DREAM + +The girl we go to meet is the girl we have met before. I evolved +this sage reflection, as, lost deep down in the green alleys of +the dingle, having fortified the romantic side of my nature with +sandwiches and sherry, I lazily put the question to myself as to +what manner of girl I expected the Golden Girl to be. A man who +goes seeking should have some notion of what he goes out to seek. +Had I any ideal by which to test and measure the damsels of the +world who were to pass before my critical choosing eye? Had I +ever met any girl in the past who would serve approximately as a +model,--any girl, in fact, I would very much like to meet again? +I was very sleepy, and while trying to make up my mind I fell +asleep; and lo! the sandwiches and sherry brought me a dream that +I could not but consider of good omen. And this was the dream. + +I thought my quest had brought me into a strange old haunted +forest, and that I had thrown myself down to rest at the gnarled +mossy root of a great oak-tree, while all about me was nought but +fantastic shapes and capricious groups of gold-green bole and +bough, wondrous alleys ending in mysterious coverts, and green +lanes of exquisite turf that seemed to have been laid down in +expectation of some milk-white queen or goddess passing that way. + +And so still the forest was you could have heard an acorn drop or +a bird call from one end of it to the other. The exquisite +silence was evidently waiting for the exquisite voice, that +presently not so much broke as mingled with it, like a swan +swimming through a lake. + +"Whom seek you?" said, or rather sung, a planetary voice right +at my shoulder. But three short unmusical Saxon words, yet it +was as though a mystical strain of music had passed through the +wood. + +"Whom seek you?" and again the lovely speech flowered upon the +silence, as white water-lilies on the surface of some shaded +pool. + +"The Golden Girl," I answered simply, turning my head, and +looking half sideways and half upwards; and behold! the tree at +whose foot I lay had opened its rocky side, and in the cleft, +like a long lily-bud sliding from its green sheath, stood a +dryad, and my speech failed and my breath went as I looked upon +her beauty, for which mortality has no simile. Yet was there +something about her of the earth-sweetness that clings even to +the loveliest, star-ambitious, earth- born thing. She was not +all immortal, as man is not all mortal. She was the sweetness of +the strength of the oak, the soul born of the sun kissing its +green leaves in the still Memnonian mornings, of moon and stars +kissing its green leaves in the still Trophonian nights. + +"The maid you seek," said she, and again she broke the silence +like the moon breaking through the clouds, "what manner of maid +is she? For a maid abides in this wood, maybe it is she whom you +seek. Is she but a lovely face you seek? Is she but a lofty +mind? Is she but a beautiful soul?" + +"Maybe she is all these, though no one only, and more besides," +I answered. + +"It is well," she replied, "but have you in your heart no +image of her you seek? Else how should you know her should you +some day come to meet her?" + +"I have no image of her," I said. "I cannot picture her; but +I shall know her, know her inerrably as these your wood children +find out each other untaught, as the butterfly that has never +seen his kindred knows his painted mate, passing on the wing all +others by. Only when the lark shall mate with the nightingale, +and the honey-bee and the clock-beetle keep house together, shall +I wed another maid. Fair maybe she will not be, though fair to +me. Wise maybe she will not be, though wise to me. For riches I +care not, and of her kindred I have no care. All I know is that +just to sit by her will be bliss, just to touch her bliss, just +to hear her speak bliss beyond all mortal telling." + +Thereat the Sweetness of the Strength of the Oak smiled upon me +and said,-- + +"Follow yonder green path till it leads you into a little grassy +glade, where is a crystal well and a hut of woven boughs hard by, +and you shall see her whom you seek." + +And as she spoke she faded suddenly, and the side of the oak was +once more as the solid rock. With hot heart I took the green +winding path, and presently came the little grassy glade, and the +bubbling crystal well, and the hut of wattled boughs, and, +looking through the open door of the hut, I saw a lovely girl +lying asleep in her golden hair. She smiled sweetly in her sleep, +and stretched out her arms softly, as though to enfold the dear +head of her lover. And, ere I knew, I was bending over her, and +as her sweet breath came and went I whispered: "Grace o' God, I +am here. I have sought you through the world, and found you at +last. Grace o' God, I have come." + +And then I thought her great eyes opened, as when the sun sweeps +clear blue spaces in the morning sky. "Flower o' Men," then +said she, low and sweet,--"Flower o' Men, is it you indeed? As +you have sought, so have I waited, waited . . ." And thereat +her arms stole round my neck, and I awoke, and Grace o' God was +suddenly no more than a pretty name that my dream had given me. + +"A pretty dream," said my soul, "though a little boyish for +thirty." "And a most excellent sherry," added my body. + + + +CHAPTER V + +CONCERNING THE PERFECT WOMAN, AND THEREFORE CONCERNING ALL +FEMININE READERS + +As I once more got under way, my thoughts slowly loitered back to +the theme which had been occupying them before I dropped asleep. +What was my working hypothesis of the Perfect Woman, towards whom +I was thus leisurely strolling? She might be defined, I +reflected, as The Woman Who Is Worthy Of Us; but the +improbability which every healthily conceited young man must feel +of ever finding such a one made the definition seem a little +unserviceable. Or, if you prefer, since we seem to be dealing +with impossibles, we might turn about and more truly define her +as The Woman of Whom We are Worthy, for who dare say that she +exists? If, again, she were defined as the Woman our More +Fortunate Friend Marries, her unapproachableness would rob the +definition of any practical value. Other generalisations proving +equally unprofitable, I began scientifically to consider in +detail the attributes of the supposititious paragon,--attributes +of body and mind and heart. This was soon done; but again, as I +thus conned all those virtues which I was to expect united in one +unhappy woman, the result was still unsatisfying, for I began to +perceive that it was really not perfection that I was in search +of. As I added virtue after virtue to the female monster in my +mind, and the result remained still inanimate and unalluring, I +realised that the lack I was conscious of was not any new +perfection, but just one or two honest human imperfections. And +this, try as I would, was just what I could not imagine. + +For, if you reflect a moment, you will see that, while it is easy +to choose what virtues we would have our wife possess, it is all +but impossible to imagine those faults we would desire in her, +which I think most lovers would admit add piquancy to the loved +one, that fascinating wayward imperfection which paradoxically +makes her perfect. + +Faults in the abstract are each and all so uninviting, not to say +alarming, but, associated with certain eyes and hair and tender +little gowns, it is curious how they lose their terrors; and, as +with vice in the poet's image, we end by embracing what we began +by dreading. You see the fault becomes a virtue when it is hers, +the treason prospers; wherefore, no doubt, the impossibility of +imagining it. What particular fault will suit a particular +unknown girl is obviously as difficult to determine as in what +colours she will look her best. + +So, I say, I plied my brains in vain for that becoming fault. It +was the same whether I considered her beauty, her heart, or her +mind. A charming old Italian writer has laid down the canons of +perfect feminine beauty with much nicety in a delicious +discourse, which, as he delivered it in a sixteenth- century +Florentine garden to an audience of beautiful and noble ladies, +an audience not too large to be intimate and not too small to be +embarrassing, it was his delightful good fortune and privilege to +illustrate by pretty and sly references to the characteristic +beauties of the several ladies seated like a ring of roses around +him. Thus he would refer to the shape of Madonna Lampiada's +sumptuous eyelids, and to her shell-like ears, to the correct +length and shape of Madonna Amororrisca's nose, to the lily tower +of Madonna Verdespina's throat; nor would the unabashed old +Florentine shrink from calling attention to the unfairness of +Madonna Selvaggia's covering up her dainty bosom, just as he was +about to discourse upon "those two hills of snow and of roses +with two little crowns of fine rubies on their peaks. "How +could a man lecture if his diagrams were going to behave like +that! Then, feigning a tiff, he would close his manuscript, and +all the ladies with their birdlike voices would beseech him with +"Oh, no, Messer Firenzuola, please go on again; it's SO +charming!" while, as if by accident, Madonna Selvaggia's +moonlike bosom would once more slip out its heavenly silver, +perceiving which, Messer Firenzuola would open his manuscript +again and proceed with his sweet learning. + +Happy Firenzuola! Oh, days that are no more! + +By selecting for his illustrations one feature from one lady and +another from another, Messer Firenzuola builds up an ideal of the +Beautiful Woman, which, were she to be possible, would probably +be as faultily faultless as the Perfect Woman, were she possible. + +Moreover, much about the same time as Firenzuola was writing, +Botticelli's blonde, angular, retrousse women were breaking every +one of that beauty- master's canons, perfect in beauty none the +less; and lovers then, and perhaps particularly now, have found +the perfect beauty in faces to which Messer Firenzuola would have +denied the name of face at all, by virtue of a quality which +indeed he has tabulated, but which is far too elusive and +undefinable, too spiritual for him truly to have understood,--a +quality which nowadays we are tardily recognising as the first +and last of all beauty, either of nature or art,--the supreme, +truly divine, because materialistically unaccountable, quality of +Charm! + +"Beauty that makes holy earth and heaven May have faults from +head to feet." + +O loveliest and best-loved face that ever hallowed the eyes that +now seek for you in vain! Such was your strange lunar magic, +such the light not even death could dim. And such may be the +loveliest and best- loved face for you who are reading these +pages,--faces little understood on earth because they belong to +heaven. + +There is indeed only one law of beauty on which we may +rely,--that it invariably breaks all the laws laid down for it by +the professors of aesthetics. All the beauty that has ever been +in the world has broken the laws of all previous beauty, and +unwillingly dictated laws to the beauty that succeeded it,--laws +which that beauty has no less spiritedly broken, to prove in turn +dictator to its successor. + +The immortal sculptors, painters, and poets have always done +exactly what their critics forbade them to do. The obedient in +art are always the forgotten. + +Likewise beautiful women have always been a law unto themselves. +Who could have prophesied in what way any of these inspired +law-breakers would break the law, what new type of perfect +imperfection they would create? + +So we return to the Perfect Woman, having gained this much +knowledge of her,--that her perfection is nothing more or less +than her unique, individual, charming imperfection, and that she +is simply the woman we love and who is fool enough to love us. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +IN WHICH THE AUTHOR ANTICIPATES DISCONTENT ON THE PART OF HIS +READER + +"But come," I imagine some reader complaining, "isn't it high +time for something to happen?" No doubt it is, but what am I to +do? I am no less discontented. Is it not even more to my +interest than to the reader's for something to happen? Here have +I been tramping along since breakfast-time, and now it is late in +the afternoon, but never a feather of her dove's wings, never a +flutter of her angel's robes have I seen. It is disheartening, +for one naturally expects to find anything we seek a few minutes +after starting out to seek it, and I confess that I expected to +find my golden mistress within a very few hours of leaving home. +However, had that been the case, there would have been no story, +as the novelists say, and I trust, as he goes on, the reader may +feel with me that that would have been a pity. Besides, with that +prevision given to an author, I am strongly of opinion that +something will happen before long. And if the worst comes to the +worst, there is always that story of my First Love wherewith to +fill the time. Meanwhile I am approaching a decorative old +Surrey town, little more than a cluster of ripe old inns, to one +of which I have much pleasure in inviting the reader to dinner. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +PRANDIAL + +Dinner! + +Is there a more beautiful word in the language? + +Dinner! + +Let the beautiful word come as a refrain to and fro this chapter. + +Dinner! + +Just eating and drinking, nothing more, but so much! + +Drinking, indeed, has had its laureates. Yet would I offer my +mite of prose in its honour. And when I say "drinking," I +speak not of smuggled gin or of brandy bottles held fiercely by +the neck till they are empty. + +Nay, but of that lonely glass in the social solitude of the +tavern,--alone, but not alone, for the glass is sure to bring a +dream to bear it company, and it is a poor dream that cannot +raise a song. And what greater felicity than to be alone in a +tavern with your last new song, just born and yet still a +tingling part of you. + +Drinking has indeed been sung, but why, I have heard it asked, +have we no "Eating Songs?"--for eating is, surely, a fine +pleasure. Many practise it already, and it is becoming more +general every day. + +I speak not of the finicking joy of the gourmet, but the joy of +an honest appetite in ecstasy, the elemental joy of absorbing +quantities of fresh simple food,--mere roast lamb, new potatoes, +and peas of living green. + +It is, indeed, an absorbing pleasure. It needs all our +attention. You must eat as you kiss, so exacting are the joys of +the mouth,--talking, for example. The quiet eye may be allowed +to participate, and sometimes the ear, where the music is played +upon a violin, and that a Stradivarius. A well-kept lawn, with +six-hundred-years-old cedars and a twenty-feet yew hedge, will +add distinction to the meal. Nor should one ever eat without a +seventeenth-century poet in an old yellow-leaved edition upon the +table, not to be read, of course, any more than the flowers are +to be eaten, but just to make music of association very softly to +our thoughts. + +Some diners have wine too upon the table, and in the pauses of +thinking what a divine mystery dinner is, they eat. + +For dinner IS a mystery,--a mystery of which even the greatest +chef knows but little, as a poet knows not, + + +"with all his lore, +Wherefore he sang, +or whence the mandate sped." + + +"Even our digestion is governed by angels," said Blake; and if +you will resist the trivial inclination to substitute "bad +angels," is there really any greater mystery than the process by +which beef is turned into brains, and beer into beauty? Every +beautiful woman we see has been made out of beefsteaks. It is a +solemn thought,--and the finest poem that was ever written came +out of a grey pulpy mass such as we make brain sauce of. + +And with these grave thoughts for grace let us sit down to +dinner. + +Dinner! + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +STILL PRANDIAL + +What wine shall we have? I confess I am no judge of wines, +except when they are bad. To-night I feel inclined to allow my +choice to be directed by sentiment; and as we are on so pretty a +pilgrimage, would it not be appropriate to drink Liebfraumilch? + +Hock is full of fancy, and all wines are by their very nature +full of reminiscence, the golden tears and red blood of summers +that are gone. + +Forgive me, therefore, if I grow reminiscent. Indeed, I fear that +the hour for the story of my First Love has come. But first, +notice the waitress. I confess, whether beautiful or plain,--not +too plain,--women who earn their own living have a peculiar +attraction for me. + +I hope the Golden Girl will not turn out to be a duchess. As old +Campion sings,-- + + +"I care not for those ladies + Who must be wooed and prayed; +Give me kind Amaryllis, + The wanton country-maid." + + +Town-maids too of the same pattern. Whether in town or country, +give me the girls that work. The Girls That Work! But evidently +it is high time woe began a new chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE LEGEND OF HEBE, OR THE HEAVENLY HOUSEMAID + +Yes, I blush to admit it, my First Love was a housemaid. So was +she known on this dull earth of ours, but in heaven--in the +heaven of my imagination, at all events--she was, of course, a +goddess. How she managed to keep her disguise I never could +understand. To me she was so obviously dea certe. The nimbus was +so apparent. Yet no one seemed to see it but me. I have heard +her scolded as though she were any ordinary earthly housemaid, +and I have seen the butcher's boy trying to flirt with her +without a touch of reverence. + +Maybe I understood because I saw her in that early hour of the +morning when even the stony Memnon sings, in that mystical light +of the young day when divine exiled things, condemned to rough +bondage through the noon, are for a short magical hour their own +celestial selves, their unearthly glory as yet unhidden by any +earthly disguise. + +Neither fairies nor fauns, dryads nor nymphs of the forest pools, +have really passed away from the world. You have only to get up +early enough to meet them in the meadows. They rarely venture +abroad after six. All day long they hide in uncouth enchanted +forms. They change maybe to a field of turnips, and I have seen +a farmer priding himself on a flock of sheep that I knew were +really a most merry company of dryads and fauns in disguise. I +had but to make the sign of the cross, sprinkle some holy water +upon them, and call them by their sweet secret names, and the +whole rout had been off to the woods, with mad gambol and song, +before the eyes of the astonished farmer. + +It was so with Hebe. She was really a little gold-haired +blue-eyed dryad, whose true home was a wild white cherry-tree +that grew in some scattered woodland behind the old country-house +of my boyhood. In spring- time how that naughty tree used to +flash its silver nakedness of blossom for miles across the furze +and scattered birches! + +I might have known it was Hebe. + +Alas! it no longer bares its bosom with so dazzling a +prodigality, for it is many a day since it was uprooted. The +little dryad long since fled away weeping,--fled away, said evil +tongues, fled away to the town. + +Well do I remember our last meeting. Returning home one evening, +I met her at the lodge-gate hurrying away. Our loves had been +discovered, and my mother had shuddered to think that so pagan a +thing had lived so long in a Christian house. I vowed--ah! what +did I not vow?--and then we stole sadly together to comfort our +aching hearts under cover of the woodland. For the last time the +wild cherry-tree bloomed,--wonderful blossom, glittering with +tears, and gloriously radiant with stormy lights of wild passion +and wilder hopes. + +My faith lived valiantly till the next spring. It was Hebe who +was faithless. The cherry-tree was dead, for its dryad had +gone,--fled, said evil tongues, fled away to the town! + +But as yet, in the time to which my thoughts return, our sweet +secret mornings were known only to ourselves. It was my custom +then to rise early, to read Latin authors,--thanks to Hebe, still +unread. I used to light my fire and make tea for myself, till +one rapturous morning I discovered that Hebe was fond of rising +early too, and that she would like to light my fire and make my +tea. After a time she began to sweeten it for me. And then she +would sit on my knee, and we would translate Catullus +together,--into English kisses; for she was curiously interested +in the learned tongue. + +How lovely she used to look with the morning sun turning her hair +to golden mist, and dancing in the blue deeps of her eyes; and +once when by chance she had forgotten to fasten her gown, I +caught glimpses of a bosom that was like two happy handfuls of +wonderful white cherries . . . + +She wore a marvellous little printed gown. And here I may say +that I have never to this day understood objections which were +afterwards raised against my early attachment to print. The only +legitimate attachment to print stuff, I was told, was to print +stuff in the form of blouse, tennis, or boating costume. Yet, +thought I, I would rather smuggle one of those little print gowns +into my berth than all the silks a sea-faring friend of mine +takes the trouble to smuggle from far Cathay. However, every one +to his taste; for me, + + +No silken madam, by your leave, + Though wondrous, wondrous she be, +Can lure this heart--upon my sleeve-- + From little pink-print Hebe. + + +For I found beneath that pretty print such a heart as seldom +beats beneath your satin, warm and wild as a bird's. I used to +put my ear to it sometimes to listen if it beat right. Ah, +reader, it was like putting your ear to the gate of heaven. + +And once I made a song for her, which ran like this:-- + + + There grew twin apples high on a bough + Within an orchard fair; + The tree was all of gold, I vow, + And the apples of silver were. + + And whoso kisseth those apples high, + Who kisseth once is a king, + Who kisseth twice shall never die, + Who kisseth thrice--oh, were it I!-- + May ask for anything. + + +Hebe blushed, and for answer whispered something too sweet +to tell. + + +"Dear little head sunning over with curls," were I to meet you +now, what would happen? Ah! to meet you now were too painfully +to measure the remnant of my youth. + + + +CHAPTER X + + +AGAIN ON FOOT--THE GIRLS THAT NEVER CAN BE MINE + +Next morning I was afoot early, bent on my quest in right good +earnest; for I had a remorseful feeling that I had not been +sufficiently diligent the day before, had spent too much time in +dreaming and moralising, in which opinion I am afraid the reader +will agree. + +So I was up and out of the town while as yet most of the +inhabitants were in the throes of getting up. Somewhere too SHE, +the Golden One, the White Woman, was drowsily tossing the +night-clothes from her limbs and rubbing her sleepy eyes. +William Morris's lovely song came into my mind,-- + + +`And midst them all, perchance, my love +Is waking, and doth gently move +And stretch her soft arms out to me, +Forgetting thousand leagues of sea." + + +Perhaps she was in the very town I was leaving behind. Perhaps +we had slept within a few houses of each other. Who could tell? + + +Looking back at the old town, with its one steep street climbing +the white face of the chalk hill, I remembered what wonderful +exotic women Thomas Hardy had found eating their hearts out +behind the windows of dull country high streets, through which +hung waving no banners of romance, outwardly as unpromising of +adventure as the windows of the town I had left. And then +turning my steps across a wide common, which ran with gorse and +whortleberry bushes away on every side to distant hilly horizons, +swarthy with pines, and dotted here and there with stone granges +and white villages, I thought of all the women within that +circle, any one of whom might prove the woman I sought,--from +milkmaids crossing the meadows, their strong shoulders straining +with the weight of heavy pails, to fine ladies dying of ennui in +their country-houses; pretty farmers' daughters surreptitiously +reading novels, and longing for London and "life;" passionate +young farmers' wives already weary of their doltish lords; +bright- eyed bar-maids buried alive in country inns, and +wondering "whatever possessed them" to leave Manchester,--for +bar-maids seem always to come from Manchester,--all longing +modestly, said I, to set eyes on a man like me, a man of romance, +a man of feeling, a man, if you like, to run away with. + + +My heart flooded over with tender pity for these poor sweet +women--though perhaps chiefly for my own sad lot in not +encountering them,--and I conceived a great comprehensive +love-poem to be entitled "The Girls that never can be Mine." +Perhaps before the end of our tramp together, I shall have a few +verses of it to submit to the elegant taste of the reader, but at +present I have not advanced beyond the title. + + + + CHAPTER XI + + +AN OLD MAN OF THE HILLS, AND THE SCHOOLMASTER'S STORY + +While occupying myself with these no doubt wanton reflections on +the unfair division of opportunities in human life, I was +leisurely crossing the common, and presently I came up with a +pedestrian who, though I had little suspected it as I caught +sight of him ahead, was destined by a kind providence to make +more entertaining talk for me in half an hour than most people +provide in a lifetime. + +He was an oldish man, turned sixty, one would say, and belonging, +to judge from his dress and general appearance, to what one might +call the upper labouring class. He wore a decent square felt +hat, a shabby respectable overcoat, a workman's knitted +waistcoat, and workman's corduroys, and he carried an umbrella. +His upper part might have belonged to a small well-to-do +tradesman, while his lower bore marks of recent bricklaying. +Without its being remarkable, he had what one calls a good face, +somewhat aquiline in character, with a refined forehead and nose. + +His cheeks were shaved, and his whitening beard and moustache +were worn somewhat after the fashion of Charles Dickens. This +gave a slight touch of severity to a face that was full of quiet +strength. + +Passing the time of day to each other, we were soon in +conversation, I asking him this and that question about the +neighbouring country-side, of which I gathered he was an old +inhabitant. + +"Yes," he said presently, "I was the first to put stick or +stone on Whortleberry Common yonder. Fifteen years ago I built +my own wood cottage there, and now I'm rebuilding it of good +Surrey stone." + +"Do you mean that you are building it yourself, with your own +hands, no one to help you?" I asked. + +"Not so much as to carry a pail of water," he replied. "I'm +my own contractor, my own carpenter, and my own bricklayer, and I +shall be sixty-seven come Michaelmas," he added, by no means +irrelevantly. + +There was pride in his voice,--pardonable pride, I thought, for +who of us would not be proud to be able to build his own house +from floor to chimney? + +"Sixty-seven,--a man can see and do a good deal in that time," +I said, not flattering myself on the originality of the remark, +but desiring to set him talking. In the country, as elsewhere, +we must forego profundity if we wish to be understood. + +"Yes, sir," he said, "I have been about a good deal in my +time. I have seen pretty well all of the world there is to see, +and sailed as far as ship could take me." + +"Indeed, you have been a sailor too?" + +"Twenty-two thousand miles of sea," he continued, without +directly answering my remark. "Yes, Vancouver's about as far +as any vessel need want to go; and then I have caught seals off +the coast of Labrador, and walked my way through the raspberry +plains at the back of the White Mountains." + +"Vancouver," "Labrador," "The White Mountains," the very +names, thus casually mentioned on a Surrey heath, seemed full of +the sounding sea. Like talismans they whisked one away to +strange lands, across vast distances of space imagination refused +to span. Strange to think that the shabby little man at my side +had them all fast locked, pictures upon pictures, in his brain, +and as we were talking was back again in goodness knows what +remote latitude. + +I kept looking at him and saying, "Twenty-two thousand miles of +sea! sixty-seven! and builds his own cottage!" + +In addition to all this he had found time to be twenty-one years +a policeman, and to beget and rear successfully twelve children. +He was now, I gathered, living partly on his pension, and spoke +of this daughter married, this daughter in service here, and that +daughter in service there, one son settled in London and another +in the States, with something of a patriarchal pride, with the +independent air too of a man who could honestly say to himself +that, with few advantages from fortune, having had, so to say, to +work his passage, every foot and hour of it, across those +twenty-two thousand miles and those sixty-seven years, he had +made a thoroughly creditable job of his life. + +As we walked along I caught glimpses in his vivid and +ever-varying talk of the qualities that had made his success +possible. They are always the same qualities! + +A little pile of half-hewn stones, the remains of a ruined wall, +scattered by the roadside caught his eye. + +"I've seen the time when I wouldn't have left them stones +lying out there," he said, and presently, "Why, God bless you, +I've made my own boots before to-day. Give me the tops and +I'll soon rig up a pair still." + +And with all his success, and his evident satisfaction with his +lot, the man was neither a prig nor a teetotaller. He had +probably seen too much of the world to be either. Yet he had, he +said, been too busy all his life to spend much time in public- +houses, as we drank a pint of ale together in the inn which stood +at the end of the common. + +"No, it's all well enough in its way, but it swallows time," +he remarked. "You see, my wife and I have our own pin at home, +and when I'm a bit tired, I just draw a glass for myself, and +smoke a pipe, and there's no time wasted coming and going, and +drinking first with this and then with the other." + +A little way past the inn we came upon a notice-board whereon the +lord of the manor warned all wayfarers against trespassing on the +common by making encampments, lighting fires or cutting firewood +thereon, and to this fortunate circumstance I owe the most +interesting story my companion had to tell. + +We had mentioned the lord of the manor as we crossed the common, +and the notice- board brought him once more to the old man's +mind. + +"Poor gentleman!" he said, pointing to the board as though it +was the lord of the manor himself standing there, "I shouldn't +like to have had the trouble he's had on my shoulders." + +"Indeed?" I said interrogatively. + +"Well, you see, sir," he continued, instinctively lowering his +voice to a confidential impressiveness, "he married an actress; +a noble lady too she was, a fine dashing merry lady as ever you +saw. All went well for a time, and then it suddenly got +whispered about that she and the village schoolmaster were +meeting each other at nights, in the meadow-bottom at the end of +her own park. It lies over that way,--I could take you to the +very place. The schoolmaster was a noble-looking young man too, +a devil-me-care blade of a fellow, with a turn for poetry, they +said, and a merry man too, and much in request for a song at The +Moonrakers of an evening. Many 's the night I've heard the +windows rattling with the good company gathered round him. Yes, +he was a noble-looking man, a noble-looking man," he repeated +wistfully, and with an evident sympathy for the lovers which, I +need hardly say, won my heart. + +"But how, I wonder, did they come to know each other?" I +interrupted, anxious to learn all I could, even if I had to ask +stupid questions to learn it. + +"Well, of course, no one can say how these things come about. +She was the lady of the manor and the patroness of his school; +and then, as I say, he was a very noble-looking man, and +probably took her fancy; and, sir, whenever some women set their +hearts on a man there's no stopping them. Have him they will, +whatever happens. They can't help it, poor things! It's just a +freak of nature." + +"Well, and how was it found out?" I again jogged him. + +"One of Sir William's keepers played the spy on them. He spread +it all over the place how he had seen them on moonlight nights +sitting together in the dingle, drinking champagne, and laughing +and talking as merry as you please; and, of course, it came in +time to Sir William--" + +"You see that green lane there," he broke off, pointing to a +romantic path winding along the heath side; "it was along there +he used to go of a night to meet her after every one was in bed; +and when it all came out there was a regular cartload of bottles +found there. The squire had them all broken up, but the pieces +are there to this day. + +"Yes," he again proceeded, "it hit Sir William very hard. +He's never been the same man since." + +I am afraid that my sympathies were less with Sir William than +better regulated sympathies would have been. I confess that my +imagination was more occupied with that picture of the two lovers +making merry together in the moonlit dingle. + +Is it not, indeed, a fascinating little story, with its piquant +contrasts and its wild love-at-all-costs? And how many such +stories are hidden about the country, lying carelessly in rustic +memories, if one only knew where to find them! + +At this point my companion left me, and I--well, I confess that I +retraced my steps to the common and rambled up that green lane, +along which the romantic schoolmaster used to steal in the +moonlight to the warm arms of his love. How eagerly he had +trodden the very turf I was treading,--we never know at what +moment we are treading sacred earth! But for that old man, I had +passed along this path without a thrill. Had I not but an hour +ago stood upon this very common, vainly, so it seemed, invoking +the spirits of passion and romance, and the grim old common had +never made a sign. And now I stood in the very dingle where they +had so often and so wildly met; and it was all gone, quite gone +away for ever. The hours that had seemed so real, the kisses +that had seemed like to last for ever, the vows, the tears, all +now as if they had never been, gone on the four winds, lost in +the abysses of time and space. + +And to think of all the thousands and thousands of lovers who had +loved no less wildly and tenderly, made sweet these lanes with +their vows, made green these meadows with their feet; and they, +too, all gone, their bright eyes fallen to dust, their sweet +voices for ever put to silence. + +To which I would add, for the benefit of the profane, that I +sought in vain for those broken bottles. + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GIPSIES + +I felt lonely after losing my companion, and I met nobody to take +his place. In fact, for a couple of hours I met nothing worth +mentioning, male or female, with the exception of a gipsy +caravan, which I suppose was both; but it was a poor show. Borrow +would have blushed for it. In fact, it is my humble opinion that +the gipsies have been overdone, just as the Alps have been +over-climbed. I have no great desire to see Switzerland, for I +am sure the Alps must be greasy with being climbed. + +Besides, the Alps and the gipsies, in common with waterfalls and +ruined castles, belong to the ready-made operatic poetry of the +world, from which the last thrill has long since departed. They +are, so to say, public poetry, the public property of the +emotions, and no longer touch the private heart or stir the +private imagination. Our fathers felt so much about them that +there is nothing left for us to feel. They are as a rose whose +fragrance has been exhausted by greedy and indiscriminate +smelling. I would rather find a little Surrey common for myself +and idle about it a summer day, with the other geese and donkeys, +than climb the tallest Alp. + +Most gipsies are merely tenth-rate provincial companies, +travelling with and villainously travestying Borrow's great +pieces of "Lavengro" and "Romany Rye." Dirty, ill-looking, +scowling men; dirty, slovenly, and wickedly ugly women; children +to match, snarling, filthy little curs, with a ready beggar's +whine on occasion. A gipsy encampment to-day is little more than +a moving slum, a scab of squalor on the fair face of the +countryside. + +But there was one little trifle of an incident that touched me as +I passed this particular caravan. Evidently one of the vans had +come to grief, and several men of the party were making a great +show of repairing it. After I had run the gauntlet of the +begging children, and was just out of ear- shot of the group, I +turned round to survey it from a distance. It was encamped on a +slight rise of the undulating road, and from where I stood tents +and vans and men were clearly silhouetted against the sky. The +road ran through and a little higher than the encampment, which +occupied both sides of it. Presently the figure of a young man +separated itself from the rest, stept up on to the smooth road, +and standing in the middle of it, in an absorbed attitude, began +to make a movement with his hands as though winding string round +a top. That in fact was his occupation, and for the next five +minutes he kept thus winding the cord, flinging the top to the +ground, and intently bending down to catch it on his hand, none +of the others, not even the children, taking the slightest notice +of him,--he entirely alone there with his poor little pleasure. +There seemed to me pathos in his loneliness. Had some one spun +the top with him, it would have vanished; and presently, no doubt +at the bidding of an oath I could not hear, he hurriedly thrust +the top into his pocket, and once more joined the straining group +of men. The snatched pleasure must be put by at the call of +reality; the world and its work must rush in upon his dream. I +have often thought about the top and its spinner, as I have noted +the absorbed faces of other people's pleasures in the +streets,--two lovers passing along the crowded Strand with eyes +only for each other; a student deep in his book in the corner of +an omnibus; a young mother glowing over the child in her arms; +the wild-eyed musician dreamily treading on everybody's toes, and +begging nobody's pardon; the pretty little Gaiety Girl hurrying +to rehearsal with no thought but of her own sweet self and +whether there will be a letter from Harry at the stage- +door,--yes, if we are alone in our griefs, we are no less alone +in our pleasures. We spin our tops as in an enchanted circle, +and no one sees or heeds save ourselves,--as how should they with +their own tops to spin? Happy indeed is he, who has his top and +cares still to spin it; for to be tired of our tops is to be +tired of life, saith the preacher. + +As the young gipsy's little holiday came to an end, I turned with +a sigh upon my way; and here, while still on the subject, may I +remark on the curious fact that probably Borrow has lived and +died without a single gipsy having heard of him, just as the +expertest anglers know nothing of Izaak Walton. + +Has the British soldier, one wonders, yet discovered Rudyard +Kipling, or is the Wessex peasant aware of Thomas Hardy? It is +odd to think that the last people to read such authors are the +very people they most concern. For you might spend your life, +say, in studying the London street boy, and write never so +movingly and humourously about him, yet would he never know your +name; and though Whitechapel makes novelists, it does so without +knowing it,--makes them to be read in Mayfair,--just as it never +wears the dainty hats and gowns its weary little milliners and +seamstresses make through the day and night. It is Capital and +Labour over again, for in literature also we reap in gladness +what others have sown in tears. + +And now, after these admirable reflections, I am about to make +such "art" as I can of another man's tragedy, as will appear in +the next chapter. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +A STRANGE WEDDING + +My moralisings were cut short by my entering a village, and, it +being about the hour of noon, finding myself in the thick of a +village wedding. + +Undoubtedly the nicest way to get married is on the sly, and +indeed it is at present becoming quite fashionable. Many young +couples of my acquaintance, who have had no other reason for +concealing the fact beyond their own whim, have thus slipped off +without saying a word to anybody, and returned full-blown +housekeepers, with "at home" days of their own, and everything +else like real married people,--for, as said an old lady to me, +"one can never be sure of married people nowadays unless you +have been at the wedding." + +My friend George Muncaster, who does everything charmingly +different from any one else, hit upon one of the quaintest plans +for his marriage. It was simple, and some may say prosaic +enough. His days being spent at a great office in the city, he +got leave of absence for a couple of hours, met his wife, went +with her to the registrar's, returned to his office, worked the +rest of the day as usual, and then went to his new home to find +his wife and dinner awaiting him,--all just as it was going to +be every night for so many happy years. Prosaic, you say! Not +your idea of poetry, perhaps, but, after a new and growing +fashion in poetry, truly poetic. George Muncaster's marriage is +a type of the new poetry, the poetry of essentials. The old +poetry, as exemplified in the old-fashioned marriage, is a poetry +of externals, and certainly it has the advantage of +picturesqueness. + +There is perhaps more to be said for it than that. Indeed, if I +were ever to get married, I am at a loss to know which way I +should choose,--George Muncaster's way or the old merry fashion, +with the rice and the old shoes and the orange-blossom. No doubt +the old cheery publicity is a little embarrassing to the two most +concerned, and the old marriage customs, the singing of the bride +and bridegroom to their nuptial couch, the frank jests, the +country horse-play, must have fretted the souls of many a lover +before Shelley, who, it will be remembered, resented the choral +celebrations of his Scotch landlord and friends by appearing at +his bedroom door with a brace of pistols. + +How like Shelley! The Scotch landlord meant well, we may be +sure, and a very small pinch of humour, or even mere ordinary +humanity, as distinct from humanitarianism, would have taken in +the situation. Of course Shelley's mind was full of the sanctity +of the moment, and indignant that "the hour for which the years +did sigh" should thus be broken in upon by vulgar revelry; but +while we may sympathise with his view, and admit to the full the +sacredness, not to say the solemnity, of the marriage ceremony, +yet it is to be hoped that it still retains a naturally mirthful +side, of which such public merriment is but the crude expression. + +With all its sweet and mystical significance, surely the +prevailing feeling in the hearts of bride and bridegroom is, or +should be, that of happiness,--happiness bubbling and dancing, +all sunny ripples from heart to heart. + +Surely they can spare a little of it, just one day's sight of it, +to a less happy world,--a world long since married and done for, +and with little happiness in it save the spectacle of other +people's happiness. It is good for us to see happy people, good +for the symbols of happiness to be carried high amidst us on +occasion; for if they serve no other purpose, they inspire in us +the hope that we too may some day be happy, or remind our +discontented hearts that we have been. + +If it were only for the sake of those quaint old women for whom +life would be entirely robbed of interest were it not for other +people's weddings and funerals, one feels the public ceremony of +marriage a sort of public duty, the happiness tax, so to say, due +to the somewhat impoverished revenues of public happiness. Other +forms of happiness are taxed; why not marriage? + +In a village, particularly, two people who robbed the community +of its perquisites in this respect would be looked upon as +"enemies of the people," and their joint life would begin under +a social ban which it would cost much subsequent hospitality to +remove. The dramatic instinct to which the life of towns is +necessarily unfavourable, is kept alive in the country by the +smallness of the stage and the fewness of the actors. A village +is an organism, conscious of its several parts, as a town is not. + +In a village everybody is a public man. The great events of his +life are of public as well as private significance, +appropriately, therefore, invested with public ceremonial. Thus +used to living in the public eye, the actors carry off their +parts at weddings and other dramatic ceremonials, with more +spirit than is easy to a townsman, who is naturally made +self-conscious by being suddenly called upon to fill for a day a +public position for which he has had no training. That no doubt +is the real reason for the growth of quiet marriages; and the +desire for them, I suspect, comes first from the man, for there +are few women who at heart do not prefer the old histrionic +display. + +However, the village wedding at which I suddenly found myself a +spectator was, for a village, a singularly quiet one. There was +no bell-ringing, and there were no bridesmaids. The bride drove +up quietly with her father, and there was a subdued note even in +the murmur of recognition which ran along the villagers as they +stood in groups near the church porch. There was an absence of +the usual hilarity which struck me. One might almost have said +that there was a quite ominous silence. + +Seating myself in a corner of the transept where I could see all +and be little seen, I with the rest awaited the coming of the +overdue bridegroom. Meanwhile the usual buzzing and bobbing of +heads went on amongst the usual little group near the foot of the +altar. Now and then one caught a glisten of tears through a +widow's veil, and the little bride, dressed quietly in grey, +talked with the usual nervous gaiety to her girl friends, and +made the usual whispered confidences about her trousseau. The +father, in occasional conversation with one and another, appeared +to be avoiding the subject with the usual self-conscious +solemnity, and occasionally he looked, somewhat anxiously, I +thought, towards the church door. The bridegroom did not keep us +waiting long,--I noticed that he had a rather delicate sad +face,--and presently the service began. + +I don't know myself what getting married must feel like, but it +cannot be much more exciting than watching other people getting +married. Probably the spectators are more conscious of the +impressive meaning of it all than the brave young people +themselves. I say brave, for I am always struck by the courage of +the two who thus gaily leap into the gulf of the unknown +together, thus join hands over the inevitable, and put their +signatures to the irrevocable. Indeed, I always get something +like a palpitation of the heart just before the priest utters +those final fateful words, "I declare you man and-- wife." +Half a second before you were still free, half a second after you +are bound for the term of your natural life. Half a second +before you had only to dash the book from the priest's hands, and +put your hand over his mouth, and though thus giddily swinging on +the brink of the precipice, you are saved. Half a second after + + +Not all the king's horses and all the king's men + Can make you a bachelor ever again. + + +It is the knife-edge moment 'twixt time and eternity. + +And, curiously enough, while my thoughts were thus running on +towards the rapids of that swirling moment, the very thing +happened which I had often imagined might happen to myself. +Suddenly, with a sob, the bridegroom covered his face with his +hands, and crying, "I cannot! I cannot!" hurriedly left the +church, tears streaming down his cheeks, to the complete dismay +of the sad little group at the altar, and the consternation of +all present. + +"Poor young man! I thought he would never go through with it," +said an old woman half to herself, who was sitting near me. I +involuntarily looked my desire of explanation. + +"Well, you see," she said, "he had been married before. His +first wife died four years ago, and he loved her beyond all +heaven and earth." + +That evening, I afterwards heard, the young bridegroom's body was +found by some boys as they went to bathe in the river. As I +recalled once more that sad yearning face, and heard again that +terrible "I cannot! I cannot!" I thought of Heine's son of +Asra, who loved the Sultan's daughter. + +"What is thy name, slave?" asked the princess, "and what thy +race and birthplace?" + +"My name," the young slave answered, "is Mahomet. I come from +Yemen. My race is that of Asra, and when we love, we die." + +And likewise a voice kept saying in my heart, "If ever you find +your Golden Bride, be sure she will die." + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +THE MYSTERIOUS PETTICOAT + +The sad thoughts with which this incident naturally left me were +at length and suddenly dispersed, as sad thoughts not +infrequently are, by a petticoat. When I say petticoat, I use +the word in its literal sense, not colloquially as a metaphor for +its usual wearer, meaning thereby a dainty feminine undergarment +seen only by men on rainy days, and one might add washing-days. +It was indeed to the fortunate accident of its being washing-day +at the pretty cottage near which in the course of my morning +wanderings I had set me down to rest, that I owed the sight of +the petticoat in question. + +But first allow me to describe a little more fully my +surroundings at the moment. Not indeed that I can hope to put +into words the charm of those embowered cottages, like nests in +the armpits of great trees, tucked snugly in the hollows of those +narrow, winding, almost subterranean lanes which burrow their way +beneath the warm-hearted Surrey woodlands. + +Nothing can be straighter and smoother than a Surrey road--when +it is on the king's business; then it is a high-road and behaves +accordingly: but a Surrey bye-road is the most whimsical +companion in the world. It is like a sheep-dog, always running +backwards and forwards, poking into the most out-of-the-way +corners, now climbing at a run some steep hummock of the down, +and now leisurely going miles about to escape an ant-hill; and +all the time (here, by the way, ends the sheep-dog) it is +stopping to gossip with rillets vagabond as itself, or loitering +to bedeck itself with flowers. It seems as innocent of a +destination as a boy on an errand; but, after taking at least six +times as long as any other road in the kingdom for its amount of +work, you usually find it dip down of a sudden into some lovely +natural cul-de-sac, a meadow-bottom surrounded by trees, with a +stream spreading itself in fantastic silver shallows through its +midst, and a cottage half hidden at the end. Had the lane been +going to some great house, it would have made more haste, we may +be sure. + +The lane I had been following had finally dropped me down at +something of a run upon just such a scene. The cottage, built +substantially of grey stone, stood upon the side of the slope, +and a broad strip of garden, half cultivated and half wild, began +near the house with cabbages, and ended in a jungle of giant +bulrushes as it touched the stream. Golden patches of ragwort +blazed here and there among a tangled mass of no doubt worthier +herbage,--such even in nature is the power of gold,--and there +were the usual birds. + +However, my business is with the week's washing, which in various +shades of white, with occasional patches of scarlet, fluttered +fantastically across a space of the garden, thereby giving +unmistakable witness to human inhabitants, male and female. + +As I lounged upon the green bank, I lazily watched these parodies +of humanity as they were tossed hither and thither with humourous +indignity by the breeze, remarking to myself on the quaint +shamelessness with which we thus expose to the public view +garments which at other times we are at such bashful pains to +conceal. And thus philosophising, like a much greater +philosopher, upon clothes, I found myself involuntarily deducing +the cottage family from the family washing. I soon decided that +there must be at least one woman say of the age of fifty, one +young woman, one little child, sex doubtful, and one man probably +young. Further than this it was impossible to conjecture. Thus I +made the rough guess that a young man and his wife, a child, and +a mother-in-law were among the inhabitants of this idyllic +cottage. + +But the clothes-line presented charming evidence of still another +occupant; and here, though so far easy to read, came in something +of a puzzle. Who in this humble out-of-the-way cottage could +afford to wear that exquisite cambric petticoat edged with a fine +and very expensive lace? And surely it was on no country legs +that those delicately clocked and open-worked silk stockings +walked invisible through the world. + +Nor was the lace any ordinary expensive English lace, such as any +good shop can supply. Indeed, I recognised it as being of a +Parisian design as yet little known in England; while on the tops +of the stockings I laughingly suspected a border designed by a +certain eccentric artist, who devotes his strange gifts to +decorating with fascinating miniatures the under-world of woman. +I have seen corsets thus made beautiful by him valued at five +hundred pounds, and he never paints a pair of garters for less +than a hundred. His name is not yet a famous one, as, for +obvious reasons, his works are not exhibited at public galleries, +though they are occasionally to be seen at private views. + +I am far from despising an honest red-flannel country petticoat. +There is no warmer kinder-looking garment in the world. It +suggests country laps and country breasts, with sturdy country +babes greedy for the warm white milk, and it seems dyed in +country blushes. Yet, for all that, one could not be insensible +to the exotic race and distinction of that frivolous town +petticoat, daintily disporting itself there among its country +cousins, like a queen among milkmaids. + +What numberless suggestions of romance it awoke! What strange +perfumes seemed to waft across from it, perfumes laden with +associations of a world so different from the green world where +it now was, a charming world of gay intrigue and wanton pleasure. +No wonder the wind chose it so often for its partner as it danced +through the garden, scorning to notice the heavy homespun things +about it. It was not every day that that washing-day wind met so +fine a lady, and it was charming to see how gently he played +about her stockings. "Ah, wind," I said, "evidently you are a +gallant born; but tell us the name of the lady. It is somewhere +on that pretty petticoat, I'll be bound." + +Is she some little danseuse with the whim to be romantically +rustic for a week? or is she somebody else's pretty wife run away +with somebody else's man? or is she some naughty little grisette +with an extravagant lover? or is she just the usual lady +landscape artist, with a more than usual taste in lingerie? + +At all events, it was fairly obvious that, for one reason or +another, the wearer of the petticoat and stockings which have now +occupied us for perhaps a sufficient number of pages, was a +visitor at the cottage. + +The next thing was to get a look at her. So, remembering how fond +I was of milk from the cow, I pushed open the gate and advanced +to the cottage door. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +STILL OCCUPIED WITH THE PETTICOAT + +The door was opened by a comely young woman, with ruddy cheeks +and a bright kind eye that promised conversation. But "H'm," +said I to myself, as she went to fetch my milk, "evidently not +yours, my dear." + +"A nice drying day for your washing," I said, as I slowly +sipped my milk, with a half-inclination of my head towards the +clothes-line. + +"Very fine, indeed, sir," she returned, with something of a +blush, and a shy deprecating look that seemed to beg me not to +notice the peculiarly quaint antics which the wind, evidently a +humourist, chose at that moment to execute with the female +garments upon the line. However, I was for once cased in triple +brass and inexorable. + +"And who," I ventured, smiling, "may be the owner of those +fine things?" + +"Not those," I continued, pointing to an odd garment which the +wind was wantonly puffing out in the quaintest way, "but that +pretty petticoat and those silk stockings?" + +The poor girl had gone scarlet, scarlet as the petticoat which I +was sure WAS hers, with probably a fellow at the moment keeping +warm her buxom figure. + +"You are very bold, sir," she stammered through her blushes, +but I could see that she was not ill-pleased that the finery +should attract attention. + +"But won't you tell me?" I urged; "I have a reason for +asking." + +And here I had better warn the reader that, as the result of a +whim that presently seized me, I must be content to appear mad in +his eyes for the next few pages, till I get an opportunity of +explanation. + +"Well, what if they should be mine?" at length I persuaded her +into saying. + +I made the obvious gallant reply, but, "All the same," I added, +"you know they are not yours. They belong to some lady visitor, +who, I'll be bound, isn't half so pretty; now, don't they?" + +"Well, they just don't then. They're mine, as I tell you." + +"H'm," I continued, a little nonplussed, "but do you really +mean there is no lady staying with you?" + +"Certainly," she replied, evidently enjoying my bewilderment. + +"Well, then, some lady must have stayed here once," I retorted, +with a sudden inspiration, "and left them behind--" + +"You might be a detective after stolen goods," she interrupted. + +"I tell you the things are mine; and what I should like to know +does a gentleman want bothering himself about a lady's petticoat! + +No wonder you blush," for, in fact, as was easy to foresee, the +situation was becoming a little ridiculous for me. + +"Now, look here," I said with an affectation of gravity, "if +you'll tell me how you came by those things, I'll make it worth +your while. They were given to you by a lady who stayed here not +so long ago, now, weren't they?" + +"Well, then, they were." + +"The lady stayed here with a gentleman?" + +"Yes, she did." + +"H'm! I thought so," I said. "Yes! that lady, it pains me to +say, was my wife!" + +This unblushing statement was not, I could see, without its +effect upon the present owner of the petticoat. + +"But she said they were brother and sister," she replied. + +"Of course she did," I returned, with a fine assumption of +scorn,--"of course she did. They always do." + +"Dear young woman," I continued, when I was able to control my +emotion, "you are happily remote from the sin and wickedness of +the town, and I am sorry to speak of such things in so peaceful a +spot--but as a strange chance has led me here, I must speak, must +tell you that all wives are not so virtuous and faithful as you, +I am sure, are. There are wives who forsake their husbands +and--and go off with a handsomer man, as the poet says; and mine, +mine, alas! was one of them. It is now some months ago that my +wife left me in this way, and since then I have spent every day +in searching for her; but never till this moment have I come upon +the least trace of her. Strange, is it not? that here, in this +peaceful out-of-the- way garden, I should come upon her very +petticoat, her very stockings--" + +By this my grief had become such that the kind girl put her hand +on my arm. "Don't take on so," she said kindly, and then +remembering her treasured property, and probably fearing a +counterclaim on my part to its possession, "But how can you be +sure she was here? There are lots of petticoats like that--" + +"What was she like?" I asked through my agitation. + +"Middle height, slim and fair, with red goldy hair and big blue +eyes; about thirty, I should say." + +"The very same," I groaned, "there is no mistake; and now," I +continued, "I want you to sell me that petticoat and those +stockings," and I took a couple of sovereigns from my purse. +"I want to have them to confront her with, when I do find her. +Perhaps it will touch her heart to think of the strange way in +which I came by them; and you can buy just as pretty ones again +with the money," I added, as I noticed the disappointment on her +face at the prospect of thus losing her finery. + +"Well, it's a funny business, to be sure," she said, as still +half reluctantly she unpegged the coveted garments from the line; +"but if what you say 's true, I suppose you must have them." + +The wanton wind had been so busily kissing them all the morning +that they were quite dry, so I was able to find room for them in +my knapsack without danger to the other contents; and, with a +hasty good-day to their recent possessor, I set off at full speed +to find a secure nook where I could throw myself down on the +grass, and let loose the absurd laughter that was dangerously +bottled up within me; but even before I do that it behoves me if +possible to vindicate my sanity to the reader. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +CLEARS UP MY MYSTERIOUS BEHAVIOUR OF THE LAST CHAPTER + +What a sane man should be doing carrying about with him a woman's +petticoat and silk stockings, may well be a puzzle to the most +intelligent reader. + +Whim, sir, whim! and few human actions admit of more satisfactory +solution. Like Shylock, I'll say "It is my humour." But no! +I'll be more explanatory. This madcap quest of mine, was it not +understood between us from the beginning to be a fantastic whim, +a poetical wild-goose chase, conceived entirely as an excuse for +being some time in each other's company? To be whimsical, +therefore, in pursuit of a whim, fanciful in the chase of a +fancy, is surely but to maintain the spirit of the game. Now, +for the purpose, therefore, of a romance that makes no pretence +to reasonableness, I had very good reasons for buying that +petticoat, which (the reasons, not the petticoat) I will now lay +before you. + +I have been conscious all the way along through this pilgrimage +of its inevitable vagueness of direction, of my need of something +definite, some place, some name, anything at all, however slight, +which I might associate, if only for a time, with the object of +my quest, a definite something to seek, a definite goal for my +feet. + +Now, when I saw that mysterious petticoat, and realised that its +wearer would probably be pretty and young and generally charming, +and that probably her name was somewhere on the waistband, the +spirit of whim rejoiced within me. "Why not," it said, "buy +the petticoat, find out the name of its owner, and, instead of +seeking a vague Golden Girl, make up your mind doggedly to find +and marry her, or, failing that, carry the petticoat with you, as +a sort of Cinderella's slipper, try it on any girl you happen to +fancy, and marry her it exactly fits?" + +Now, I confess, that seemed to me quite a pretty idea, and I +hope the reader will think so too. If not, I'm afraid I can +offer him no better explanation; and in fact I am all impatience +to open my knapsack, and inform myself of the name of her to the +discovery of whom my wanderings are henceforth to be devoted. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +THE NAME UPON THE PETTICOAT + +So imagine me seated in a grassy corner, with my knapsack open on +the ground and my petticoat and silk stockings spread out in +front of me,--an odd picture, to be sure, for any passer by to +come upon. I suppose I could have passed for a pedlar, but +undoubtedly it would have been very embarrassing. However, as it +happened, I remained undisturbed, and was able to examine my +purchases at leisure. I had never seen a petticoat so near +before,--at all events I had never given one such close +attention. What delicious dainty things they are! How +essentially womanly--as I hope no one would call a pair of +trousers essentially manly. + +How pretty it looked spread out on the grass in front of me! How +soft! how wondrously dainty the finish +of every little seam! And the lace! It almost tempts one to +change one's sex to wear such things. There was a time indeed, +and not so long ago, when brave men wore garments no less dainty. + +Rupert's Cavaliers were every bit as particular about their lace +collars and frills as the lady whose pretty limbs once warmed +this cambric. + +But where is the name? Ah! here it is! What sweet writing! +"Sylvia Joy, No. 6." + +Sylvia Joy! What a perfectly enchanting name! and as I repeated +it enthusiastically, it seemed to have a certain familiarity for +my ear,--as though it were the name of some famous beauty or some +popular actress,--yet the exact association eluded me, and +obviously it was better it should remain a name of mystery. +Sylvia Joy! Who could have hoped for such a pretty name! +Indeed, to tell the truth, I had dreaded to find a "Mary Jones" +or an "Ann Williams"-- but Sylvia Joy! The name was a romance +in itself. I already felt myself falling in love with its unseen +owner. With such a petticoat and such a name, Sylvia herself +could not be otherwise than delightful too. Already, you see, I +was calling her by her Christian name! And the more I thought of +her, the stronger grew the conviction-- which has no doubt +already forced itself upon the romantic reader--that we were born +for each other. + +But who is Sylvia, who is she? and likewise where is Sylvia, +where is she? Obviously they were questions not to be answered +off-hand. Was not my future--at all events my immediate +future--to be spent in answering them? + +Indeed, curiously enough, my recent haste to have them answered +had suddenly died down. A sort of matrimonial security possessed +me. I felt as I imagine a husband may feel on a solitary +holiday--if there are husbands unnatural enough to go holidaying +without their wives--pleasantly conscious of a home tucked +somewhere beneath the distant sunset, yet in no precipitate hurry +to return there before the appointed day. + +In fact, a chill tremor went through me as I realised that, to +all intent, I was at length respectably settled down, with quite +a considerable retrospect of happy married life. To come to a +decision is always to bring something to an end. And, with +something of a pang, resolutely stifled, I realised for a moment +the true blessedness of the single state I was so soon to leave +behind. At all events, a little golden fragment of bachelorhood +remained. There was yet a fertile strip of time wherein to sow +my last handful of the wild oats of youth. So festina lente, my +destined Sylvia, festina lente! + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +IN WHICH THE NAME OF A GREAT POET IS CRIED OUT IN A SOLITARY +PLACE + +As I once more shouldered my pack and went my way, the character +of the country side began to change, and, from a semi- pastoral +heathiness and furziness, took on a wildness of aspect, which if +indeed melodramatic was melodrama carried to the point of genius. + +It was a scene for which the nineteenth century has no worthy +use. It finds ignoble occupation as a gaping-ground for the +vacuous tourist,--somewhat as Heine might have imagined Pan +carrying the gentleman's luggage from the coach to the hotel. It +suffers teetotal picnic-parties to encamp amid its savage +hollows, and it humbly allows itself to be painted by the worst +artists. Like a lion in a menagerie, it is a survival of the +extinct chaos entrapped and exhibited amid the smug parks and +well-rolled downs of England. + +I came upon it by a winding ledge of road, which clung to the +bare side of the hill like the battlements of some huge castle. +Some two hundred feet below, a brawling upland stream stood for +the moat, and for the enemy there was on the opposite side of the +valley a great green company of trees, settled like a cloud slope +upon slope, making all haste to cross the river and ascend the +heights where I stood. Some intrepid larches waved green pennons +in the very midst of the turbulent water, here and there a +veteran lay with his many-summered head abased in the rocky +course of the stream, and here was a young foolhardy beech that +had climbed within a dozen yards of the rampart. All was wild +and solitary, and one might have declared it a scene untrodden by +the foot of man, but for the telegraph posts and small piles of +broken "macadam" at punctual intervals, and the ginger-beer +bottles and paper bags of local confectioners that lent an air of +civilisation to the road. + +It was a place to quote Alastor in, and nothing but a bad memory +prevented my affrighting the oaks and rills with declamation. As +it was, I could only recall the lines + + +"The Poet wandering on, through Arabie +And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste, +And o'er the aerial mountains which pour down +Indus and Oxus from their icy caves--" + + +and that other passage beginning + + +"At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore +He paused--" + + +This last I mouthed, loving the taste of its thunder; mouthed +thrice, as though it were an incantation,--and, indeed, from what +immediately followed, it might reasonably have seemed so. + + + +"At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore +He paused--" + + +I mouthed for the fourth time. And lo! advancing to me eagerly +along the causeway seemed the very sprite of Alastor himself! +There was a star upon his forehead, and around his young face +there glowed an aureole of gold and roses--to speak figuratively, +for the star upon his brow was hope, and the gold and roses +encircling his head, a miniature rainbow, were youth and health. +His longish golden hair had no doubt its share in the effect, as +likewise the soft yellow silk tie that fluttered like a flame in +the speed of his going. His blue eyes were tragically fresh and +clear,--as though they had as yet been little used. There were +little wings of haste upon his feet, and he came straight to me, +with the air of the Angel Gabriel about to make his divine +announcement. For a moment I thought that he was an apparition +of prophecy charged to announce the maiden of the Lord for whom I +was seeking. However, his brief flushed question was not of +these things. He desired first to ask the time of day, and +next--here, after a bump to the earth, one's thoughts ballooned +again heavenwards--"had I seen a green copy of Shelley lying +anywhere along the road?" + +Nothing so good had happened to me, I replied--but I believed +that I had seen a copy of Alastor! For a moment my meaning was +lost on him; then he flushed and smiled, thanked me and was off +again, saying that he must find his Shelley, as he wouldn't lose +it for the world! + +He had presently disappeared as suddenly as he had come, but he +had left me a companion, a radiant reverberant name; and for some +little space the name of Shelley clashed silvery music among the +hills. + +Its seven letters seemed to hang right across the clouds like the +Seven Stars, an apocalyptic constellation, a veritable sky sign; +and again the name was an angel standing with a silver trumpet, +and again it was a song. The heavens opened, and across the blue +rift it hung in a glory of celestial fire, while from behind and +above the clouds came a warbling as of innumerable larks. + +How strange was this miracle of fame, I pondered, this strange +apotheosis by which a mere private name becomes a public symbol! +Shelley was once a private person whose name had no more +universal meaning than my own, and so were Byron and Cromwell and +Shakespeare; yet now their names are facts as stubborn as the +Rocky Mountains, or the National Gallery, or the circulation of +the blood. From their original inch or so of private handwriting +they have spread and spread out across the world, and now whole +generations of men find intellectual accommodation within +them,--drinking fountains and other public institutions are +erected upon them; yea, Carlyle has become a Chelsea +swimming-bath, and "Highland Mary" is sold for whiskey, while +Mr. Gladstone is to be met everywhere in the form of a bag. + +Does Mr. Gladstone, I wonder, instruct his valet "to pack his +Gladstone"? How strange it must seem! Try it yourself some day +and its effect on your servant. Ask him, for example, to "pack +your ----" and see how he'll stare. + +Coming nearer and nearer to earth, I wondered if Colonel Boycott +ever uses the word "boycott," and how strange it must have +seemed to the late MacAdam to walk for miles and miles upon his +own name, like a carpet spread out before him. + +Then I once more rebounded heavenwards, at the vision of the +eager dreamy lad whose question had set going all this odd +clockwork of association. He wouldn't lose his Shelley for the +world! How like twenty! And how many things that he wouldn't +lose for the world will he have to give up before he is thirty, I +reflected sententiously,--give up at last, maybe, with a stony +indifference, as men on a sinking ship take no thought of the +gold and specie in the hold. + +And then, all of a sudden, a little way up the ferny grassy +hillside, I caught sight of the end of a book half hidden among +the ferns. I climbed up to it. Of course it was that very green +Shelley which the young stranger wouldn't lose for the world. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +WHY THE STRANGER WOULD NOT LOSE HIS SHELLEY FOR THE WORLD + +Picking up the book, I opened it involuntarily at the titlepage, +and then--I resisted a great temptation! I shut it again. A +little flowery plot of girl's handwriting had caught my eye, and +a girl's pretty name. When Love and Beauty meet, it is hard not +to play the eavesdropper, and it was easy to guess that Love and +Beauty met upon that page. St. Anthony had no harder fight with +the ladies he was unpolite enough to call demons, than I in +resisting the temptation to take another look at that pen-and-ink +love making. Now, as I look back, I think it was sheer +priggishness to resist so human and yet so reverent an impulse. +There is nothing sacred from reverence, and love's lovers have a +right to regard themselves as the confidants of lovers, whenever +they may chance to surprise either them or their letters. + +While I was still hesitating, and wondering how I could get the +book conveyed to its romantic owner, suddenly a figure turned the +corner of the road, and there was Alastor coming back again. I +slipped the book, in distracted search for which he was evidently +still engaged, under the ferns, and, leisurely lighting a pipe, +prepared to tease him. He was presently within hail, and, +looking up, caught sight of me. + +"Have you found your Shelley yet?" I called down to him, as he +stood a moment in the road. + +He shook his head. No! But he meant to find it, if he had to +hunt every square foot of the valley inch by inch. + +Wouldn't any other book do, I asked him. Would he take a +Boccaccio, or a "Golden Ass," or a "Tom Jones," in +exchange?--for of such consisted my knapsack library. He laughed +a negative, and it seemed a shame to tease him. + +"It is not so much the book itself," he said. + +"But the giver?" I suggested. + +"Of course," he blushingly replied. + +"Well, suppose I have found it?" I continued. + +"You don't mean it--" + +"But suppose I have--I'm only supposing-- will you give me the +pleasure of your company at dinner at the next inn and tell me +its story?" + +"Indeed I will, gladly," he replied. + +"Well, then," I said, "catch, for here it is!" + +The joy with which he recovered it was pretty to behold, and the +eagerness with which he ran through the leaves, to see that the +violets and the primroses and a spray of meadowsweet, young +love's bookmarkers, were all in their right places, touched my +heart. + +He could not thank me enough; and as we stepped out to the inn, +some three or four miles on the road, I elicited something of his +story. + +He was a clerk in a city office, he said, but his dreams were not +commercial. His one dream was to be a great poet, or a great +writer of some sort, and this was one of his holidays. As I +looked at his sensitive young face, unmarred by pleasure and +unscathed by sorrow, bathed daily, I surmised, in the may-dew of +high philosophies--ah, so high! washed from within by a constant +radiancy of pure thoughts, and from without by a constant basking +in the shine of every beautiful and noble and tender thing,--I +thought it not unlikely that he might fulfil his dream. + +But, alas! as he talked on, with lighted face and chin in the +air, how cruelly I realised how little I had fulfilled mine. + +And how hard it was to talk to him, without crushing some flower +of his fancy or casting doubt upon his dreams. Oh, the gulf +between twenty and thirty! I had never quite comprehended it +before. And how inexpressibly sad it was to hear him prattling +on of the ideal life, of socialism, of Walt Whitman and what +not,--all the dear old quackeries,--while I was already settling +down comfortably to a conservative middle age. He had no hope +that had not long been my despair, no aversion that I had not +accepted among the more or less comfortable conditions of the +universe. He was all for nature and liberty, whereas I had now +come to realise the charm of the artificial, and the social value +of constraint. + +"Young man," I cried in my heart, "what shall I do to inherit +Eternal Youth?" + +The gulf between us was further revealed when, at length coming +to our inn, we sat down to dinner. To me it seemed the most +natural thing in the world to call for the wine-list and consult +his choice of wine; but, will you believe me, he asked to be +allowed to drink water! And when he quoted the dear old stock +nonsense out of Thoreau about being able to get intoxicated on a +glass of water, I could have laughed and cried at the same time. + +"Happy Boy!" I cried, "still able to turn water into wine by +the divine power of your youth"; and then, turning to the +waiter, I ordered a bottle of No. 37. + +"Wine is the only youth granted to middle age," I +continued,--"in vino juventus, one might say; and may you, my +dear young friend, long remain so proudly independent of that +great Elixir--though I confess that I have met no few young men +under thirty who have been excellent critics of the wine-list." + +As the water warmed him, he began to expand into further +confidence, and then he told me the story of his Shelley, if a +story it can be called. For, of course, it was simple enough, +and the reader has long since guessed that the reason why he +wouldn't lose his Shelley for the world was the usual simple +reason. + +I listened to his rhapsodies of HER and HER and HER with an +aching heart. How good it was to be young! No wonder men had so +desperately sought the secret of Eternal Youth! Who would not be +young for ever, for such dreams and such an appetite? + +Here of course was the very heaven-sent confidant for such an +enterprise as mine. I told him all about my whim, just for the +pleasure of watching his face light up with youth's generous +worship of all such fantastic nonsense. You should have seen his +enthusiasm and heard all the things he said. Why, to encounter +such a whimsical fellow as myself in this unimaginative age was +like meeting a fairy prince, or coming unexpectedly upon Don +Quixote attacking the windmill. I offered him the post of Sancho +Panza; and indeed what would he not give, he said, to leave all +and follow me! But then I reminded him that he had already found +his Golden Girl. + +"Of course, I forgot," he said, with I'm afraid something of a +sigh. For you see he was barely twenty, and to have met your +ideal so early in life is apt to rob the remainder of the journey +of something of its zest. + +I asked him to give me his idea of what the Blessed Maid should +be, to which he replied, with a smile, that he could not do +better than describe Her, which he did for the sixth time. It +was, as I had foreseen, the picture of a Saint, a Goddess, a +Dream, very lovely and pure and touching; but it was not a woman, +and it was a woman I was in search of, with all her imperfections +on her head. I suppose no boy of twenty really loves a WOMEN, +but loves only his etherealised extract of woman, entirely free +from earthy adulteration. I noticed the words "pure" and +"natural" in constant use by my young friend. Some lines went +through my head, but I forbore to quote them:-- + + +Alas I your so called purity +Is merely immaturity, +And woman's nature plays its part +Sincerely but in woman's art. + + +But I couldn't resist asking him, out of sheer waggery, whether +he didn't think a touch of powder, and even, very judiciously +applied, a touch of rouge, was an improvement to woman. His +answer went to my heart. + +"Paint--a WOMAN!" he exclaimed. + +It was as though you had said--paint an angel! + +I could bear no more of it. The gulf yawned shiveringly wide at +remarks like that; so, with the privilege of an elder, I declared +it time for bed, and yawned off to my room. + +Next morning we bade good-bye, and went our several ways. As we +parted, he handed me a letter which I was not to open till I was +well on my journey. We waved good-bye to each other till the +turnings of the road made parting final, and then, sitting down +by the roadside, I opened the letter. It proved to be not a +letter, but a poem, which he had evidently written after I had +left him for bed. It was entitled, with twenty's love for a tag +of Latin, Ad Puellam Auream, and it ran thus:-- + + +The Golden Girl in every place +Hides and reveals her lovely face; +Her neither skill nor strength may find-- +'T is only loving moves her mind. +If but a pretty face you seek, +You'll find one any day or week; +But if you look with deeper eyes, +And seek her lovely, pure, and wise, +Then must you wear the pilgrim's shoon +For many a weary, wandering moon. + +Only the pure in heart may see +That lily of all purity, +Only in clean unsullied thought +The image of her face is caught, +And only he her love may hold +Who buys her with the spirit's gold. + +Thus only shall you find your pearl, +O seeker of the Golden Girl! +She trod but now the grassy way, +A vision of eternal May. + + +The devil take his impudence! "Only the pure in heart," +"clean, unsullied thought." How like the cheek of twenty! And +all the same how true! Dear lad, how true! Certainly, the child +is father to the man. Dirige nos! O sage of the Golden +Twenties! + +As I meditatively folded up the pretty bit of writing, I made a +resolution; but it was one of such importance that not only is +another chapter needed to do it honour, but it may well +inaugurate another book of this strange uneventful history. + + + + +BOOK II + + + +CHAPTER I + + +IN WHICH I DECIDE TO BE YOUNG AGAIN + +Yes, I said to myself, the lad is quite right; I will follow his +advice. I'm afraid I was in danger of developing into a sad +cynic, with a taste for the humour of this world. What should +have been a lofty high-souled pilgrimage, only less +transcendental than that of the Holy Grail itself, has so far +failed, no doubt, because I have undertaken it too much in the +wanton spirit of a troubadour. + +I will grow young and serious again. Yes, why not? I will take a +vow of Youth. One's age is entirely a matter of the imagination. +From this moment I am no longer thirty. Thirty falls from me +like a hideous dream. My back straightens again at the thought; +my silvering hair blackens once more; my eyes, a few moments ago +lacklustre and sunken, grow bright and full again, and the whites +are clear as the finest porcelain. Veni, veni, Mephistophile! +your Faust is young again,--young, young, and, with a boy's +heart, open once more to all the influences of the mighty world. + +I bring down my stick upon the ground with a mighty ring of +resolution, and the miracle is done. Who would take me for +thirty now? From this moment I abjure pessimism and cynicism in +all their forms, put from my mind all considerations of the +complexities of human life, unravel all by a triumphant optimism +which no statistics can abash or criticism dishearten. I +likewise undertake to divest myself entirely of any sense of +humour that may have developed within me during the baneful +experiences of the last ten years, and, in short, will consent +for the future to be nothing that is not perfectly perfect and +pure. These, I take it, are the fundamental conditions of being +young again. + +And as for the Quest, it shall forthwith be undertaken in an +entirely serious and high-minded spirit. From this moment I am +on the look-out for a really transcendental attachment. No +"bright-eyed bar-maids," however "refined," need apply. +Ladies who are prodigal of their white petticoats are no longer +fit company for me. Indeed I shall no longer look upon a +petticoat, unless I am able first entirely to spiritualise it. +It must first be disinfected of every earthly thought. + +Yes, I am once more a young man, sound in wind and limb, with not +a tooth or an illusion lost, my mind tabula rasa, my heart to be +had for the asking. Oh, come, ye merry, merry maidens! The +fairy prince is on the fairy road. + +Incipit vita nuova! + +So in the lovely rapture of a new-born resolution--and is there +any rapture like it? --nature has no more intoxicating illusion +than that of turning over a new leaf, or beginning a new life +from to-day--I sprang along the road with a carolling heart; +quite forgetting that Apuleius and Fielding and Boccaccio were +still in my knapsack--not to speak of the petticoat. + + + +CHAPTER II + + +AT THE SIGN OF THE SINGING STREAM + +Apuleius and Fielding and Boccaccio, bad companions for a +petticoat, I'm afraid, bad companions too for so young a man as +I had now become. However, as I say, I had for the time +forgotten that pagan company, or, in my puritanic zeal, I might +have thrown them all to be washed clean in the upland stream, +whose pure waters one might fancy were fragrant from their sunny +day among the ferns and the heather, fragrant to the eye, indeed, +if one may so speak, with the shaken meal of the meadowsweet. +This stream had been the good angel of my thoughts all the day, +keeping them ever moving and ever fresh, cleansing and burnishing +them, quite an open-air laundry of the mind. + +We were both making for the same little town, it appeared, and as +the sun was setting we reached it together. I entered the town +over the bridge, and the stream under it, washing the walls of +the high-piled, many-gabled old inn where I proposed to pass the +night. I should hear it still rippling on with its gentle +harpsichord tinkle, as I stretched myself down among the cool +lavendered sheets, and little by little let slip the multifarious +world. + +The inn windows beamed cheerily, a home of ruddy rest. Having +ordered my dinner and found my room, I threw down my knapsack and +then came out again to smoke an ante-prandial pipe, listen to the +evensong of the stream, and think great thoughts. The stream was +still there, and singing the same sweet old song. You could hear +it long after it was out of sight, in the gathering darkness, +like an old nurse humming lullabies in the twilight. + +The dinner was good, the wine was old, and oh! the rest was +sweet! Nothing fills one with so exquisite a weariness as a day +spent in good resolutions and great thoughts. There is something +perilously sensuous in the relaxation of one's muscles, both of +mind and body, after a day thus well spent. + +Lighting up my pipe once more, and drawing to the fire, I +suddenly realised a sense of loneliness. Of course, I was lonely +for a book,--Apuleius or Fielding or Boccaccio! + +An hour ago they had seemed dangerous companions for so lofty a +mood; but now, under the gentle influences of dinner, the mood +had not indeed changed--but mellowed. So to say, we would split +the difference between the ideal and the human, and be, say, +twenty-five. + +It was in this genial attitude of mind that I strode up the +quaint circular staircase to fetch Fielding from my room, and, +shade of Tom Jones! what should be leaving my room, as I advanced +to enter it, but--well, it's no use, resolutions are all very +well, but facts are facts, especially when they're natural, and +here was I face to face with the most natural little natural +fact, and withal the most charming and merry-eyed, that-- well, +in short, as I came to enter my room I was confronted by the +roundest, ruddiest little chambermaid ever created for the trial +of mortal frailty. + +And the worst of it was that her merry eye was in partnership +with a merry tongue. Indeed, for some unexplained reason, she was +bubbling over with congested laughter, the reason for which mere +embarrassment set one inquiring. At last, between little gushes +of laughter which shook her plump shoulders in a way that aroused +wistful memories of Hebe, she archly asked me, with mock +solemnity, if I should need a lady's maid. + + +"Certainly," I replied with inane promptitude, for I had no +notion of her drift; but then she ran off in a scurry of +laughter, and still puzzled I turned into my room, TO FIND, +neatly hung over the end of the bed, nothing less than the dainty +petticoat and silk stockings of Sylvia Joy. + +You can imagine the colour of my cheeks at the discovery. No +doubt I was already the laughing-stock of the whole inn. What +folly! What a young vixen! Oh, what's to be done? Pay my bill +and sneak off at once to the next town; but how pass through the +grinning line of boots, and waiter, and chambermaid, and +ironically respectful landlord and landlady, in the hall . . . + +But while I thus deliberated, something soft pressed in at the +door; and, making a sudden dart, I had the little baggage who had +brought about my dilemma a prisoner in my arms. + +I stayed some days at this charming old inn, for Amaryllis--oh, +yes, you may be sure her name was Amaryllis--had not betrayed me; +and indeed she may have some share in my retrospect of the inn as +one of the most delightful which I encountered anywhere in my +journeying. Would you like to know its name? Well, I know it as +The Singing Stream. If you can find it under that name, you are +welcome. And should you chance to be put into bedroom No. 26, +you can think of me, and how I used to lie awake, listening to +the stream rippling beneath the window, with its gentle +harpsichord tinkle, and little by little letting slip the +multifarious world. + +And if anything about this chapter should seem to contradict the +high ideals of the chapter preceding it, I can only say that, +though the episode should not rigidly fulfil the conditions of +the transcendental, nothing could have been more characteristic +of that early youth to which I had vowed myself. Indeed, I +congratulated myself, as I looked my last at the sign of The +Singing Stream, that this had been quite in my early manner. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +IN WHICH I SAVE A USEFUL LIFE + +Though I had said good-bye to the inn, the stream and I did not +part company at the inn-door, but continued for the best part of +a morning to be fellow-travellers. Indeed, having led me to one +pleasant adventure, its purpose, I afterwards realised, was to +lead me to another, and then to go about its own bright business. + +I don't think either of us had much idea where we were or whither +we were bound. Our guiding principle seemed to be to get as much +sunshine as possible, and to find the easiest road. We avoided +dull sandy levels and hard rocky places, with the same +instinctive dexterity. We gloomed together through dark dingles, +and came out on sunny reaches with the same gilded magnificence. +There are days when every stream is Pactolus and every man is +Croesus, and thanks to that first and greatest of all alchemists, +the sun, the morning I write of was a morning when to breathe was +gold and to see was silver. And to breathe and see was all one +asked. It was the first of May, and the world shone like a great +illuminated letter with which that father of artists, the sun, +was making splendid his missal of the seasons. + +The month of May was ever his tour de force. Each year he has +strained and stimulated his art to surpass himself, seeking ever +a finer and a brighter gold, a more celestial azure. Never had +his gold been so golden, his azure so dazzlingly clear and deep +as on this particular May morning; while his fancy simply ran +riot in the marginal decorations of woodland and spinney, quaint +embroidered flowers and copses full of exquisitely painted and +wonderfully trained birds of song. It was indeed a day for +nature to be proud of. So seductive was the sunshine that even +the shy trout leapt at noonday, eager apparently to change his +silver for gold. + + +O silver fish in the silver stream, +O golden fish in the golden gleam, +Tell me, tell me, tell me true, +Shall I find my girl if I follow you? + + +I suppose the reader never makes nonsense rhymes from sheer +gladness of heart,--nursery doggerel to keep time with the +rippling of the stream, or the dancing of the sun, or the beating +of his heart; the gibberish of delight. As I hummed this +nonsense, a trout at least three pounds in weight, whom you would +know again anywhere, leapt a yard out of the water, and I took +it, in my absurd, sun-soaked heart, as a good omen, as though he +had said, "Follow and see." + +I had no will but to follow, no desire but to see. All the same, +though I affected to take him seriously, I had little suspicion +how much that trout was to mean to me,--yes, within the course +of a very few moments. Indeed, I had hardly strolled on for +another quarter of a mile, when I was suddenly aroused from +wool-gathering by his loud cries for help. Looking up, I saw him +flashing desperately in mid-air, a lovely foot of writhing +silver. In another second he was swung through the sunlight, and +laid out breathing hard in a death-bed of buttercups and daisies. + +There was not a moment to be lost, if I were to repay the debt of +gratitude which in a flash I had seen that I owed him. + +"Madam," I said, breathlessly springing forward, as a heavenly +being was coldly tearing the hook from the gills of the unlucky +trout, "though I am a stranger, will you do me a great favour? +It is a matter of life or death . . ." + +She looked up at me with some surprise, but with a fine fearless +glance, and almost immediately said, "Certainly, what can I +do?" + +"Spare the life of that trout--" + +"It is a singular request," she replied, "and one," she +smiled, "self-sacrificing indeed for an angler to grant, for he +weighs at least three pounds. However, since he seems a friend +of yours, here goes--" And with the gladdest, most grateful +sound in the world, the happy smack of a fish back home again in +the water, after an appalling three minutes spent on land, that +prophetic trout was once more an active unit in God's populous +universe. + +"Now that's good of you," I said, with thankful eyes, "and +shows a kind heart." + +"And kind hearts, they say, are more than coronets," she +replied merrily, indulging in that derisive quotation which seems +to be the final reward of the greatest poets. + +For a moment there was a silence, during which I confess to +wondering what I should say next. However, she supplied my +place. + +"But of course," she said, "you owe it to me, after this +touching display of humanitarianism, to entertain me with your +reason for interposing between me and my just trout. Was it one +of those wonderful talking fishes out of the Arabian Nights, or +are you merely an angler yourself, and did you begrudge such a +record catch to a girl?" + +"I see," I replied, "that you will understand me. That trout +was, so to speak, out of the Arabian Nights. Only five minutes +ago it was a May-day madness of mine to think that he leaped out +of the water and gave me a highly important message. So I begged +his life from a mere fancy. It was just a whim, which I trust +you will excuse." + +"A whim! So you are a follower of the great god Whim," she +replied, with somewhat of an eager interest in her voice. "How +nice it is to meet a fellow-worshipper!" + +"Do women ever have whims?" I respectfully asked. + +"I don't know about other women," she replied. "Indeed, I'm +afraid I'm unnatural enough to take no interest in them at all. +But, as for me,--well, what nonsense! Tell me some more about +the trout. What was the wonderful message he seemed to give you? + +Or perhaps I oughtn't to ask?" + +"I'm afraid," I said, "it would hardly translate into +anything approaching common-sense." + +"Did I ask for common-sense?" she retorted. It was true, she +hadn't. But then I couldn't, with any respect for her, tell +her the trout's message, or, with any respect for myself, recall +those atrocious doggerel lines. In my dilemma, I caught sight of +a pretty book lying near her fishing-basket, and diverted the +talk by venturing to ask its name. + +" 'T is of Aucassin and Nicolete," she replied, with something +in her voice which seemed to imply that the tender old story +would be familiar to me. My memory served me for once gallantly. + +I answered by humming half to myself the lines from the +prologue,-- + + +"Sweet the song, the story sweet, +There is no man hearkens it, +No man living 'neath the sun, +So outwearied, so foredone, +Sick and woful, worn and sad, +But is healed, but is glad + 'T is so sweet." + + +"How charming of you to know it!" she laughed. "You are the +only man in this county, or the next, or the next, who knows it, +I'm sure." + +"Are the women of the county more familiar with it?" I replied. + +"But tell me about the trout," she once more persisted. + +At the same moment, however, there came from a little distance +the musical tinkle of a bell that sounded like silver, a +fairy-like and almost startling sound. + +"It is my lunch," she explained. "I'm a worshipper of the +great god Whim too, and close by here I have a little +summer-house, full of books and fishing-lines and other +childishness, where, when my whim is to be lonely, I come and +play at solitude. If you'll be content with rustic fare, and +promise to be amusing, it would be very pleasant if you'd join +me." + +O! most prophetic and agreeable trout! Was it not like the old +fairy tales, the you-help-us and we'll-help-you of Psyche and the +ants? + +It had been the idlest whim for me to save the life of that poor +trout. There was no real pity in it. For two pins, I had been +just as ready to cut it open, to see if by chance it carried in +its belly the golden ring wherewith I was to wed the Golden-- + +However, such is the gratitude of nature to man, that this little +thoughtless act of kindness had brought me face to face with +--was it the Golden Girl? + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +'T IS OF NICOLETE AND HER BOWER IN THE WILDWOOD + +But I have all this time left the reader without any formal +descriptive introduction to this whimsical young lady angler. +Not without reason, for, like any really charming personality, +she was very difficult to picture. Paint a woman! as our young +friend Alastor said. + +Faces that fall into types you can describe, or at all events +label in such a way that the reader can identify them; but those +faces that consist mainly of spiritual effect and physical bloom, +that change with everything they look upon, the light in which +ebbs and flows with every changing tide of the soul,--these you +have to love to know, and to worship to portray. + +Now the face of Nicolete, as I learnt in time to call her, was +just soul and bloom, perhaps mainly bloom. I never noticed +whether she had any other features except her eyes. I suppose +she had a nose; a little lace pocket-handkerchief I have by me at +the moment is almost too small to be evidence on that important +point. + +As I walked by her side that May morning, I was only conscious of +her voice and her exquisite girlhood; for though she talked with +the APLOMB of a woman of the world, a passionate candour and +simple ardour in her manner would have betrayed her, had her face +not plainly declared her the incarnation of twenty. But if she +were twenty years young, she was equally twenty years OLD; and +twenty years old, in some respects, is the greatest age attained +to by man or woman. In this she rather differed from Alastor, of +whom otherwise she was the female counterpart. Her talk, and +something rather in her voice than her talk, soon revealed her as +a curious mixture of youth and age, of dreamer and desillusionee. + +One soon realised that she was too young, was hoping too much +from life, to spend one's days with. Yet she had just +sufficiently that touch of languor which puts one at one's ease, +though indeed it was rather the languor of waiting for what was +going to happen than the weariness of experience gone by. She +was weary, not because of the past, but because the fairy theatre +of life still kept its curtain down, and forced her to play over +and over again the impatient overture of her dreams. + +I have no doubt that it was largely nervousness that kept the +mysterious playwright so long fumbling behind the scenes, for it +was obvious that it would be no ordinary sort of play, no +every-day domestic drama, that would satisfy this young lady, to +whom life had given, by way of prologue, the inestimable blessing +of wealth, and the privilege, as a matter of course, of choosing +as she would among the grooms (that is, the bride-grooms) of the +romantic British aristocracy. + +She had made youth's common mistake of beginning life with books, +which can only be used without danger by those who are in a +position to test their statements. Youth naturally believes +everything that is told it, especially in books. + +Now, books are simply professional liars about life, and the +books that are best worth reading are those which lie the most +beautifully. Yet, in fairness, we must add that they are liars, +not with intent to mislead, but merely with the tenderest purpose +to console. They are the good Samaritans that find us robbed of +all our dreams by the roadside of life, bleeding and weeping and +desolate; and such is their skill and wealth and goodness of +heart, that they not only heal up our wounds, but restore to us +the lost property of our dreams, on one condition,--that we +never travel with them again in the daylight. + +A library is a better world, built by the brains and hearts of +poets and dreamers, as a refuge from the real world outside; and +in it alone is to be found the land of milk and honey which it +promises. + +"Milk and honey" would have been an appropriate inscription for +the delicious little library which parents who, I surmised, doted +on Nicolete in vain, had allowed her to build in a wild woodland +corner of her ancestral park, half a mile away from the great +house, where, for all its corridors and galleries, she could +never feel, at all events, spiritually alone. All that was most +sugared and musical and generally delusive in the old library of +her fathers had been brought out to this little woodland library, +and to that nucleus of old leather-bound poets and romancers, +long since dead, yet as alive and singing on their shelves as any +bird on the sunny boughs outside, my young lady's private purse +had added all that was most sugared and musical and generally +delusive in the vellum bound Japanese-paper literature of our own +luxurious day. Nor were poets and romancers from over sea--in +their seeming simple paper covers, but with, oh, such complicated +and subtle insides!--absent from the court which Nicolete held +here in the greenwood. Never was such a nest of singing-birds. +All day long, to the ear of the spirit, there was in this little +library a sound of harping and singing and the telling of +tales,--songs and tales of a world that never was, yet shall ever +be. Here day by day Nicolete fed her young soul on the +nightingale's-tongues of literature, and put down her book only +to listen to the nightingale's- tongues outside. Yea, sun, moon, +and stars were all in the conspiracy to lie to her of the +loveliness of the world and the good intentions of life. And +now, thus unexpectedly, I found myself joining the nefarious +conspiracy. Ah, well! was I not twenty myself, and full of +dreams! + + + +CHAPTER V + + +'T IS OF AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE + +Thus it was that we lunched together amid the books and birds, in +an exquisite solitude a deux; for the ringer of the silver bell +had disappeared, having left a dainty meal in readiness--for two. + +"You see you were expected," said Nicolete, with her pretty +laugh. "I dreamed I should have a visitor to-day, and told +Susan to lay the lunch for two. You mustn't be surprised at +that," she added mischievously; "it has often happened before. +I dream that dream every other night, and Susan lays for two +every day. She knows my whims,--knows that the extra knife and +fork are for the fairy knight that may turn up any afternoon, as +I tell her--" + +"To find the sleepless princess," I added, thinking at the same +time one of those irrelevant asides that will go through the +brain of thirty, that the woman who would get her share of kisses +nowadays must neither slumber nor sleep. + +A certain great poet, I think it was Byron, objected to seeing +women in the act of eating. He thought their eating should be +done in private. What a curiously perverse opinion! For surely +woman never shows to better advantage than in the dainty +exercises of a dainty repast, and there is nothing more thrilling +to man than a meal alone with a woman he loves or is about to +love. Perhaps, deep down, the reason is that there still +vibrates in the masculine blood the thrilling surprise of the +moment when man first realised that the angel woman was built +upon the same carnivorous principles as his grosser self. + +That is one of the first heart-beating surprises that come upon +the boy Columbus, as he sets out to discover the New World of +woman; and indeed his surprise has not seldom deepened into +admiration, as he has found that not only does woman eat, but +frequently eats a lot. + +This privilege of seeing woman eat is the earliest granted of +those delicate animal intimacies, the fuller and fuller confiding +of which plays not the least important part, and ever such a +sweet one, even in a highly transcendental affection. It is this +gradual humanising of the divine female that brings about the +spiritualising of the unregenerate male. + +In the earliest stages of love the services are small that we are +privileged to do for the loved one. But if we are allowed to sit +at meat with her,--ever a royal condescension,--it is ours at +least to pass her the salt, to see that she is never kept waiting +a moment for the mustard or the pepper, to cut the bread for her +with geometrical precision, and to lean as near her warm shoulder +as we dare to pour out for her the sacred wine. + +Yes! for sure I was twenty again, for the performance of these +simple services for Nicolete gave me a thrill of pure boyish +pleasure such as I had never expected to feel again. And did she +not make a knight of me by gently asking if I would be so kind as +to carve the chicken, and how she laughed quite disproportionally +at my school-boy story of the man who, being asked to carve a +pigeon, said he thought they had better send for a wood-carver, +as it seemed to be a wood pigeon. + +And while we ate and drank and laughed and chatted, the books +around us were weaving their spells. Even before the invention +of printing books were "love's purveyors." Was it not a book +that sent Paolo and Francesca for ever wandering on that stormy +wind of passion and of death? And nowadays the part played by +books in human drama is greater than we perhaps realise. Apart +from their serious influence as determining destinies of the +character, what endless opportunities they afford to lovers, who +perhaps are denied all other meeting-places than may be found on +the tell-tale pages of a marked volume. The method is so easy +and so unsuspect. You have only to put faint pencil-marks +against the tenderest passages in your favourite new poet, and +lend the volume to Her, and She has only to leave here and there +the dropped violet of a timid confirmatory initial, for you to +know your fate. And what a touchstone books thus become! Indeed +they simplify love- making, from every point of view. With books +so inexpensive and accessible to all as they are to-day, no one +need run any risks of marrying the wrong woman. He has only to +put her through an unconscious examination by getting her to read +and mark a few of his favourite authors, and he is thus in +possession of the master clues of her character. With a list of +her month's reading and a photograph, a man ought to be able to +make up his mind about any given woman, even though he has never +spoken to her. "Name your favourite writer" should be one of +the first questions in the Engagement Catechism. + +There is, indeed, no such short cut to knowledge of each other as +a talk about books. One short afternoon is enough for any two +book-lovers, though they may have met for the first time in the +morning, to make up their minds whether or not they have been +born for each other. If you are agreed, say, in admiring +Meredith, Hardy, Omar Khayyam, and Maeterlinck,--to take four +particularly test-authors,--there is nothing to prevent your +marrying at once. Indeed, a love for any one of these +significant writers will be enough, not to speak of an admiration +for "Aucassin and Nicolete." + +Now, Nicolete and I soon found that we had all these and many +another writer in common, and before our lunch was ended we were +nearer to each other than many old friends. The heart does not +more love the heart that loves it than the brain loves the brain +that comprehends it; and, whatever else was to befall us, +Nicolete and I were already in love with each other's brains. +Whether or not the malady would spread till it reached the heart +is the secret of some future chapter. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +A FAIRY TALE AND ITS FAIRY TAILORS + +As this is not a realistic novel, I do not hold myself bound, as +I have said before, to account reasonably for everything that is +done--least of all, said--within its pages. I simply say, So it +happened, or So it is, and expect the reader to take my word. If +he be uncivil enough to doubt it, we may as well stop playing +this game of fancy. It is one of the first conditions of +enjoying a book, as it is of all successful hypnotism, that the +reader surrenders up his will to the writer, who, of course, +guarantees to return it to him at the close of the volume. If +you say that no young lady would have behaved as I have presently +to relate of Nicolete, that no parents were ever so accommodating +in the world of reality, I reply,--No doubt you are right, but +none the less what I have to tell is true and really did happen, +for all that. And not only did it happen, but to the whimsically +minded, to the true children of fancy, it will seem the most +natural thing in the world. No doubt they will wonder why I have +made such a preamble about it, as indeed, now I think of it, so +do I. + +Again I claim exemption in this wandering history from all such +descriptive drudgery upon second, third, and fourth dramatis +personsonae as your thorough-going novelist must undertake with a +good grace. Like a host and hostess at a reception, the poor +novelist has to pretend to be interested in everybody,--in the +dull as in the brilliant, in the bore as in the beauty. I'm +afraid I should never do as a novelist, for I should waste all my +time with the heroine; whereas the true novelist is expected to +pay as much attention to the heroine's parents as though he were +a suitor for her hand. Indeed, there is no relative of hero or +heroine too humble or stupid for such a novelist as the great +Balzac. He will invite the dullest of them to stay with him for +quite prolonged visits, and without a murmur set apart a suite of +chapters for their accommodation. I'm not sure that the +humanity of the reader in these cases is of such comprehensive +sympathy as the novelist's, and it may well be that the novelist +undertakes all such hard labour under a misapprehension of the +desires of the reader, who, as a rule, I fancy, is as anxious to +join the ladies as the novelist himself. Indeed, I believe that +there is an opportunity for a new form of novel, in which the +novelist, as well as the reader, will skip all the dull people, +and merely indicate such of them as are necessary to the action +by an outline or a symbol, compressing their familiar psychology, +and necessary plot-interferences with the main characters, into +recognised formulae. For the benefit of readers voracious for +everything about everybody, schedule chapters might be provided +by inferior novelists, good at painting say tiresome bourgeois +fathers, gouty uncles and brothers in the army, as sometimes in +great pictures we read that the sheep in the foreground have been +painted by Mr. So-and-so, R.A. + +The Major-General and his Lady were taking the waters at +Wiesbaden. That was all I knew of Nicolete's parents, and all I +needed to know; with the exception of one good action,--at her +urgent entreaty they had left Nicolete behind them, with no other +safeguard than a charming young lady companion, whose fitness for +her sacred duties consisted in a temperament hardly less romantic +and whimsical than Nicolete's own. She was too charming to +deserve the name of obstacle; and as there was no other-- + +But I admit that the cart has got a little in front of the horse, +and I grow suddenly alarmed lest the reader should be suspecting +me of an elopement, or some such romantic vulgarity. If he will +only put any such thoughts from his mind, I promise to proceed +with the story in a brief and business- like manner forthwith. + +We are back once more at the close of the last chapter, in +Nicolete's book-bower in the wildwood. It is an hour or two +later, and the afternoon sun is flooding with a searching glory +all the secret places of the woodland. Hidden nooks and corners, +unused to observation, suddenly gleam and blush in effulgent +exposure,--like lovers whom the unexpected turning on of a light +has revealed kissing in the dark,--and are as suddenly, unlike +the lovers, left in their native shade again. It was that rich +afternoon sunlight that loves to flash into teacups as though +they were crocuses, that loves to run a golden finger along the +beautiful wrinkles of old faces and light up the noble hollows of +age-worn eyes; the sunlight that loves to fall with transfiguring +beam on the once dear book we never read, or, with malicious +inquisitiveness, expose to undreamed- of detection the undusted +picture, or the gold- dusted legs of remote chairs, which the +poor housemaid has forgotten. + +So in Nicolete's bower it illuminated with strange radiancy the +dainty disorder of deserted lunch, made prisms out of the +wine-glasses, painted the white cloth with wedge-shaped rainbows, +and flooded the cavernous interiors of the half-eaten fowl with a +pathetic yellow torchlight. + +Leaving that melancholy relic of carnivorous appetite, it turned +its bold gold gaze on Nicolete. No need to transfigure her! But, +heavens! how grandly her young face took the great kiss of the +god! Then it fell for a tender moment on the jaundiced page of +my old Boccaccio,--a rare edition, which I had taken from my +knapsack to indulge myself with the appreciation of a +connoisseur. Next minute "the unobstructed beam" was shining +right into the knapsack itself, for all the world like one of +those little demon electric lights with which the dentist makes a +momentary treasure-cave of your distended jaws, flashing with +startled stalactite. At the same moment Nicolete's starry eyes +took the same direction; then there broke from her her lovely +laughter, merry and inextinguishable. + +Once more, need I say, my petticoat had played me false--or +should I not say true? For there was its luxurious lace border, a +thing for the soft light of the boudoir, or the secret moonlight +of love's permitted eyes, alone to see, shamelessly brazening it +out in this terrible sunlight. Obviously there was but one way +out of the dilemma, to confess my pilgrimage to Nicolete, and +reveal to her all the fanciful absurdity to which, after all, I +owed the sight of her. + +"So that is why you pleaded so hard for that poor trout," she +said, when I had finished. "Well, you are a fairy prince +indeed! Now, do you know what the punishment of your nonsense is +to be?" + +"Is it very severe and humiliating?" I asked. + +"You must judge of that. It is--to take me with you!" + +"You,--what do you mean?" + +"Yes,--not for good and all, of course, but just for, say, a +fortnight, just a fortnight of rambles and adventures, and then +to deliver me safe home again where you found me--" + +"But it is impossible," I almost gasped in surprise. "Of +course you are not serious?" + +"I am, really, and you will take me, won't you?" she continued +pleadingly. "You don't know how we women envy you men those +wonderful walking-tours we can only read about in Hazlitt or +Stevenson. We are not allowed to move without a nurse or a +footman. From the day we are born to the day we die, we are +never left a moment to ourselves. But you--you can go out into +the world, the mysterious world, do as you will, go where you +will, wander here, wander there, follow any bye-way that takes +your fancy, put up at old inns, make strange acquaintances, have +all kinds of romantic experiences-- Oh, to be a man for a +fortnight, your younger brother for a fortnight!" + +"It is impossible!" I repeated. + +"It isn't at all," she persisted, with a fine blush. "If you +will only be nice and kind, and help me to some Rosalind's +clothes. You have only to write to your tailors, or send home for +a spare suit of clothes,--with a little managing yours would just +fit me, you're not so much taller,--and then we could start, +like two comrades, seeking adventures. Oh, how glorious it would +be!" + +It was in vain that I brought the batteries of common-sense to +bear upon her whim. I raised every possible objection in vain. + +I pointed out the practical difficulties. There were her parents. + +Weren't they drinking the waters at Wiesbaden, and weren't they +to go on drinking them for another three weeks? My fancy made a +picture of them distended with three weeks' absorption of mineral +springs. Then there was her companion. Nicolete was confident +of her assistance. Then I tried vilifying myself. How could she +run the risk of trusting herself to such intimate companionship +with a man whom she hadn't known half a dozen hours? This she +laughed to scorn. Presently I was silent from sheer lack of +further objections; and need I say that all the while there had +been a traitor impulse in my heart, a weak sweetness urging me on +to accept the pretty chance which the good genius of my +pilgrimage had so evidently put in my way,--for, after all, what +harm could it do? With me Nicolete was, indeed, safe,--that, of +course, I knew,--and safely she should come back home again +after her little frolic. All that was true enough. And how +charming it would be to have such a dainty companion! then the +fun, the fancy, the whim of it all. What was the use of setting +out to seek adventures if I didn't pursue them when found. + +Well, the long and short of it was that I agreed to undertake the +adventure, provided that Nicolete could win over the lady whom at +the beginning of the chapter I declared too charming to be +described as an obstacle. + +By nine o'clock the following morning the fairy tailors, as +Nicolete called them, were at work on the fairy clothes, and, at +the end of three days, there came by parcel-post a bulky +unromantic-looking brown-paper parcel, which it was my business +to convey to Nicolete under cover of the dark. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +FROM THE MORNING STAR TO THE MOON + +I quite realise that this book is written perhaps only just in +time for the motive of these two or three chapters to be +appreciated in its ancient piquancy. Very soon, alas! the sexes +will be robbed of one of the first and most thrilling motives of +romance, the motive of As You Like It, the romance of wearing +each other's clothes. Alas, that every advance of reason should +mean a corresponding retreat of romance! It is only reasonable +that woman, being--have you yet realised the fact?--a biped like +her brothers, should, when she takes to her brothers' +recreations, dress as those recreations demand; and yet the death +of Rosalind is a heavy price to pay for the lady bicyclist. So +soon as the two sexes wear the same clothes, they may as well +wear nothing; the game of sex is up. In this matter, as in +others, we cannot both have our cake and eat it. All romance, +like all temptation, is founded on the Fascination of the +Exception. So soon as the exception becomes, instead of merely +proving, the rule, that particular avenue of romance is closed. +The New Woman of the future will be the woman with the +petticoats, she who shall restore the ancient Eleusinian +mysteries of the silk skirt and the tea-gown. + +Happily for me, my acquaintance among the Rosalinds of the +bicycle, at this period of my life, was but slight, and thus no +familiarity with the tweed knickerbocker feminine took off the +edge of my delight on first beholding Nicolete clothed in like +manhood with ourselves, and yet, delicious paradox! looking more +like a woman than ever. + +During those three days while the fairy tailors were at work our +friendship had not been idle. Indeed, some part of each day we +had spent diligently learning each other, as travellers to +distant lands across the Channel work hard at phrase-book and +Baedeker the week before their departure. Meanwhile too I had +made the acquaintance of the charming lady Obstacle,--as it +proved so unfair to call her,--and by some process of natural +magnetism we had immediately won each other's hearts, so that on +the moonlight night on which I took the river path with my +brown-paper parcel there was no misgiving in my heart,--nothing +but harping and singing, and blessings on the river that seemed +all silver with the backs of magic trout. As I thought of all I +owed that noble fish, I kneeled by the river's bearded lip, among +the nettles and the meadowsweet, and swore by the inconstant moon +that trout and I were henceforth kinsmen, and that between our +houses should be an eternal amity. The chub and the dace and the +carp, not to speak of that Chinese pirate the pike, might still +look to it, when I came forth armed with rod and line; but for me +and my house the trout is henceforth sacred. By the memory of the +Blessed Saint Izaak, I swore it! + +My arrival at Beaucaire was one of great excitement. Nicolete +and the Obstacle were both awaiting me, for the mysteries of +masculine attire were not to be explored alone. The parcel was +snatched quite unceremoniously from my hands, the door shut upon +me, and I laughingly bidden go listen to the nightingale. I was +not long in finding one, nor, being an industrious phrase-maker, +did I waste my time, for, before I was summoned to behold +Nicolete in all her boyhood, I had found occasion and moonlight +to remark to my pocket-book that, Though all the world has heard +the song of the Nightingale to the Rose, only the Nightingale has +heard the answer of the Rose. This I hurriedly hid in my heart +for future conversation, as the pre-arranged tinkle of the silver +bell called me to the rose. + +Would, indeed, that I were a nightingale to sing aright the +beauty of that rose with which, think of it, I was to spend a +whole fortnight,--yes, no less than fourteen wonderful days. + +The two girls were evidently proud of themselves at having +succeeded so well with the mysterious garments. There were one +or two points on which they needed my guidance, but they were +unimportant; and when at last Nicolete would consent to stand up +straight and let me have a good look at her,--for, poor child! +she was as shy and shrinking as though she had nothing on,--she +made a very pretty young man indeed. + +She didn't, I'm afraid, look like a young man of our degenerate +day. She was far too beautiful and distinguished for that. +Besides, her dark curling hair, quite short for a woman, was too +long, and her eyes-- like the eyes of all poets--were women's +eyes. She looked, indeed, like one of those wonderful boys of +the Italian Renaissance, whom you may still see at the National +Gallery, whose beauty is no denial, but rather the stamp of their +slender, supple strength, young painters and sculptors who held +the palette for Leonardo, or wielded the chisel for Michelangelo, +and anon threw both aside to take up sword for Guelf or +Ghibelline in the narrow streets of Florence. + +Her knapsack was already packed, and its contents included a +serge skirt "in case of emergencies." Already, she naughtily +reminded me, we possessed a petticoat between us. + +The brief remainder of the evening passed in excited chatter and +cigarettes, and in my instructing Nicolete in certain tricks of +masculine deportment. The chief difficulty I hardly like +mentioning; and if the Obstacle had not been present, I certainly +dare not have spoken of it to Nicolete. I mean that she was so +shy about her pretty legs. She couldn't cross them with any +successful nonchalance. + +"You must take your legs more for granted, dear Nicolete," I +summoned courage to say. "The nonchalance of the legs is the +first lesson to be learnt in such a masquerade as this. You must +regard them as so much bone and iron, rude skeleton joints and +shins, as though they were the bones of the great elk or other +extinct South Kensington specimen,"--"not," I added in my +heart, "as the velvet and ivory which they are." + +We had agreed to start with the sun on the morrow, so as to get +clear of possible Peeping Toms; and when good-nights had been +said, and I was once more swinging towards my inn, it seemed but +an hour or two, as indeed it was, before I heard four o'clock +drowsily announced through my bedroom door, and before I was once +more striding along that river-bank all dew- silvered with last +night's moonlight, the sun rubbing his great eye on the horizon, +the whole world yawning through dainty bed-clothes of mist, and +here and there a copse-full of birds congratulating themselves on +their early rising. + +Nicolete was not quite ready, so I had to go listen to the lark, +about whom, alas! I could find nothing to say to my pocket-book, +before Nicolete, armed cap-a-pie with stick and knapsack, +appeared at the door of her chalet. + +The Obstacle was there to see us start. She and Nicolete +exchanged many kisses which were hard to bear, and the first +quarter of an hour of our journey was much obstructed by the +farewells of her far-fluttering handkerchief. When at last we +were really alone, I turned and looked at Nicolete striding +manfully at my side, just to make sure that it was really true. + +"Well, we're in for it now," I said; "aren't you +frightened?" + +"Oh, it's wonderful," she replied; "don't spoil it by +talking." + +And I didn't; for who could hope to compete with the sun, who +was making the whole dewy world shake with laughter at his +brilliancy, or with the birds, any one of whom was a poet at +least equal to Herrick? + +Presently we found ourselves at four crossroads, with a +four-fingered post in the centre. We had agreed to leave our +destination to chance. We read the sign-post. + +"Which shall we choose?" I said,-- + + +"Aucassin, true love and fair, +To what land do we repair?" + + +"Don't you think this one," she replied. "this one?--To the +Moon!" + +"Certainly, we couldn't find a prettier place; but it's a long +way," I replied, looking up at the sky, all roses and +pearls,--"a long way from the Morning Star to the Moon." + +"All the longer to be free," cried Nicolete, recklessly. + +"So be it," I assented. "Allons--to the Moon!" + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +THE KIND OF THING THAT HAPPENS IN THE MOON + +Two friends of my youth, with whom it would be hopeless to +attempt competition, have described the star-strewn journey to +the moon. It is not for me to essay again where the ingenious M. +Jules Verne and Mr. William Morris have preceded me. Besides, the +journey is nowadays much more usual, and therefore much less +adventurous, than when those revered writers first described it. +In the middle ages a journey to the moon with a woman you loved +was a very perilous matter indeed. Even in the last century the +roads were much beset with danger; but in our own day, like most +journeys, it is accomplished with ease and safety in a few hours. + +However, to the latter-day hero, whose appetite for dragons is +not keen, this absence of adventure is perhaps rather pleasurable +than otherwise; and I confess that I enjoyed the days I spent on +foot with Nicolete none the less because they passed in tranquil +uneventfulness,--that is, without events of the violent kind. Of +course, all depends on what you call an event. We were not +waylaid by robbers, we fed and slept unchallenged at inns, we +escaped collision with the police, and we encountered no bodily +dangers of any kind; yet should I not call the journey +uneventful, nor indeed, I think, would Nicolete. + +To me it was one prolonged divine event, and, with such daily +intercourse with Nicolete, I never dreamed of craving for any +other excitement. To walk from morning to evening by her side, +to minister to her moods, to provide such entertainment as I +might for her brain, and watch like a father over her physical +needs; to note when she was weary and too proud to show it, and +to pretend to be done up myself; to choose for her the easiest +path, and keep my eyes open for wayside flowers and every country +surprise,--these, and a hundred other atten- tions, kept my heart +and mind in busy service. + +To picnic by some lonely stream-side on a few sandwiches, a flask +of claret, and a pennyworth of apples; to talk about the books we +loved; to exchange our hopes and dreams,--we asked nothing better +than this simple fare. + +And so a week went by. But, though so little had seemed to +happen, and though our walking record was shamefully modest, yet, +imperceptible as the transition had been, we were, quite +insensibly indeed, and unacknowledged, in a very different +relation to each other than when we had started out from the +Morning Star. In fact, to make no more words about it, I was +head over heels in love with Nicolete, and I think, without +conceit, I may say that Nicolete was rapidly growing rather fond +of me. Apart from anything else, we were such excellent chums. +We got along together as if indeed we had been two brothers, +equable in our tempers and one in our desires. + +At last the feeling on my side became so importunate that I could +no longer keep silence. + +We were seated together taking tea at a small lonely inn, whose +windows looked out over a romantic little lake, backed by +Salvator Rosa pine-woods. The sun was beginning to grow dreamy, +and the whole world to wear a dangerously sentimental expression. + +I forget exactly what it was, but something in our talk had set +us glowing, had touched tender chords of unexpected sympathy, and +involuntarily I stretched out my hand across the corner of the +table and pressed Nicolete's hand as it rested on the cloth. She +did not withdraw it, and our eyes met with a steady gaze of love. + +"Nicolete," I said presently, when I could speak, "it is time +for you to be going back home." + +"Why?" she asked breathlessly. + +"Because," I answered, "I must love you if you stay." + +"Would you then bid me go?" she said. + +"Nicolete," I said, "don't tempt me. Be a good girl and go +home." + +"But supposing I don't want to go home," she said; +"supposing--oh, supposing I love you too? Would you still bid +me go?" + +"Yes," I said. "In that case it would be even more +imperative." + +"Aucassin!" + +"It is true, it is true, dear Nicolete." + +"Then, Aucassin," she replied, almost sternly, in her great +girlish love, "this is true also,--I love you. I have never +loved, shall never love, any man but you!" + +"Nicolete!" + +"Aucassin!" + +There were no more words spoken between us for a full hour that +afternoon. + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +WRITTEN BY MOONLIGHT + +I knew deep down in my heart that it couldn't last, yet how deny +myself these roses, while the opportunity of gathering them was +mine!--the more so, as I believed it would do no harm to +Nicolete. At all events, a day or two more or less of moonshine +would make no matter either way. And so all next day we walked +hand in hand through Paradise. + +It has been said by them of old time, and our fathers have told +us, that the kiss of first love, the first kiss of the first +woman we love, is beyond all kisses sweet; and true it is. But +true is it also that no less sweet is the first kiss of the last +woman we love. + +Putting my faith in old saws, as a young man will, I had never +dreamed to know again a bliss so divinely passionate and pure as +came to me with every glance of Nicolete's sweet eyes, with every +simple pressure of her hand; and the joy that was mine when +sometimes, stopping on our way, we would press together our lips +ever so gravely and tenderly, seems too holy even to speak of. + +The holy angels could not have loved Nicolete with a purer love, +a love freer from taint of any earthly thought, than I, a man of +thirty, blase, and fed from my youth upon the honeycomb of woman. + +It was curious that the first difficulty of our pilgrimage should +befall us the very next day. Coming towards nightfall to a small +inn in a lonely unpopulated countryside, we found that the only +accommodation the inn afforded was one double-bedded room, and +there was no other inn for at least ten miles. I think I was +more troubled than Nicolete. When, after interviewing the +landlady, I came and told her of the dilemma, where she sat in +the little parlour wearied out with the day's walk, she blushed, +it is true, but seemed little put about. Indeed, she laughed, +and said it was rather fun, "like something out of Sterne," +--of such comfort is a literary reference in all seasons and +circumstances,--and then she added, with a sweet look that sent +the blood rioting about my heart, "It won't matter so much, will +it, love, NOW?" + +There proved nothing for it but to accept the situation, and we +made the arrangement that Nicolete was to slip off to bed first, +and then put out the light and go to sleep. However, when I +followed her, having sat up as long as the landlady's patience +would endure, I found that, though she had blown out the candle, +she had forgotten to put out the moon, which shone as though it +were St. Agnes' Eve across half the room. + +I stole in very shyly, kept my eyes sternly from Nicolete's white +bed, though, as I couldn't shut my ears, the sound of her +breathing came to me with indescribable sweetness. After I had +lain among the sheets some five or ten minutes, I was suddenly +startled by a little voice within the room saying,-- + +"I'm not asleep." + +"Well, you should be, naughty child. Now shut your eyes and go +to sleep,--and fair dreams and sweet repose," I replied. + +"Won't you give me one little good-night kiss?" + +"I gave you one downstairs." + +"Is it very wicked to want another?" + +There was not a foot between our two beds, so I bent over and +took her soft white shoulders in my arms and kissed her. All the +heaped-up sweetness of the whitest, freshest flowers of the +spring seemed in my embrace as I kissed her, so soft, so +fragrant, so pure; and as the moonlight was the white fire in our +blood. Softly I released her, stroked her brown hair, and turned +again to my pillow. Presently the little voice was in the room +again,-- + +"Mayn't I hold your hand? Somehow I feel lonely and +frightened." + +So our hands made a bridge across which our dreams might pass +through the night, and after a little while I knew that she +slept. + +As I lay thus holding her hand, and listening to her quiet +breathing, I realised once more what my young Alastor had meant +by the purity of high passion. For indeed the moonlight that +fell across her bosom was not whiter than my thoughts, nor could +any kiss--were it even such a kiss as Venus promised to the +betrayer of Psyche--even in its fiercest delirium, be other than +dross compared with the wild white peace of those silent hours +when we lay thus married and maiden side by side. + + + +CHAPTER X + + +HOW ONE MAKES LOVE AT THIRTY + +My sleeplessness while Nicolete slept had not been all ecstasy, +for I had come to a bitter resolution; and next morning, when we +were once more on our way, I took a favourable opportunity of +conveying it to Nicolete. + +"Nicolete," I said, as we rested awhile by the roadside, "I +have something serious to say to you." + +"Yes, dear," she said, looking rather frightened. + +"Well, dear, it is this,--our love must end with our holiday. +No good can come of it." + +"But oh, why? I love you." + +"Yes, and I love you,--love you as I never thought I could love +again. Yet I know it is all a dangerous dream,--a trick of our +brains, an illusion of our tastes." + +"But oh, why? I love you." + +"Yes, you do to-day, I know; but it couldn't last. I believe I +could love you for ever; but even so, it wouldn't be right. You +couldn't go on loving me. I am too old, too tired, too +desillusione, perhaps too selfish." + +"I will love you always!" said girl Nicolete. + +"Whereas you," I continued, disregarding the lovely refrain of +her tear-choked voice, "are standing on the wonderful threshold +of life, waiting in dreamland for the dawn. And it will come, and +with it the fairy prince, with whom you shall wander hand in hand +through all its fairy rose-gardens; but I, dear Nicolete,--I am +not he." + +Nicolete did not speak. + +"I know," I continued, pressing her hand, "that I may seem +young enough to talk like this, but some of us get through life +quicker than others, and when we say, `It is done,' it is no use +for onlookers to say, `Why, it is just beginning!' Believe me, +Nicolete, I am not fit husband for you." + +"Then shall I take no other," said Nicolete, with set face. + +"Oh, yes, you will," I rejoined; "let but a month or two pass, +and you will see how wise I was, after all. Besides, there are +other reasons, of which there is no need to speak--" + +"What reasons?" + +"Well," I said, half laughing, "there is the danger that, +after all, we mightn't agree. There is nothing so perilously +difficult as the daily intercourse of two people who love each +other. You are too young to realise its danger. And I couldn't +bear to see our love worn away by the daily dropping of tears, +not to speak of its being rent by the dynamite of daily quarrels. + +We know each other's tastes, but we know hardly anything of each +other's natures." + +Nicolete looked at me strangely. 'Troth, it was a strange way to +make love, I knew. + +"And what else?" she asked somewhat coldly. + +"Well, then, though it's not a thing one cares to speak of, +I'm a poor man--" + +Nicolete broke through my sentence with a scornful exclamation. + +"You," I continued straight on,--"well, you have been +accustomed to a certain spaciousness and luxury of life. This it +would be out of my power to continue for you. These are real +reasons, very real reasons, dear Nicolete, though you may not +think so now. The law of the world in these matters is very +right. For the rich and the poor to marry is to risk, terribly +risk, the very thing they would marry for --their love. Love is +better an unmarried than a married regret." + +Nicolete was silent again. + +"Think of your little woodland chalet, and your great old trees +in the park,--you couldn't live without them. I have, at most, +but one tree worth speaking of to offer you--" + +I purposely waived the glamour which my old garden had for my +mind, and which I wouldn't have exchanged for fifty parks. + +"Trees!" retorted Nicolete,--"what are trees?" + +"Ah, my dear girl, they are a good deal,--particularly when +they are genealogical, as my one tree is not." + +"Aucassin," she said suddenly, almost fiercely, "can you +really jest? Tell me this,--do you love me?" + +"I love you," I said simply; "and it is just because I love +you so much that I have talked as I have done. No man situated +as I am who loved you could have talked otherwise." + +"Well, I have heard it all, weighed it all," said Nicolete, +presently; "and to me it is but as thistledown against the love +within my heart. Will you cast away a woman who loves you for +theories? You know you love me, know I love you. We should have +our trials, our ups and downs, I know; but surely it is by those +that true love learns how to grow more true and strong. Oh, I +cannot argue! Tell me again, do you love me?" + +And there she broke down and fell sobbing into my arms. I +consoled her as best I might, and presently she looked up at me +through her tears. + +"Tell me again," she said, "that you love me, just as you did +yesterday, and promise never to speak of all those cruel things +again. Ah! have you thought of the kind of men you would give me +up to?" + +At that I confess I shuddered, and I gave her the required +assurance. + +"And you won't be wise and reasonable and ridiculous any more?" + +"No," I answered; adding in my mind, "not, at all events, for +the present." + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +HOW ONE PLAYS THE HERO AT THIRTY + +Had we only been able to see a day into the future, we might have +spared ourselves this agonising, for all our doubts and fears +were suddenly dispersed in an entirely unexpected manner. +Happily these interior problems are not infrequently resolved by +quite exterior forces. + +We were sitting the following afternoon in one of those broad bay +windows such as one finds still in some old country inns, just +thinking about starting once more on our way, when suddenly +Nicolete, who had been gazing out idly into the road, gave a +little cry. I followed her glance. A carriage with arms on its +panels had stopped at the inn, and as a smart footman opened the +door, a fine grey-headed military-looking man stepped out and +strode hurriedly up the inn steps. + +"Aucassin," gasped Nicolete, "it is my father!" + +It was too true. The old man's keen eye had caught sight of +Nicolete at the window also, and in another moment we were all +three face to face. I must do the Major- General the justice of +saying that he made as little of a "scene" of it as possible. + +"Now, my girl," he said, "I have come to put an end to this +nonsense. Have you a petticoat with you? Well, go upstairs and +get it on. I will wait for you here . . . On you, sir, I shall +waste no words. From what I have heard, you are as moonstruck as +my daughter." + +"Of course," I stammered, "I cannot expect you to understand +the situation, though I think, if you would allow me, I could in +a very few words make it somewhat clearer,--make you realise +that, after all, it has been a very innocent and childish +escapade, in which there has been no harm and a great deal of +pleasure--" + +But the Major-General cut me short. + +"I should prefer," he said, "not to discuss the matter. I may +say that I realise that my daughter has been safe in your hands, +however foolish,"--for this I thanked him with a bow,--"but I +must add that your eccentric acquaintance must end here--" + +I said him neither yea nor nay; and while we stood in armed and +embarrassed silence, Nicolete appeared with white face at the +door, clothed in her emergency petticoat. Alas! it was for no +such emergency as this that it had been destined that merry night +when she had packed it in her knapsack. With a stern bow her +father turned from me to join her; but she suddenly slipped past +him, threw her arms round me, and kissed me one long passionate +kiss. + +"Aucassin, be true," she cried, "I will never forget you,--no +one shall come between us; "and then bursting into tears, she +buried her face in her hands and followed her father from the +room. + +In another moment she had been driven away, and I sat as one +stupefied in the inn window. But a few short minutes ago she had +been sitting merrily prattling by my side, and now I was once +more as lonely as if we had never met. Presently I became +conscious in my reverie of a little crumpled piece of paper on +the floor. I picked it up. It was a little note pencilled in her +bedroom at the last moment. "Aucassin," it ran, just like her +last passionate words, "be true. I will never forget you. Stay +here till I write to you, and oh, write to me soon!-- Your +broken-hearted Nicolete." + +As I read, I saw her lovely young face, radiant with love and +sorrow as I had last seen it, and pressing the precious little +letter to my lips, I said fervently, "Yes, Nicolete, I will be +true." + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +IN WHICH I REVIEW MY ACTIONS AND RENEW MY RESOLUTIONS + +No doubt the youthful reader will have but a poor opinion of me +after the last two chapters. He will think that in the scene +with the Major-General I acted with lamentably little spirit, and +that generally my friend Alastor would have proved infinitely +more worthy of the situation. It is quite true, I confess it. +The whole episode was made for Alastor. Nicolete and he were +born for each other. Alas! it is one of the many drawbacks of +experience that it frequently prevents our behaving with spirit. + +I must be content to appeal to the wiser and therefore sadder +reader, of whom I have but a poor opinion if he too fails to +understand me. He, I think, will understand why I didn't +promptly assault the Major- General, seize Nicolete by the waist, +thrust her into her ancestral carriage, haul the coachman from +his box, and, seizing the reins, drive away in triumph before +astonishment had time to change into pursuit. Truly it had been +but the work of a moment, and there was only one consideration +which prevented my following this now-I-call-that-heroic course. +It is a consideration I dare hardly venture to write, and the +confession of which will, I know, necessitate my changing my age +back again to thirty on the instant. Oh, be merciful, dear +romantic reader! I didn't strike the Major-General, because, +oh, because I AGREED WITH HIM! + +I loved Nicolete, you must have felt that. She was sweet to me as +the bunch of white flowers that, in their frail Venetian vase, +stand so daintily on my old bureau as I write, doing their best +to sweeten my thoughts. Dear was she to me as the birds that out +in the old garden yonder sing and sing their best to lift up my +leaden heart. She was dear as the Spring itself, she was only +less dear than Autumn. + +Yes, black confession! after the first passion of her loss, the +immediate ache of her young beauty had passed, and I was able to +analyse what I really felt, I not only agreed with him, I thanked +God for the Major-General! He had saved me from playing the +terrible part of executioner. He had just come in time to behead +the Lady Jane Grey of our dreams. + +I should have no qualms about tightening the rope round the neck +of some human monster, or sticking a neat dagger or bullet into a +dangerous, treacherous foe, but to kill a dream is a sickening +business. It goes on moaning in such a heart-breaking fashion, +and you never know when it is dead. All on a sudden some night +it will come wailing in the wind outside your window, and you +must blacken your heart and harden your face with another +strangling grip of its slim appealing throat, another blow upon +its angel eyes. Even then it will recover, and you will go on +being a murderer, making for yourself day by day a murderer's +face, without the satisfaction of having really murdered. + +But what of Nicolete? do you exclaim. Have you no thought for +her, bleeding her heart away in solitude? Can you so soon forget +those appealing eyes? Yes, I have thought for her. Would God +that I could bear for her those growing pains of the heart! and I +shall never forget those farewell eyes. But then, you see, I had +firmly realised this, that she would sooner recover from our +separation than from our marriage; that her love for me, pretty +and poignant and dramatic while it lasted, was a book- born, +book-fed dream, which must die soon or late,--the sooner the +better for the peace of the dreams that in the course of nature +would soon spring up to take its place. + +But while I realised all this, and, with a veritable aching of +the heart at the loss of her, felt a curious satisfaction at the +turn of events, still my own psychology became all the more a +puzzle to me, and I asked myself, with some impatience, what I +would be at, and what it was I really wanted. + +Here had I but a few moments ago been holding in my hands the +very dream I had set out to find, and here was I secretly +rejoicing to be robbed of it! If Nicolete did not fulfil the +conditions of that mystical Golden Girl, in professed search for +whom I had set out that spring morning, well, the good genius of +my pilgrimage felt it time to resign. Better give it up at once, +and go back to my books and my bachelorhood, if I were so +difficult to please. No wonder my kind providence felt provoked. +It had provided me with the sweetest pink- and-porcelain dream of +a girl, and might reasonably have concluded that his labours on +my behalf were at an end. + +But, really, there is no need to lecture me upon the charms and +virtues of Nicolete, for I loved them from the first moment of +our strange introduction, and I dream of them still. There was +indeed only one quality of womanhood in which she was lacking, +and in which, after much serious self- examination, I discovered +the reason of my instinctive self-sacrifice of her,--SHE HAD +NEVER SUFFERED. As my heart had warned me at the beginning, +"she was hoping too much from life to spend one's days with." +She lacked the subtle half-tones of experience. She lacked all +that a pretty wrinkle or two might have given. There was no +shadowy melancholy in her sky-clear eyes. She was gay indeed, +and had a certain childish humour; but she had none of that +humour which comes of the resigned perception that the world is +out of joint, and that you were never born to set it right. +These characteristics I had yet to find in woman. There was +still, therefore, an object to my quest. Indeed my experience had +provided me with a formula. I was in search of a woman who, in +addition to every other feminine charm and virtue, was a woman +who had suffered. + +With this prayer I turned once more to the genius of my +pilgrimage. "Grant me," I asked, "but this--A WOMAN WHO HAS +SUFFERED!" and, apparently as a consequence, he became once more +quite genial. He seemed to mean that a prayer so easy to grant +would put any god into a good temper; and possibly he smiled with +a deeper meaning too. + + + + +BOOK III + + + +CHAPTER I + + +IN WHICH I RETURN TO MY RIGHT AGE AND ENCOUNTER A COMMON OBJECT +OF THE COUNTRY + +And so when the days of my mourning for Nicolete were ended (and +in this sentence I pass over letters to and fro,--letters wild +from Nicolete, letters wise from Aucassin, letters explanatory +and apologetic from the Obstacle--how the Major-General had +suddenly come home quite unexpectedly and compelled her to +explain Nicolete's absence, etc., etc. Dear Obstacle! I should +rather have enjoyed a pilgrimage with her too)--I found myself +one afternoon again upon the road. The day had been very warm +and dusty, and had turned sleepy towards tea-time. + +I had now pretty clearly in my mind what I wanted. This time it +was, all other things equal, to be "a woman who had suffered," +and to this end, I had, before starting out once more, changed my +age back again at the inn and written "Aetat. 30" after my name +in the visitors' book. As a young man I was an evident failure, +and so, having made the countersign, I was speedily transformed +to my old self; and I must say that it was a most comfortable +feeling, something like getting back again into an old coat or an +old pair of shoes. I never wanted to be young again as long as I +lived. Youth was too much like the Sunday clothes of one's +boyhood. Moreover, I had a secret conviction that the woman I +was now in search of would prefer one who had had some experience +at being a man, who would bring her not the green plums of his +love, but the cunningly ripened nectarines, a man to whom love +was something of an art as well as an inspiration. + +It was in this frame of mind that I came upon the following +scene. + +The lane was a very cloistral one, with a ribbon of gravelly +road, bordered on each side with a rich margin of turf and a +scramble of blackberry bushes, green turf banks and dwarf +oak-trees making a rich and plenteous shade. My attention was +caught firstly by a bicycle lying carelessly on the turf, and +secondly and lastly by a graceful woman's figure, recumbent and +evidently sleeping against the turf bank, well tucked in among +the afternoon shadows. My coming had not aroused her, and so I +stole nearer to her on tiptoe. + +She was a pretty woman, of a striking modern type, tall, +well-proportioned, strong, I should say, with a good complexion +that had evidently been made just a little better. But her most +striking feature was an opulent mass of dark red hair, which had +fallen in some disorder and made quite a pillow for her head. +Her hat was off, lying in its veil by her side, and a certain +general abandon of her figure,--which was clothed in a short +cloth skirt, cut with that unmistakable touch which we call +style--betokened weariness that could no longer wait for rest. + +Poor child! she was tired out. She must never be left to sleep +on there, for she seemed good to sleep till midnight. + +I turned to her bicycle, and, examining it with the air of a man +who had won silver cups in his day, I speedily discovered what +had been the mischief. The tire of the front wheel had been +pierced, and a great thorn was protruding from the place. +Evidently this had been too much for poor Rosalind, and it was +not unlikely that she had cried herself to sleep. + +I bent over her to look--yes, there were traces of tears. Poor +thing! Then I had a kindly human impulse. I would mend the +tire, having attended ambulance classes, do it very quietly so +that she wouldn't hear, like the fairy cobblers who used to mend +people's boots while they slept, and then wait in ambush to watch +the effect upon her when she awoke. + +What do you think of the idea? + +But one important detail I have omitted from my description of +the sleeper. Her left hand lay gloveless, and of the four rings +on her third finger one was a wedding-ring. + +"Such red hair,--and a wedding-ring!" I exclaimed inwardly. +"How this woman must have suffered!" + + + +CHAPTER II + + +IN WHICH I HEAL A BICYCLE AND COME TO THE WHEEL OF PLEASURE + +Moving the bicycle a little away, so that my operations upon it +might not arouse her, I had soon made all right again, and when I +laid it once more where she had left it, she was still sleeping +as sound as ever. She had only to sleep long enough, a sly +thought suggested, to necessitate her ending her day's journey at +the same inn as myself, some five miles on the road. One virtue +at least the reader will allow to this history,--we are seldom +far away from an inn in its pages. When I thought of that I sat +stiller than ever, hardly daring to turn over the pages of +Apuleius, which I had taken from my knapsack to beguile the time, +and, I confess, to give my eyes some other occupation than the +dangerous one of gazing upon her face, dangerous in more ways +than one, but particularly dangerous at the moment, because, as +everybody knows, a steady gaze on a sleeping face is apt to awake +the sleeper. And she wasn't to be disturbed! + +"No! she mustn't waken before seven at the latest," I said to +myself, holding my breath and starting in terror at every noise. +Once a great noisy bee was within an ace of waking her, but I +caught him with inspired dexterity, and he buzzed around her head +no more. + +But despite the providential loneliness of the road, there were +one or two terrors that could not be disposed of so summarily. +The worst of all was a heavy miller's cart which one could hardly +crush to silence in one's handkerchief; but it went so slowly, +and both man and horses were so sleepy, that they passed unheard +and unnoticing. + +A sprightly tramp promised greater difficulty, and nothing but +some ferocious pantomime and a shilling persuaded him to forego a +choice fantasia of cockney humour. + +A poor tired Italian organ-grinder, tramping with an equally +tired monkey along the dusty roads, had to be bought off in a +similar manner,--though he only cost sixpence. He gave me a +Southern smile and shrug of comprehension, as one acquainted with +affairs of the heart,--which was a relief after the cockney +tramp's impudent expression of, no doubt, a precisely similar +sentiment. + +And then at last, just as my watch pointed to 6.50 (how well I +remember the exact moment!) Rosalind awoke suddenly, as women +and children do, sitting straight up on the instant, and putting +up her hands to her tousled hair, with a half-startled "Where am +I?" When her hair was once more "respectable," she gave her +skirts a shake, bent sideways to pull up her stockings and +tighten her garters, looked at her watch, and then with an +exclamation at the lateness of the hour, went over, with an air +of desperate determination, to her bicycle. + +"Now for this horrid puncture!" were the first words I was to +hear fall from her lips. + +She sought for the wound in the india- rubber with growing +bewilderment. + +"Goodness!" was her next exclamation, "why, there's nothing +wrong with it. Can I have been dreaming?" + +"I hope your dreams have been pleasanter than that," I ventured +at this moment to stammer, rising, a startling apparition, from +my ambush behind a mound of brambles; and before she had time to +take in the situation I added that I hoped she'd excuse my +little pleasantry, and told her how I had noticed her and the +wounded bicycle, et cetera, et cetera, as the reader can well +imagine, without giving me the trouble of writing it all out. + +She was sweetness itself on the instant. + +"Excuse you!" she said, "I should think so. Who wouldn't? +You can't tell the load you've taken off my mind. I'm sure I +must have groaned in my sleep--for I confess I cried myself to +sleep over it." + +"I thought so," I said with gravity, and eyes that didn't dare +to smile outright till they had permission, which, however, was +not long withheld them. + +"How did you know?" + +"Oh, intuition, of course--who wouldn't have cried themselves +to sleep, and so tired too!" + +"You're a nice sympathetic man, anyhow," she laughed; "what a +pity you don't bicycle!" + +"Yes," I said, "I would give a thousand pounds for a bicycle +at this moment." + +"You ought to get a good one for that," she laughed,--"all +bright parts nickel, I suppose; indeed, you should get a real +silver frame and gold handle-bars for that, don't you think? +Well, it would be nice all the same to have your company a few +miles, especially as it's growing dark," she added. + +"Especially as it's growing dark," I repeated. + +"You won't be going much farther to- night. Have you fixed on +your inn?" I continued innocently. She had--but that was in a +town too far to reach to-night, after her long sleep. + +"You might have wakened me," she said. + +"Yes, it was stupid of me not to have thought of it," I +answered, offering no explanation of the dead bee which at the +moment I espied a little away in the grass, and saying nothing of +the merry tramp and the melancholy musician. + +Then we talked inns, and thus she fell beautifully into the pit +which I had digged for her; and it was presently arranged that +she should ride on to the Wheel of Pleasure and order a dinner, +which she was to do me the honour of sharing with me. + +I was to follow on foot as speedily as might be, and it was with +a high heart that I strode along the sunset lanes, hearing for +some time the chiming of her bell in front of me, till she had +wheeled it quite out of hearing, and it was lost in the distance. + +I never did a better five miles in my life. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +TWO TOWN MICE AT A COUNTRY INN. + +When I reached the Wheel of Pleasure, I found Rosalind awaiting +me in the coffee- room, looking fresh from a traveller's +toilette, and with the welcome news that dinner was on the way. +By the time I had washed off the day's dust it was ready, and a +merry meal it proved. Rosalind had none of Alastor's objections +to the wine-list, so we drank an excellent champagne; and as +there seemed to be no one in the hotel but ourselves, we made +ourselves at home and talked and laughed, none daring to make us +afraid. + +At first, on sitting down to table, we had grown momentarily shy, +with one of those sudden freaks of self-consciousness which +occasionally surprise one, when, midway in some slightly +unconventional situation to which the innocence of nature has led +us, we realise it--"for an instant and no more." + +Positively, I think that in the embarrassment of that instant I +had made some inspired remark to Rosalind about the lovely +country which lay dreamy in the afterglow outside our window. +Oh, yes, I remember the very words. They were "What a heavenly +landscape!" or something equally striking. + +"Yes," Rosalind had answered, "it is almost as beautiful as +the Strand!" + +If I'd known her better, I should have exclaimed, "You dear!" +and I think it possible that I did say something to that +effect,--perhaps "You dear woman!" At all events, the veil of +self-consciousness was rent in twain at that remark, and our +spirits rushed together at this touch of London nature thus +unexpectedly revealed. + +London! I hadn't realised till this moment how I had been +missing it all these days of rustication, and my heart went out +to it with a vast homesickness. + +"Yes! the Strand," I repeated tenderly, "the Strand--at +night!" + +"Indeed, yes! what is more beautiful in the whole world?" she +joined in ardently. + +"The wild torrents of light, the passionate human music, the +hansoms, the white shirts and shawled heads, the theatres--" + +"Don't speak of them or you'll make me cry," said Rosalind. + +"The little suppers after the theatre--" + +"Please don't," she cried, "it is cruel;" and I saw that her +eyes were indeed glistening with tears. + +"But, of course," I continued, to give a slight turn aside in +our talk, "it is very wrong of us to have such sophisticated +tastes. We ought to love these lonely hills and meadows far more. + +The natural man revels in solitude, and wants no wittier company +than birds and flowers. Wordsworth made a constant companion of +a pet daisy. He seldom went abroad without one or two trotting +at his side, and a skylark would keep Shelley in society for a +week." + +"But they were poets," retorted Rosalind; "you don't call +poets natural. Why, they are the most unnatural of men. The +natural person loves the society of his kind, whereas the poet +runs away from it." + +"Well, of course, there are poets and poets, poets sociable and +poets very unsociable. Wordsworth made the country, but Lamb +made the town; and there is quite a band of poets nowadays who +share his distaste for mountains, and take London for their muse. +If you'll promise not to cry again, I'll recall some lines by a +friend of mine which were written for town-tastes like ours. But +perhaps you know them?" + +It will gratify my friend to learn that Rosalind had the verses I +refer to by heart, and started off humming,-- + + +"Ah, London, London, our delight, +Great flower that opens but at night, +Great city of the midnight sun, +Whose day begins when day is done . . . +Like dragon-flies the hansoms hover +With jewelled eyes to catch the lover;" + + +and so on, with a gusto of appreciation that must have been very +gratifying to the author had he been present. + +Thus perceiving a taste for a certain modern style of poetry in +my companion, I bethought me of a poem which I had written on the +roadside a few days before, and which, I confess, I was eager to +confide to some sympathetic ear. I was diffident of quoting it +after such lines as Rosalind had recalled, but by the time we had +reached our coffee, I plucked up courage to mention it. I had, +however, the less diffidence in that it would have a technical +interest for her, being indeed no other than a song of cycling a +deux which had been suggested by one of those alarmist +danger-posts always placed at the top of the pleasantest hills, +sternly warning the cyclist that "this hill is +dangerous,"--just as in life there is always some minatory +notice-board frowning upon us in the direction we most desire to +take. + +But I omit further preface and produce the poem:-- + + +"This hill is dangerous," I said, + As we rode on together +Through sunny miles and sunny miles + Of Surrey heather; + "This hill is dangerous--don't you think +We'd better walk it?" + "Or sit it out--more danger still!" + She smiled--"and talk it?" + +"Are you afraid?" she turned and cried + So very brave and sweetly,-- + Oh that brave smile that takes the heart + Captive completely! + +"Afraid?" I said, deep in her eyes + Recklessly gazing; + "For you I'd ride into the sun + And die all blazing!" + +"I never yet saw hill," I said, + "And was afraid to take it; + I never saw a foolish law, + And feared to break it. + Who fears a hill or fears a law + With you beside him? + Who fears, dear star, the wildest sea + With you to guide him?" + + Then came the hill--a cataract, + A dusty swirl, before us; + The world stood round--a village world-- + In fearful chorus. + Sure to be killed! Sure to be killed! + O fools, how dare ye! + Sure to be killed--and serve us right! + Ah I love, but were we? + + The hill was dangerous, we knew, + And knew that we must take it; + The law was strong,--that too we knew + Yet dared to break it. + And those who'd fain know how we fared + Follow and find us, + Safe on the hills, with all the world + Safely behind us. + + +Rosalind smiled as I finished. "I'm afraid," she said, "the +song is as dangerous as the hill. Of course it has more meanings +than one?" + +"Perhaps two," I assented. + +"And the second more important than the first." + +"Maybe," I smiled; "however, I hope you like it." + +Rosalind was very reassuring on that point, and then said +musingly, as if half to herself, "But that hill is dangerous, +you know; and young people would do well to pay attention to the +danger-board!" + +Her voice shook as she spoke the last two or three words, and I +looked at her in some surprise. + +"Yes, I know it," she added, her voice quite broken; and before +I realised what was happening, there she was with her beautiful +head down upon the table, and sobbing as if her heart would +break. + +"Forgive me for being such a fool," she managed to wring out. + +Now, usually I never interrupt a woman when she is crying, as it +only encourages her to continue; but there was something so +unexpected and mysterious about Rosalind's sudden outburst that +it was impossible not to be sympathetic. I endeavoured to soothe +her with such words as seemed fitting; and as she was crying +because she really couldn't help it, she didn't cry long. + +These tears proved, what certain indications of manner had +already hinted to me, that Rosalind was more artless than I had +at first supposed. She was a woman of the world, in that she +lived in it, and loved its gaieties, but there was still in her +heart no little of the child, as is there not in the hearts of +all good women--or men? + +And this you will realise when I tell you the funny little story +which she presently confided to me as the cause of her tears. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +MARRIAGE A LA MODE + +For Rosalind was no victim of the monster man, as you may have +supposed her, no illustration of his immemorial perfidies. On the +contrary, she was one half of a very happy marriage, and, in a +sense, her sufferings at the moment were merely theoretical, if +one may so describe the sufferings caused by a theory. But no +doubt the reader would prefer a little straightforward narrative. + +Well, Rosalind and Orlando, as we may as well call them, are two +newly married young people who've been married, say, a year, and +who find themselves at the end of it loving each other more than +at the beginning,--for you are to suppose two of the tenderest, +most devoted hearts that ever beat as one. However, they are +young people of the introspective modern type, with a new theory +for everything. + +About marriage and the law of happiness in that blessed estate, +they boasted the latest philosophical patents. To them, among +other matters, the secret of unhappy marriages was as simple as +can be. It was in nothing more or less than the excessive +"familiarity" of ordinary married life, and the lack of +personal freedom allowed both parties to the contract. Thus love +grew commonplace, and the unhappy ones to weary of each other by +excessive and enforced association. This was obvious enough, and +the remedy as obvious,--separate bedrooms, and a month's holiday +in each year to be spent apart (notoriously all people of quality +had separate bedrooms, and see how happy they were!). These and +similar other safeguards of individual liberty they had in +mock-earnest drawn up and signed on their marriage eve, as a sort +of supplemental wedding service. + +It would not be seemly to inquire how far certain of these +conditions had been kept,--how often, for example, Orlando's +little hermit's bed had really needed remaking during those +twelve months! Answer, ye birds of the air that lie in your snug +nests, so close, so close, through the tender summer nights, and +maybe with two or three little ones besides,--unless, indeed, ye +too have felt the influence of the Zeit-geist, and have taken to +sleeping in separate nests. + +The condition with which alone we have here to concern ourselves +was one which provided that each of the two lovers, hereafter to +be called the husband of the one part and the wife of the other +part, solemnly bound themselves to spend one calendar month of +each year out of each other's society, with full and free liberty +to spend it wheresoever, with whomsoever, and howsoever they +pleased; and that this condition was rigidly to be maintained, +whatever immediate effort it might cost, as the parties thereto +believed that so would their love the more likely maintain an +enduring tenderness and an unwearied freshness. And to this did +Orlando and his Rosalind set their hands and hearts and lips. + +Now, wisdom is all very well till the time comes to apply it; and +as that month of June approached in which they had designed to +give their love a holiday, they had found their courage growing +less and less. Their love didn't want a holiday; and when +Orlando had referred to the matter during the early days of May, +Rosalind had burst into tears, and begged him to reconsider a +condition which they had made before they really knew what wedded +love was. But Orlando, though in tears himself (so Rosalind +averred), had a higher sense of their duty to their ideal, and +was able, though in tears, to beg her look beyond the moment, and +realise what a little self-denial now might mean in the years to +come. They hadn't kept any other of their resolutions,--thus +Rosalind let it out!--this must be kept. + +And thus it had come about that Orlando had gone off for his +month's holiday with a charming girl, who, with the cynic, will +no doubt account for his stern adherence to duty; and Rosalind +had gone off for hers with a pretty young man whom she'd liked +well enough to go to the theatre and to supper with,--a young man +who was indeed a dear friend, and a vivacious, sympathetic +companion, but whom, as a substitute for Orlando, she immediately +began to hate. Such is the female heart! + +The upshot of the experiment, so far as she was concerned, was +that she had quarrelled with her companion, and had gone off in +search of her husband, on which search she was embarked at the +moment of my encountering her. The tears, therefore,--that is, +the first lot of tears by the roadside,--had not been all on +account of the injured bicycle, you see. + +Now the question was, How had Orlando been getting on? I had an +intuition that in his case the experiment had proved more +enjoyable, but I am not one to break the bruised reed by making +such a suggestion. On the contrary, I expressed my firm +conviction that Orlando was probably even more miserable than she +was. + +"Do you really think so?" she asked eagerly, her poor miserable +face growing bright a moment with hope and gratitude. + +"Undoubtedly," I answered sententiously. "To put the case on +the most general principles, apart from Orlando's great love for +you, it is an eternal truth of masculine sentiment that man +always longs for the absent woman." + +"Are you quite sure?" asked Rosalind, with an unconvinced +half-smile. + +"Absolutely." + +"I thought," she continued, "that it was just the other way +about; that it was presence and not absence that made the heart +of man grow fonder, and that if a man's best girl, so to say, was +away, he was able to make himself very comfortable with his +second-best!" + +"In some cases, of course, it's true," I answered, unmoved; +"but with a love like yours and Orlando's, it's quite +different." + +"Oh, do you really mean it?" + +"Certainly I do; and your mistake has been in supposing that an +experiment which no few every-day married couples would be only +too glad to try, was ever meant for two such love-birds as you. +Laws and systems are meant for the unhappy and the untractable, +not for people like you, for whom Love makes its own laws." + +"Yes, that is what we used to say; and indeed, we thought that +this was one of love's laws,--this experiment, as you call it." + +"But it was quite a mistake," I went on in my character as +matrimonial oracle. "Love never made a law so cruel, a law that +would rob true lovers of each other's society for a whole month +in a year, stretching them on the rack of absence--" There my +period broke down, so I began another less ambitiously planned. + +"A whole month in a year! Think what that would mean in a +lifetime. How long do you expect to live and love together? Say +another fifty years at the most. Well, fifty ones are fifty. +Fifty months equal--four twelves are forty-eight and two +over--four years and two months. Yes, out of the short life God +allows even for the longest love you would voluntarily throw away +four years and two months!" + +This impressive calculation had a great effect on poor Rosalind; +and it is a secondary matter that it and its accompanying wisdom +may have less weight with the reader, as for the moment Rosalind +was my one concern. + +"But, of course, we have perfect trust in each other," said +Rosalind presently, with charming illogicality. + +"No doubt," I said; "but Love, like a good householder +(ahem!), does well not to live too much on trust." + +"But surely love means perfect trust," said Rosalind. + +"Theoretically, yes; practically, no. On the contrary, it means +exactly the opposite. Trust, perfect trust, with loved ones far +away! No, it is an inhuman ideal, and the more one loves the +less one lives up to it. If not, what do these tears mean?" + +"Oh, no!" Rosalind retorted, with a flush, "you mustn't say +that. I trust Orlando absolutely. It isn't that; it's simply +that I can't bear to be away from him." + +What women mean by "trusting" might afford a subject for an +interesting disquisition. However, I forbore to pursue the +matter, and answered Rosalind's remark in a practical spirit. + +"Well, then," I said, "if that's all, the thing to do is to +find Orlando, tell him that you cannot bear it, and spend the +rest of your holiday, you and he, together." + +"That's what I thought," said Rosalind. + +"Unfortunately," I continued, "owing to your foolish +arrangement not to tell each other where you were going and not +to write, as being incompatible with Perfect Trust, you don't +know where Orlando is at the present moment." + +"No; but I have a good guess," said Rosalind. "There's a +smart little watering- place, not so many miles from here, called +Yellowsands, a sort of secret little Monaco, which not many +people know of, a wicked-innocent gay little place, where we've +often talked of going. I think it's very likely that Orlando has +gone there; and that's just where I was going when we met." + +I will tell the reader more about Yellowsands in the next +chapter. Meanwhile, let us complete Rosalind's arrangements. +The result of our conversation was that she was to proceed to +Yellowsands on the morrow, and that I was to follow as soon as +possible, so as to be available should she chance to need any +advice, and at all events to give myself the pleasure of meeting +her again. + +This arranged, we said good-night, Rosalind with ever such a +brightened-up face, of which I thought for half an hour and then +fell asleep to dream of Yellowsands. + + + +CHAPTER V + + +CONCERNING THE HAVEN OF YELLOWSANDS + +On the morrow, at the peep of day, Rosalind was off to seek her +lord. An hour or so after I started in leisurely pursuit. + +Yellowsands! I had heard in a vague way of the place, as a whim +of a certain young nobleman who combined brains with the pursuit +of pleasure. Like most ideas, it was simple enough when once +conceived. Any one possessing a mile or two of secluded seaboard, +cut off on the land side by precipitous approaches, and including +a sheltered river mouth ingeniously hidden by nature, in the form +of a jutting wall of rock, from the sea, might have made as good +use of these natural opportunities as the nobleman in question, +had they only been as wise and as rich. William Blake proposed +to rebuild Jerusalem in this green and pleasant land. My lord +proposed to erect a miniature Babylon amid similar pleasant +surroundings, a little dream-city by the sea, a home for the +innocent pleasure-seeker stifled by the puritanism of the great +towns, refugium peccatorum in this island of the saints. + +"Once it was the Puritan Fathers who left our coasts," he is +recorded to have said; "nowadays it is our Prodigal Sons." + +No doubt it was in further elaboration of this aphorism that the +little steamboat that sailed every other day from Yellowsands to +the beckoning shores of France was called "the Mayflower." + +My lord's plan had been simple. By the aid of cunning architects +he had first blasted his harbour into shape, then built his +hotels and pleasure-palaces, and then leased them to dependants +of his who knew the right sort of people, and who knew that it +was as much as their lease was worth to find accommodation for +teetotal amateur photographers or wistful wandering Sunday-school +treats. As, unfortunately, the Queen's highway ran down in +tortuous descent to the handful of fishermen's cottages that had +clung there limpet-like for ages, there was always a chance of +such a stray visitation; but it was remote, and the whole place, +hand and heart, was in the pocket of my lord. + +So much to give the reader some idea of the secret watering-place +of Yellowsands, situated at the mouth of that romantic little +torrent, the river Sly. Such further description as may be +needed may be kept till we come within sight of its gilded roofs +and marble terraces. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE MOORLAND OF THE APOCALYPSE + +I reckoned that it would take me two or three days, leisurely +walking, to reach Yellowsands. Rosalind would, of course, arrive +there long before me; but that I did not regret, as I was in a +mood to find company in my own thoughts. + +Her story gave me plenty to think of. I dwelt particularly on +the careless extravagance of the happy. Here were two people to +whom life had given casually what I was compelled to go seeking +lonely and footsore through the world, and with little hope of +finding it at the end; and yet were they so little aware of their +good fortune as to risk it over a trumpery theory, a shadow of +pseudo-philosophy. Out of the deep dark ocean of life Love had +brought them his great moon-pearl, and they sat on the boat's +edge carelessly tossing it from one to the other, unmindful of +the hungry fathoms on every side. A sudden slip, and they had +lost it for ever, and might only watch its shimmering fall to the +bottom of the world. Theories! Theories are for the unknown and +the unhappy. Who will trouble to theorise about Heaven when he +has found Heaven itself? Theories are for the poor- devil +outcast,--for him who stands outside the confectioner's shop of +life without a penny in his pocket, while the radiant purchasers +pass in and out through the doors,--for him who watches with +wistful eyes this and that sugared marvel taken out of the window +by mysterious hands, to bless some happy customer inside. He is +not fool enough even to hope for one of those glistering +masterpieces of frosted sugar and silk flowers, which rise to +pinnacles of snowy sweetness, white mountains of blessedness, +rich inside, they say, with untold treasures for the tooth that +is sweet. No! he craves nothing but a simple Bath-bun of +happiness, and even that is denied him. + +Would I ever find my Bath-bun? I disconsolately asked myself. I +had been seeking it now for some little time, and seemed no +nearer than when I set out. I had seen a good many Bath-buns on +my pilgrimage, it is true. Some I have not had space to confide +to the reader; but somehow or other they had not seemed the +unmistakably predestined for which I was seeking. + +And oh, how I could love a girl, if she would only give me the +chance,--that is, be the right girl! Oh, Sylvia Joy! where art +thou? Why so long dost thou remain hidden "in shady leaves of +destiny"? + + + "Seest thou thy lover lowly laid, + Hear'st thou the sighs that rend his breast?" + + +And then, as the novelists say, "a strange thing happened." + +The road I was tramping at the moment was somewhat desolate. It +ran up from a small market town through a dreary undulating +moorland, forking off here and there to unknown villages of which +the horizon gave no hint. Its cheerless hillocks were all but +naked of vegetation, for a never very flourishing growth of +heather had recently been burnt right down to the unkindly- +looking earth, leaving a dwarf black forest of charred sticks +very grim to the eye and heart; while the dull surface of a small +lifeless-looking lake added the final touch to the Dead-Sea +mournfulness of the prospect. + +Suddenly I became aware of the fluttering of a grey dress a +little ahead of me. Unconsciously I had been overtaking a tall +young woman walking in the same direction as myself, with a fine +athletic carriage of her figure and a noble movement of her +limbs. + +She walked manfully, and as I neared her I could hear the sturdy +ring of her well-shod feet upon the road. There was an air of +expectancy about her walk, as though she looked to be met +presently by some one due from the opposite direction. + +It was curious that I had not noticed her before, for she must +have been in sight for some time. No doubt my melancholy +abstraction accounted for that, and perhaps her presence there +was to be explained by a London train which I had listlessly +observed come in to the town an hour before. This surmise was +confirmed, as presently,--over the brow of a distant undulation +in the road, I descried a farmer's gig driven by another young +woman. The gig immediately hoisted a handkerchief; so did my +pedestrian. At this moment I was within a yard or two of +overtaking her. And it was then the strange thing happened. + +Distance had lent no enchantment which nearness did not a hundred +times repay. The immediate impression of strength and distinction +which the first glimpse of her had made upon me was more and more +verified as I drew closer to her. The carriage of her head was +no whit less noble than the queenly carriage of her limbs, and +her glorious chestnut hair, full of warm tints of gold, was +massed in a sumptuous simplicity above a neck that would have +made an average woman's fortune. This glowing description, +however, must be lowered or heightened in tone by the association +of these characteristics with an undefinable simplicity of mien, +a certain slight rusticity of effect. The town spoke in her +well-cut gown and a few simple adornments, but the dryad still +moved inside. + +I suppose most men, even in old age, feel a certain anxiety, +conscious or not, as they overtake a woman whose back view is in +the least attractive. I confess that I felt a more than usual, +indeed a quite irrational, perturbation of the blood, as, coming +level with her, I dared to look into her face. As I did so she +involuntarily turned to look at me--turned to look at me, did I +say? "To look" is a feeble verb indeed to express the +unexpected shock of beauty to which I was suddenly exposed. I +cannot describe her features, for somehow features always mean +little to me. They were certainly beautifully moulded, and her +skin was of a lovely pale olive, but the life of her face was in +her great violet eyes and her wonderful mouth. Thus suddenly to +look into her face was like unexpectedly to come upon moon and +stars reflected in some lonely pool. I suppose the look lasted +only a second or two; but it left me dazzled as that king in the +Eastern tale, who seemed to have lived whole dream-lives between +dipping his head into a bowl of water and taking it out again. +Similarly in that moment I seemed to have dived into this unknown +girl's eyes, to have walked through the treasure palaces of her +soul, to have stood before the flaming gates of her heart, to +have gathered silver flowers in the fairy gardens of her dreams. +I had followed her white-robed spirit across the moonlit meadows +of her fancy, and by her side had climbed the dewy ladder of the +morning star, and then suddenly I had been whirled up again to +the daylight through the magic fountains of her eyes. + +I'll tell you more about that look presently! Meanwhile the gig +approached, and the two girls exchanged affectionate greetings. + +"Tom hasn't come with you, then?" said the other girl, who was +evidently her sister, and who was considerably more rustic in +style and accent. She said it with a curious mixture of anxiety +and relief. + +"No," answered the other simply, and I thought I noticed a +slight darkening of her face. Tom was evidently her husband. So +she was married! + +"Yes!" said a fussy hypocrite of reason within me, "and +what's that to do with you?" + +"Everything, you fool!" answered a robuster voice in my soul, +kicking the feeble creature clean out of my head on the instant. + +For, absurd as it may sound, with that look into those Arabian +Nights' eyes, had come somewhere out of space an overwhelming +intuition, nay, an unshakable conviction, that the woman who was +already being rolled away from me down the road in that Dis's car +of a farmer's gig, was now and for ever and before all worlds the +woman God had created for me, and that, unless I could be hers +and she mine, there would be no home, no peace for either of us +so long as we lived. + +And yet she was being carried away further and further every +moment, while I gazed after her, aimlessly standing in the middle +of the road. Why did I not call to her, overtake her? In a few +moments she would be lost to me for ever-- + +Though I was unaware of it, this hesitation was no doubt owing to +a stealthy return of reason by the back-door of my mind. In +fact, he presently dared to raise his voice again. "I don't +deny," he ventured, ready any moment to flee for his life, +"that she is written yours in all the stars, and particularly do +I see it written on the face of the moon; but you mustn't forget +that many are thus meant for each other who never meet, not to +speak of marrying. It is such contradictions between the +purposes and performance of the Creator that make life--life; +you'll never see her again, so make your mind easy--" + +At that moment the gig was on the point of turning a corner into +a dark pine-wood; but just ere it disappeared,--was it fancy?--I +seemed to have caught the flash of a momentarily fluttering +handkerchief. "Won't I? you fool!" I exclaimed, savagely +smiting reason on the cheek, as I sprang up wildly to wave mine; +but the road was already blank. + +At this a sort of panic possessed me, and like a boy I raced down +the road after her. To lose her like this, at the very moment +that she had been revealed to me. It was more than I could bear. + +Past the dreary lake, through the little pine-wood I ran, and +then I was brought to a halt, panting, by cross-roads and a +finger-post. An involuntary memory of Nicolete sang to me as I +read the quaint names of the villages to one of which the Vision +was certainly wending. Yes! I was bound on one more journey to +the moon, but alas! there was no heavenly being by my side to +point the way. Oh, agony, which was the road she had taken? + +It never occurred to me till the following day that I might have +been able to track her by the wheel-marks of the gig on the dusty +summer road. Instead I desperately resorted to the time-honoured +expedient of setting up a stick and going in the direction of its +fall. Like most ancient guide-posts, it led me quite wrong, down +into a pig's-trough of a hamlet whither I felt sure she couldn't +have been bound. Then I ran back in a frenzy, and tried the +other road,--as if it could be any use, with at least three +quarters of an hour gone since I had lost sight of her. Of +course I had no luck; and finally, hot and worn out with absurd +excitement, I threw myself down in a meadow and called myself an +ass,--which I undoubtedly was. + +For of all the fancies that had obsessed my moonstruck brain, +this was surely the maddest. Suppose I had overtaken the girl, +what could I have said to her? And, suppose she had listened to +me, how did I know she was the girl I imagined her to be? But +this was sheer reason again, and has no place in a fantastic +romance. So I hasten to add that the mood was one of brief +duration, and that no cold-water arguments were able to quench +the fire which those eyes had set aflame within me, no daylight +philosophy had any power to dispel the dream of a face which was +now my most precious possession, as I once more took up my stick +and listlessly pursued my way to Yellowsands. + +For I had one other reason than my own infatuation, or thought I +had. Yes, brief and rapid as our glance at each other had been, +I had fancied in her eyes a momentary kindling as they met mine, +a warm summer- lightning which seemed for a second to light up +for me the inner heaven of her soul. + +Of one feeling, however, I was sure,--that on my side this +apocalyptic recognition of her, as it had seemed, was no mere +passionate correspondence of sex, no mere spell of a beautiful +face (for such passion and such glamour I had made use of +opportunities to study), but was indeed the flaming up of an +elemental affinity, profounder than sex, deeper than reason, and +ages older than speech. + +But it was a fancy, for all that? Yes, one of those fancies that +are fancies on earth, but facts in heaven. Perhaps you don't +believe in them. Well, I'm afraid that cannot be helped. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +"COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS!" + +Nothing further happened to me till I reached Yellowsands, except +an exciting ride on the mail-coach, which connected it with the +nearest railway-station some twenty miles away. For the last +three or four miles the road ran along the extreme precipitous +verge of cliffs that sloped, a giant's wall of grassy mountain, +right away down to a dreamy amethystine floor of sea, miles and +miles, as it seemed, below. To ride on that coach, as it +gallantly staggered betwixt earth and heaven, was to know all the +ecstasy of flying, with an added touch of danger, which birds and +angels, and others accustomed to fly, can never experience. And +then at length the glorious mad descent down three plunging +cataracts of rocky road, the exciting rattling of the harness, +the grinding of the strong brakes, the driver's soothing calls to +his horses, and the long burnished horn trailing wild music +behind us, like invisible banners of aerial brass,--oh, it +stirred the dullest blood amongst us thus as it were to tear down +the sky towards the white roofs of Yellowsands, glittering here +and there among the clouds of trees which filled the little +valley almost to the sea's edge, while floating up to us came +soft strains of music, silken and caressing, as though the sea +itself sang us a welcome. Had you heard it from aboard the Argo, +you would have declared it to be the sirens singing, and it would +have been found necessary to lash you to the mast. But there +were no masts to lash you to in Yellowsands--and of the sirens it +is not yet time to speak. + +It was the golden end of afternoon as the coach stopped in front +of the main hotel, The Golden Fortune; and for the benefit of any +with not too long purses who shall hereafter light on +Yellowsands, and be alarmed at the name and the marble +magnificence of that delightful hotel, I may say that the charges +there were surprisingly "reasonable," owing to one other wise +provision of the young lord and master of that happy place, who +had had the wit to realise that the nicest and brightest and +prettiest people were often the poorest. Yellowsands, therefore, +was carried on much like a club, to which you had only to be the +right sort of person to belong. I was relieved to find that the +hotel people evidently considered me the right sort of person, +and didn't take me for a Sunday-school treat,--for presently I +found myself in a charming little corner bedroom, whence I could +survey the whole extent of the little colony of pleasure. The +Golden Fortune was curiously situated, perched at the extreme +sea-end of a little horse-shoe bay hollowed out between two +headlands, the points of which approached each other so closely +that the river Sly had but a few yards of rocky channel through +which to pour itself into the sea. The Golden Fortune, therefore, +backed by towering woodlands, looked out to sea at one side, +across to the breakwater headland on another, and on its land +side commanded a complete view of the gay little haven, with its +white houses built terrace on terrace upon its wooded slopes, +connected by flights of zigzag steps, by which the apparently +inaccessible shelves and platforms circulated their gay life down +to the gay heart of the place,--the circular boulevard, +exquisitely leafy and cool, where one found the great casino and +the open-air theatre, the exquisite orchestra, into which only +the mellowest brass and the subtlest strings were admitted, and +the Cafe du Ciel, charmingly situated among the trees, where the +boulevard became a bridge, for a moment, at the mouth of the +river Sly. Here one might gaze up the green rocky defile through +which the Sly made pebbly music, and through which wound romantic +walks and natural galleries, where far inland you might wander + + +"From dewy dawn to dewy night, + And have one with you wandering," + + +or where you might turn and look across the still lapping +harbour, out through the little neck of light between the +headlands to the shimmering sea beyond,--your ears filled with a +melting tide of sweet sounds, the murmur of the streams and the +gentle surging of the sea, the rippling of leaves, the soft +restless whisper of women's gowns, and the music of their +vowelled voices. It was here I found myself sitting at sunset, +alone, but so completely under the spell of the place that I +needed no companion. The place itself was companion enough. The +electric fairy lamps had popped alight; and as the sun sank +lower, Yellowsands seemed like a glowing crown of light floating +upon the water. + +I had as yet failed to catch any sight of Rosalind; so I sat +alone, and so far as I had any thoughts or feelings, beyond a +consciousness of heavenly harmony with my surroundings, they were +for that haunting unknown face with the violet eyes and the heavy +chestnut hair. + +Presently, close by, the notes of a guitar came like little gold +butterflies out of the twilight, and then a woman's voice rose +like a silver bird on the air. It was a gay wooing measure to +which she sang. I listened with ears and heart. "All ye," it +went,-- + + + All ye who seek for pleasure, + Here find it without measure-- + No one to say + A body nay, + And naught but love and leisure. + +All ye who seek forgetting, +Leave frowns and fears and fretting, + Here by the sea + Are fair and free +To give you peace and petting. + +All ye whose hearts are breaking +For somebody forsaking, + We'll count you dear, + And heal you here, +And send you home love-making." + + +"Bravo!" I cried involuntarily, as the song ended amid +multitudinous applause; and I thus attracted the attention of +another who sat near me as lonely as myself, but evidently quite +at home in the place. + +"You haven't heard our sirens sing before?" he said, turning +to me with a pleasant smile, and thus we fell into talk of the +place and its pleasures. + +"There's one feature of the place I might introduce you to if +you care for a stroll," he said presently. "Have you heard of +The Twelve Golden-Haired Bar-maids?" I hadn't, but the +fantastic name struck my fancy. It was, he explained, the name +given to a favourite buffet at the Hotel Aphrodite, which was +served by twelve wonderful girls, not one under six feet in +height, and all with the most glorious golden hair. It was a +whim of the management, he said. + +So, of course, we went. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +THE TWELVE GOLDEN-HAIRED BAR-MAIDS. + +Now it was not without some boyish nervousness that I followed my +newly made friend, for I confess that I have ever been a poor +hand at talking to bar-maids. It is, I am convinced, an art +apart, an art like any other,--needing first the natural gift, +then the long patient training, and finally the courageous +practice. Alas for me, I possessed neither gift, training, nor +courage. Courage I lacked most of all. It was in vain that I +said to myself that it was like swimming,--all that was needed +was "confidence." That was the very thing I couldn't muster. +No doubt I am handicapped by a certain respectful homage which I +always feel involuntarily to any one in the shape of woman, for +anything savouring of respect is the last thing to win the +bar-maid heart divine. The man to win her is he who calls loudly +for his drink, without a "Please" or a "Thank you," throws +his hat at the back of his head, gulps down half his glass, and, +while drawing breath for the other half, takes a hard, +indifferent look at her, and in an off-hand voice throws her some +fatuous, mirthless jest. + +Now, I've never been able to do this in the convincing grand +manner of the British male; and whatever I have said, the effect +has been the same. I've talked about theatres and music-halls, +of events of the day, I've even--Heaven help me--talked of +racing and football, but I might as well have talked of Herbert +Spencer. I suppose I didn't talk about them in the right way. +I'm sure it must be my fault somewhere, for certainly they seem +easy enough to please, poor things! However, my failure remains, +and sometimes even I find it extremely hard to attract their +attention in the ordinary way of business. I don't mind my +neighbour being preferred before me, but I do object to his being +served before me! + +So, I say, I couldn't but tremble at the vision of those +golden-haired goddesses, standing with immobile faces by their +awful altars. Indeed, had I realised how superbly impressive they +were going to be, I think I must have declined the adventure +altogether,--for, robed in lustrous ivory-white linen were those +figures of undress marble, the wealth of their glorious bodies +pressing out into bosoms magnificent as magnolias (nobler lines +and curves Greece herself has never known), towering in throats +of fluted alabaster, and flowering in coiffures of imperial gold. + +Nor was their temple less magnificent. To make it fair, Ruskin +had relit the seven lamps of architecture, and written the seven +labours of Hercules; for these windows through a whole youth +Burne Jones had worshipped painted glass at Oxford, and to +breathe romance into these frescos had Rossetti been born, and +Dante born again. Men had gone to prison and to death that this +temple of Whiskey-and-Soda might be fair. + +Strange, in truth, are the ministrations to which Beauty is +called. Out of the high heaven is she summoned, from mystic +communion with her own perfection, from majestic labours in the +Sistine Chapel of the Stars,--yea, she must put aside her +gold-leaf and purples and leave unfinished the very panels of the +throne of God,--that Circe shall have her palace, and her +worshippers their gilded sty. + +As there were at least a score of "worshippers" round each +Circe, my nervousness became unimportant, and therefore passed. +Thus, as my companion and I sat at one of the little tables, from +which we might gaze upon the sea without and Aphrodite within, my +eyes were able to fly like bees from one fair face to another. +Finally, they settled upon a Circe less besieged of the hoarse +and grunting mob. She was conspicuously less in height, her hair +was rather bright red than golden, and her face had more meanings +than the faces of her fellows. + +"Why," in a flash it came to me, "it's Rosalind!" and clean +forgetting to be shy, or polite to my companion, I hastened +across to her, to be greeted instantly in a manner so exclusively +intimate that the little crowd about her presently spread itself +among the other crowds, and we were left to talk alone. + +"Well," I said, "you're a nice girl! Whatever are you doing +here?" + +"Yes, I'm afraid you'll have but a strange opinion of me," +she said; "but I love all experience,--it's such fun,--and when +I heard that there was a sudden vacancy for a golden-haired +beauty in this place, I couldn't resist applying, and to my +surprise they took me--and here I am! Of course I shall only +stay till Orlando appears--which," she added mournfully--"he +hasn't done yet." + +Her hours were long and late, but she had two half-days free in +the week, and for these of course I engaged myself. + +Meanwhile I spent as much time as I decently could at her side; +but it was impossible to monopolise her, and the rest of my time +there was no difficulty in filling up, you may be sure, in so gay +a place. + +Two or three nights after this, a little before dinner-time, +while I was standing talking to her, she suddenly went very +white, and in a fluttering voice gasped, "Look yonder!" I +looked. A rather slight dark- haired young man was entering the +bar, with a very stylish pretty woman at his side. As they sat +down and claimed the waiter, some distance away, Rosalind +whispered, "That's my husband!" + +"Oh!" I said; "but that's no reason for your fainting. Pull +yourself together. Take a drop of brandy." But woman will +never take the most obvious restorative, and Rosalind presently +recovered without the brandy. She looked covertly at her husband, +with tragic eyes. + +"He's much younger than I imagined him," I said,--reserving +for myself the satisfaction which this discovery had for me. + +"Oh, yes, he's really quite a boy," said Rosalind; adding +under her breath, "Dear fellow! how I love him!" + +"And hate him too!" she superadded, as she observed his evident +satisfaction with his present lot. Indeed the experiment +appeared to be working most successfully with him; nor, looking +at his companion, could I wonder. She was a sprightly young +woman, very smart and merry and decorously voluptuous, and of +that fascinating prettiness that wins the hearts of boys and +storms the footlights. One of her characteristics soothed the +heart of Rosalind. She had splendid red hair, almost as good as +her own. + +"He's been faithful to my hair, at all events," she said, +trying to be nonchalant. + +"And the eyes are not unlike," I added, meaning well. + +"I'm sorry you think so," said Rosalind, evidently piqued. + +"Well, never mind," I tried to make peace, "she hasn't your +hands,"--I knew that women cared more about their hands than +their faces. + +"How do you know?" she retorted; "you cannot see through her +gloves." + +"Would any gloves disguise your hands?" I persisted. "They +would shine through the mittens of an Esquimau." + +"Well, enough of that! See--I know it's wickedly mean of +me--but couldn't you manage to sit somewhere near them and hear +what they are saying? Of course you needn't tell me anything it +would be mean to hear, but only what--" + +"You would like to know." + +But this little plot died at its birth, for that very minute the +threatened couple arose, and went out arm in arm, apparently as +absurdly happy as two young people can be. + +As they passed out, one of Rosalind's fellow bar-maids turned to +her and said,-- + +"You know who that was?" + +"Who?" said Rosalind, startled. + +"That pretty woman who went out with that young Johnny just +now?" + +"No; who is she?" + +"Why, that's"--and readers with heart- disease had better +brace themselves up for a great shock--"that's +SYLVIA JOY, the famous dancer!" + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +SYLVIA JOY + +Sylvia Joy! And I hadn't so much as looked at her petticoat for +weeks! But I would now. The violet eyes and the heavy chestnut +hair rose up in moralising vision. Yes! God knows, they were +safe in my heart, but petticoats were another matter. Sylvia Joy! + +Well, did you ever? Well, I'm d----d! Sylvia Joy! + +I should have been merely superhuman had I been able to control +the expression of surprise which convulsed my countenance at the +sound of that most significant name. + +"The name seems familiar to you," said Rosalind, a little +surprised and a little eagerly; "do you know the lady?" + +"Slightly," I prevaricated. + +"How fortunate!" exclaimed Rosalind; "you'll be all the +better able to help me!" + +"Yes," I said; "but since things have turned out so oddly, I +may say that our relations are of so extremely delicate a nature +that I shall have very carefully to think out what is best to be +done. Meanwhile, do you mind lending me that ring for a few +hours?" + +It was a large oblong opal set round with small diamonds,--a ring +of distinguished design you could hardly help noticing, +especially on a man's hand, for which it was too conspicuously +dainty. I slipped it on the little finger of my left hand, and, +begging Rosalind to remain where she was meanwhile, and to take +no steps without consulting me, I mysteriously, not to say +officiously, departed. + +I left the twelfth Golden-Haired Bar-maid not too late to stalk +her husband and her under-study to their hotel, where they +evidently proposed to dine. There was, therefore, nothing left +for me but to dine also. So I dined; and when the courses of my +dining were ended, I found myself in a mellow twilight at the +Cafe du Ciel. And it was about the hour of the sirens' singing. +Presently the little golden butterflies flitted once more through +the twilight, and again the woman's voice rose like a silver bird +on the air. + +As I have a partiality for her songs, I transcribe this Hymn of +the Daughters of Aphrodite, which you must try to imagine +transfigured by her voice and the sunset. + + + Queen Aphrodite's + Daughters are we, + She that was born + Of the morn + And the sea; + White are our limbs + As the foam on the wave, + Wild are our hymns + And our lovers are brave! + + Queen Aphrodite, + Born of the sea, + Beautiful dutiful daughters + Are we! + + + You who would follow, + Fear not to come, + For love is for love + As dove is for dove; + The harp of Apollo + Shall lull you to rest, + And your head find its home + On this beautiful breast. + + + Queen Aphrodite, + Born of the sea, + Beautiful dutiful daughters + Are we! + + + Born of the Ocean, + Wave-like are we! + Rising and falling + Like waves of the sea; + Changing for ever, + Yet ever the same, + Music in motion + And marble in flame. + + + Queen Aphrodite, + Born of the sea, + Beautiful dutiful daughters + Are we! + + +When I alighted once more upon the earth from the heaven of this +song, who should I find seated within a table of me but the very +couple I was at the moment so unexpectedly interested in? But +they were far too absorbed in each other to notice me, and +consequently I was able to hear all of importance that was said. +I regret that I cannot gratify the reader with a report of their +conversation, for the excuse I had for listening was one that is +not transferable. A woman's happiness was at stake. No other +consideration could have persuaded me to means so mean save an +end so noble. I didn't even tell Rosalind all I heard. +Mercifully for her, the candour of fools is not among my +superstitions. Suffice it for all third persons to know--what +Rosalind indeed has never known, and what I hope no reader will +be fool enough to tell her--that Orlando was for the moment +hopelessly and besottedly faithless to his wife, and that my +services had been bespoken in the very narrowest nick of time. + +Having, as the reader has long known, a warm personal interest in +his attractive companion, and desiring, therefore, to think as +well of her as possible, I was pleased to deduce, negatively, +from their conversation, that Sylvia Joy knew nothing of +Rosalind, and believed Orlando to be a free, that is, an +unmarried man. From the point of view, therefore, of her code, +there was no earthly reason why she should not fall in with +Orlando's proposal that they should leave for Paris by the +"Mayflower" on the following morning. Orlando, I could hear, +wished to make more extended arrangements, and references to that +well-known rendezvous, "Eternity," fell on my ears from time to +time. Evidently Sylvia had no very saving belief in Eternity, +for I heard her say that they might see how they got on in Paris +for a start. Then it would be time enough to talk of Eternity. +This and other remarks of Sylvia's considerably predisposed me +towards her. Having concluded their arrangements for the heaven +of the morrow, they rose to take a stroll along the boulevards. +As they did so, I touched Orlando's shoulder and begged his +attention for a moment. Though an entire stranger to him, I had, +I said, a matter of extreme importance to communicate to him, and +I hoped, therefore, that it would suit his convenience to meet me +at the same place in an hour and a half. As I said this, I +flashed his wife's ring in the light so obviously that he was +compelled to notice it. + +"Wherever did you get that?" he gasped, no little surprised and +agitated. + +"From your wife," I answered, rapidly moving away. "Be sure +to be here at eleven." + +I slipped away into the crowd, and spent my hour and a half in +persuading Rosalind that her husband was no doubt a little +infatuated, but nevertheless the most faithful husband in the +world. If she would only leave all to me, by this time to-morrow +night, if not a good many hours before, he should be in her arms +as safe as in the Bank. It did my heart good to see how happy +this artistic adaptation of the truth made her; and I must say +that she never had a wiser friend. + +When eleven came, I was back in my seat at the Cafe du Ciel. +Orlando too was excitedly punctual. + +"Well, what is it?" he hurried out, almost before he had sat +down. + +"What will you do me the honour of drinking?" I asked calmly. + +"Oh, drink be d----d!" he said; "what have you to tell me?" + +"I'm glad to hear you rap out such a good honest oath," I +said; "but I should like a drink, for all that, and if I may say +so, you would be none the worse for a brandy and soda, late as it +is." + +When the drinks had come, I remarked to him quietly, but not +without significance: "The meaning of this ring is that your +wife is here, and very wretched. By an accident I have been +privileged with her friendship; and I may say, to save time, that +she has told me the whole story. + +"What happily she has not been able to tell me, and what I need +hardly say she will never know from me, I overheard, in the +interests of your joint happiness, an hour or so ago." + +The man who is telling the story has a proverbial great +advantage; but I hope the reader knows enough of me by this to +believe that I am far from meanly availing myself of it in this +narrative. I am well and gratefully aware that in this interview +with Orlando my advantages were many and fortunate. For example, +had he been bigger and older, or had he not been a gentleman, my +task had been considerably more arduous, not to say dangerous. + +But, as Rosalind had said, he was really quite a boy, and I +confess I was a little ashamed for him, and a little piqued, that +he showed so little fight. The unexpectedness of my attack had, +I realised, given me the whip-hand. So I judged, at all events, +from the fact that he forbore to bluster, and sat quite still, +with his head in his hands, saying never a word for what seemed +several minutes. Then presently he said very quietly,-- + +"I love my wife all the same." + +"Of course you do," I answered, eagerly welcoming the +significant announcement; "and if you'll allow me to say so, I +think I understand more about the whole situation than either of +you, bachelor though unfortunately I am. As a famous friend of +mine is fond of saying, lookers-on see most of the game." + +Then I rapidly told him the history of my meeting with his wife, +and depicted, in harrowing pigments of phrase, the distress of +her mind. + +"I love my wife all the same," he repeated, as I finished; +"and," he added, "I love Sylvia too." + +"But not quite in the same way?" I suggested. + +"I love Sylvia very tenderly," he said. + +"Yes, I know; I don't think you could do anything else. No man +worth his salt could be anything but tender to a dainty little +woman like that. But tenderness, gentleness, affection, even +self-sacrifice,--these may be parts of love; but they are merely +the crude untransformed ingredients of a love such as you feel +for your wife, and such as I know she feels for you." + +"She still loves me, then," he said pitifully; "she hasn't +fallen in love with you." + +"No fear," I answered; "no such luck for me. If she had, I'm +afraid I should hardly have been talking to you as I am at this +moment. If a woman like Rosalind, as I call her, gave me her +love, it would take more than a husband to rob me of it, I can +tell you." + +"Yes," he repeated, "on my soul, I love her. I have never +been false to her, in my heart; but--" + +"I know all about it," I said; "may I tell you how it all +was,--diagnose the situation?" + +"Do," he replied; "it is a relief to hear you talk." + +"Well," I said, "may I ask one rather intimate question? Did +you ever before you were married sow what are known as wild +oats?" + +"Never," he answered indignantly, flashing for a moment. + +"Well, you should have done," I said; "that's just the whole +trouble. Wild oats will get sown some time, and one of the arts +of life is to sow them at the right time,--the younger the +better. Think candidly before you answer me." + +"I believe you are right," he replied, after a long pause. + +"You are a believer in theories," I continued, "and so am I; +but you can take my word that on these matters not all, but some, +of the old theories are best. One of them is that the man who +does not sow his wild oats before marriage will sow them +afterwards, with a whirlwind for the reaping." + +Orlando looked up at me, haggard with confession. + +"You know the old story of the ring given to Venus? Well, it is +the ruin of no few men to meet Venus for the first time on their +marriage night. Their very chastity, paradoxical as it may seem, +is their destruction. No one can appreciate the peace, the holy +satisfaction of monogamy till he has passed through the wasting +distractions, the unrest of polygamy. Plunged right away into +monogamy, man, unexperienced in his good fortune, hankers after +polygamy, as the monotheistic Jew hankered after polytheism; and +thus the monogamic young man too often meets Aphrodite for the +first time, and makes future appointments with her, in the arms +of his pure young wife. If you have read Swedenborg, you will +remember his denunciation of the lust of variety. Now, that is a +lust every young man feels, but it is one to be satisfied before +marriage. Sylvia Joy has been such a variant for you; and I'm +afraid you're going to have some little trouble to get her off +your nerves. Tell me frankly," I said, "have you had your fill +of Aphrodite? It is no use your going back to your wife till you +have had that." + +"I'm not quite a beast," he retorted. "After all, it was an +experiment we both agreed to try." + +"Certainly," I answered, "and I hope it may have the result of +persuading you of the unwisdom of experimenting with happiness. +You have the realities of happiness; why should you trouble about +its theories? They are for unhappy people, like me, who must +learn to distil by learned patience the aurum potabile from the +husks of life, the peace which happier mortals find lying like +manna each morn upon the meadows." + +"Well," I continued, "enough of the abstract; let us have +another drink, and tell me what you propose to do." + +"Poor Sylvia!" sighed Orlando. + +"Shall I tell you about Sylvia?" I said. "On second thoughts, +I won't. It would hardly be fair play; but this, I may say, +relying on your honour, that if you were to come to my hotel, I +could show you indisputable proof that I know at least as much +about Sylvia Joy as even such a privileged intimate as +yourself." + +"It is strange, then, that she never recognised you just now," +he retorted, with forlorn alertness. + +"Of course she didn't. How young you are! It is rather too +bad of a woman of Sylvia's experience." + +"And I've bought our passages for to- morrow. I cannot let her +go without some sort of good-bye." + +"Give the tickets to me. I can make use of them. How much are +they? Let's see." + +The calculation made and the money passed across, I said +abruptly,-- + +"Now supposing we go and see your wife." + +"You have saved my life," he said hoarsely, pressing my hand as +we rose. + +"I don't know about that," I said inwardly; "but I do hope I +have saved your wife." + +As I thought of that, a fear occurred to me. + +"Look here," I said, as we strolled towards the Twelve +Golden-Haired, "I hope you have no silly notions about +confession, about telling the literal truth and so on. Because I +want you to promise me that you will lie stoutly to your wife +about Sylvia Joy. You must swear the whole thing has been +platonic. It's the only chance for your happiness. Your wife, +no doubt, will lure you on to confession by saying that she +doesn't mind this, that, and the other, so long as you don't keep +it from her; and no doubt she will mean it till you have +confessed. But, however good their theories, women by nature +cannot help confusing body and soul, and what to a man is a mere +fancy of the senses, to them is a spiritual tragedy. Promise me +to lie stoutly on this point. It is, I repeat, the only chance +for your future happiness. As has been wisely said, a lie in +time saves nine; and such a lie as I advise is but one of the +higher forms of truth. Such lying, indeed, is the art of telling +the truth. The truth is that you love her body, soul, and +spirit; any accidental matter which should tend to make her doubt +that would be the only real lie. Promise me, won't you?" + +"Yes, I will lie," said Orlando. + +"Well, there she is," I said; "and God bless you both." + + + +CHAPTER X + + +IN WHICH ONCE MORE I BECOME OCCUPIED IN MY OWN AFFAIRS + +During a pause in my matrimonial lecture, Orlando had written a +little farewell note to Sylvia,--a note which, of course, I +didn't read, but which it is easy to imagine "wild with all +regret." This I undertook to have delivered to her the same +night, and promised to call upon her on the morrow, further to +illuminate the situation, and to offer her every consolation in +my power. To conclude the history of Orlando and his Rosalind, I +may say that I saw them off from Yellowsands by the early morning +coach. There was a soft brightness in their faces, as though rain +had fallen in the night; but it was the warm sweet rain of joy +that brings the flowers, and is but sister to the sun. They are, +at the time of my writing, quite old friends of mine, and both +have an excessive opinion of my wisdom and good-nature. + +"That lie," Orlando once said to me long after, "was the +truest thing I ever said in my life,"--a remark which may not +give the reader a very exalted idea of his general veracity. + +As the coach left long before pretty young actresses even dreamed +of getting up, I had to control my impatient desire to call on +Mademoiselle Sylvia Joy till it was fully noon. And even then +she was not to be seen. I tried again in the afternoon with +better success. + +Rain had been falling in the night with her too, I surmised, but +it had failed to dim her gay eyes, and had left her complexion +unimpaired. Of course her little affair with Orlando had never +been very serious on her side. She genuinely liked him. "He +was a nice kind boy," was the height of her passionate +expression, and she was, naturally, a little disappointed at +having an affectionate companion thus unexpectedly whisked off +into space. Her only approach to anger was on the subject of his +deceiving her about his wife. Little Sylvia Joy had no very long +string of principles; but one generous principle she did hold +by,--never, if she knew it, to rob another woman of her husband. +And that did make her cross with Orlando. He had not played the +game fair. + +There is no need to follow, step by step, the progression by +which Sylvia Joy and I, though such new acquaintances, became in +the course of a day or two even more intimate than many old +friends. We took to each other instinctively, even on our first +rather difficult interview, and very gently and imperceptibly I +bid for the vacant place in her heart. + +That night we dined together. + +The next day we lunched and dined together. + +The next day we breakfasted, lunched, and dined together. + +And on the next I determined to venture on the confession which, +as you may imagine, it had needed no little artistic control not +to make on our first meeting. + +She looked particularly charming this evening, in a black silk +gown, exceedingly simple and distinguished in style, throwing up +the lovely firm whiteness of her throat and bosom, and making a +fine contrast with her lurid hair. + +It was sheer delight to sit opposite her at dinner, and quietly +watch her without a word. Shall I confess that I had an +exceedingly boyish vanity in thus being granted her friendship? +It is almost too boyish to confess at my time of life. It was +simply in the fact that she was an actress,--a real, live, famous +actress, whose photographs made shop windows beautiful,--come +right out of my boy's fairyland of the theatre, actually to sit +eating and drinking, quite in a real way, at my side. This, no +doubt, will seem pathetically naive to most modern young men, who +in this respect begin where I leave off. An actress! Great +heavens! an actress is the first step to a knowledge of life. +Besides, actresses off the stage are either brainless or soulful, +and the choice of evils is a delicate one. Well, I have never +set up for a man of the world, though sometimes when I have heard +the Lovelaces of the day hinting mysteriously at their secret +sins or boasting of their florid gallantries, I have remembered +the last verse of Suckling's "Ballad of a Wedding," which, no +doubt, the reader knows as well as I, and if not, it will +increase his acquaintance with our brave old poetry to look it +up. + +"You are very beautiful to-night," I said, in one of the +meditative pauses between the courses. + +"Thank you, kind sir," she said, making a mock courtesy; "but +the compliment is made a little anxious for me by your evident +implication that I didn't look so beautiful this morning. You +laid such a marked emphasis on to-night." + +"Nay," I returned, " `for day and night are both alike to +thee.' I think you would even be beautiful--well, I cannot +imagine any moment or station of life you would not beautify." + +"I must get you to write that down, and then I'll have it +framed. It would cheer me of a morning when I curl my hair," +laughed Sylvia. + +"But you are beautiful," I continued, becoming quite +impassioned. + +"Yes, and as good as I'm beautiful." + +And she was too, though perhaps the beauty occasionally +predominated. + +When the serious business of dining was dispatched, and we were +trifling with our coffee and liqueurs, my eyes, which of course +had seldom left her during the whole meal, once more enfolded her +little ivory and black silk body with an embrace as real as +though they had been straining passionate arms; and as I thus +nursed her in my eyes, I smiled involuntarily at a thought which +not unnaturally occurred to me. + +"What is that sly smile about?" she asked. Now I had smiled to +think that underneath that stately silk, around that tight little +waist, was a dainty waistband bearing the legend "Sylvia Joy," +No. 4, perhaps, or 5, but NOT No. 6; and a whole wonderful +underworld of lace and linen and silk stockings, the counterpart +of which wonders, my clairvoyant fancy laughed to think, were at +the moment--so entirely unsuspected of their original owner--my +delicious possessions. + +Everything a woman wears or touches immediately incarnates +something of herself. A handkerchief, a glove, a flower,--with a +breath she endues them with immortal souls. How much, therefore, +of herself must inhere in a garment so confidential as a +petticoat, or so close and constant a companion as a stocking! + +Now that I knew Sylvia Joy, I realised how absolutely true my +instinct had been, when on that far afternoon in that Surrey +garden I had said, "With such a petticoat and such a name, +Sylvia herself cannot be otherwise than charming." + +Indeed, now I could see that the petticoat was nothing short of a +portrait of her, and that any one learned in the physiognomy of +clothes would have been able to pick Sylvia out of a thousand by +that spirited, spoilt, and petted garment. + +"What is that sly smile about?" she repeated presently. + +"I only chanced to think of an absurd little fairy story I read +the other day," I said, "which is quite irrelevant at the +moment. You know the idle way things come and go through one's +head." + +"I don't believe you," she replied, "but tell me the story. I +love fairy tales." + +"Certainly," I said, for I wasn't likely to get a better +opportunity. "There's nothing much in it; it's merely a +variation of Cinderella's slipper. Well, once upon a time there +was an eccentric young prince who'd had his fling in his day, +but had arrived at the lonely age of thirty without having met a +woman whom he could love enough to make his wife. He was a +rather fanciful young prince, accustomed to follow his whims; and +one day, being more than usually bored with existence, he took it +into his head to ramble incognito through his kingdom in search +of his ideal wife,--`The Golden Girl,' as he called her. He had +hardly set out when in a country lane he came across a peasant +girl hanging out clothes to dry, and he fell to talk with her +while she went on with her charming occupation. Presently he +observed, pegged on the line, strangely incongruous among the +other homespun garments, a wonderful petticoat, so exquisite in +material and design that it aroused his curiosity. At the same +moment he noticed a pair of stockings, round the tops of which +one of the daintiest artists in the land had wrought an exquisite +little frieze. The prince was learned in every form of art, and +had not failed to study this among other forms of decoration. No +sooner did he see this petticoat than the whim seized him that he +would find and marry the wearer, whoever she might be--" + +"Rather rash of him," interrupted Sylvia, "for it is usually +old ladies who have the prettiest petticoats. They can best +afford them--" + +"He questioned the girl as to their owner," I continued, "and +after vainly pretending that they were her own, she confessed +that they had belonged to a young and beautiful lady who had once +lodged there and left them behind. Then the prince gave her a +purse of gold in exchange for the finery, and on the waistband of +the petticoat he read a beautiful name, and he said, `This and no +other shall be my wife, this unknown beautiful woman, and on our +marriage night she shall wear this petticoat.' And then the +prince went forth seeking--" + +"There's not much point in it," interrupted Sylvia. + +"No," I said, "I'm afraid I've stupidly missed the point." + +"Why, what was it?" + +"The name upon the petticoat!" + +"Why, what name was it?" she asked, somewhat mystified. + +"The inscription upon the petticoat was, to be quite accurate, +`Sylvia Joy, No. 6.' " + +"Whatever are you talking about?" she said with quite a stormy +blush. "I'm afraid you've had more than your share of the +champagne." + +As I finished, I slipped out of my pocket a dainty little parcel +softly folded in white tissue paper. Very softly I placed it on +the table. It contained one of the precious stockings; and half +opening it, I revealed to Sylvia's astonished eyes the cunning +little frieze of Bacchus and Ariadne, followed by a troop of +Satyrs and Bacchantes, which the artist had designed to encircle +one of the white columns of that little marble temple which sat +before me. + +"You know," I said, "how in fairy tales, when the wandering +hero or the maiden in distress has a guiding dream, the dream +often leaves something behind on the pillow to assure them of its +authenticity. `When you wake up,' the dream will say, `you will +find a rose or an oak-leaf or an eagle's feather, or whatever it +may be, on your pillow.' Well, I have brought this stocking-- +for which, if I might but use them, I have at the moment a stock +of the most appropriately endearing adjectives--for the same +purpose. By this token you will know that the fairy tale I have +been telling you is true, and to-morrow, if you will, you shall +see your autograph petticoat." + +"Why, wherever did you come across them? And what a mad +creature you must be! and what an odd thing that you should +really meet me, after all!" exclaimed Sylvia, all in a breath. +"Of course, I remember," she said frankly, and with a shade of +sadness passing over her face. "I was spending a holiday with +Jack Wentworth,--why, it must be nearly two years ago. Poor +Jack! he was killed in the Soudan," and poor Jack could have +wished no prettier resurrection than the look of tender memory +that came into her face as she spoke of him, and the soft baby +tears filled her eyes. + +"I'm so sorry," I said. "Of course I didn't know. Let's +come for a little stroll. There seems to be a lovely moon." + +"Of course you didn't, she said, patting my cheek with a kind +little hand. "Yes, do let us go for a stroll." + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +"THE HOUR FOR WHICH THE YEARS DID SIGH" + +This unexpected awakening of an old tenderness naturally +prevented my speaking any more of my mind to Sylvia that evening. +No doubt the reader may be a little astonished to hear that I had +decided to offer her marriage,--not taking my serious view of a +fanciful vow. Doubtless Sylvia was not entirely suitable to me, +and to marry her was to be faithless to that vision of the +highest, that wonderful unknown woman of the apocalyptic +moorland, whose face Sylvia had not even momentarily banished +from my dreams, and whom, with an unaccountable certitude, I +still believed to be the woman God had destined for me; but, all +things considered, Sylvia was surely as pretty an answer to +prayer as a man could reasonably hope for. Many historic vows +had met with sadly less lucky fulfilment. + +So, after dinner the following evening, I suggested that we +should for once take a little walk up along the river-side; and +when we were quiet in the moonlight, dappling the lovers' path we +were treading, and making sharp contrasts of ink and silver down +in the river-bed,--I spoke. + +"Sylvia," I said, plagiarising a dream which will be found in +Chapter IV.,--"Sylvia, I have sought you through the world and +found you at last; and with your gracious permission, having +found you, I mean to stick to you." + +"What do you mean, silly boy?" she said, as an irregularity in +the road threw her soft weight the more fondly upon my arm. + +"I mean, dear, that I want you to be my wife." + +"Your wife? Not for worlds!--no, forgive me, I didn't mean +that. You're an awful dear boy, and I like you very much, and I +think you're rather fond of me; but-- well, the truth is, I was +never meant to be married, and don't care about it--and when you +think of it, why should I?" + +"You mean," I said, "that you are fortunate in living in a +society where, as in heaven, there is neither marrying nor giving +in marriage, where in fact nobody minds whether you're married +or not, and where morals are very properly regarded as a personal +and private matter--" + +"Yes, that's what I mean," said Sylvia; "the people I care +about--dear good people--will think no more of me for having a +wedding-ring, and no less for my being without; and why should +one put a yoke round one's neck when nobody expects it? A +wedding-ring is like a top-hat,--you only wear it when you +must--But it's very sweet of you, all the same, and you can kiss +me if you like. Here's a nice sentimental patch of moonlight." + +I really felt very dejected at this not of course entirely +unexpected rejection,--if one might use the word for a situation +on which had just been set the seal of so unmistakable a kiss; +but the vision in my heart seemed to smile at me in high and +happy triumph. To have won Sylvia would have been to have lost +her. My ideal had, as it were, held her breath till Sylvia +answered; now she breathed again. + +"At all events, we can go on being chums, can't we?" I said. + +For answer Sylvia hummed the first verse of that famous song writ +by Kit Marlowe. + +"Yes!" she said presently. "I will sing for you, dance for +you, and--perhaps--flirt with you; but marry you--no! it's best +not, for both of us." + +"Well, then," I said, "dance for me! You owe me some amends +for an aching heart." As I said this, the path suddenly +broadened into a little circular glade into which the moonlight +poured in a silver flood. In the centre of the space was a +boulder some three or four feet high, and with a flat slab-like +surface of some six feet or so. + +"I declare I will," said Sylvia, giving me an impulsive kiss, +and springing on to the stone; "why, here is a ready-made +stage." + +"And there," I said, "are the nightingale and the nightjar for +orchestra." + +"And there is the moon," said she, "for lime-light man." + +"Yes," I said; "and here is a handful of glow-worms for the +footlights." + +Then lifting up her heavy silk skirt about her, and revealing a +paradise of chiffons, Sylvia swayed for a moment with her face +full in the moon, and then slowly glided into the movements of a +mystical dance. + +It was thus the fountains were dancing to the moon in Arabia; it +was thus the Nixies shook their white limbs on the haunted banks +of the Rhine; it was thus the fairy women flashed their alabaster +feet on the fairy hills of Connemara; it was thus the Houris were +dancing for Mahomet on the palace floors of Paradise. + +"It was over such dancing," I said, "that John the Baptist +lost his head." + +"Give me a kiss," she said, nestling exhausted in my arms. "I +always want some one to kiss when I have danced with my soul as +well as my body." + +"I think we always do," I said, "when we've done anything +that seems wonderful, that gives us the thrill of really +doing--" + +"And a poor excuse is better than none, isn't it, dear?" said +Sylvia, her face full in the cataract of the moonlight. + +As a conclusion for this chapter I will copy out a little song +which I extemporised for Sylvia on our way home to Yellowsands-- +too artlessly happy, it will be observed, to rhyme correctly:-- + + +Sylvia's dancing 'neath the moon, + Like a star in water; +Sylvia's dancing to a tune + Fairy folk have taught her. + +Glow-worms light her little feet + In her fairy theatre; +Oh, but Sylvia is sweet! + Tell me who is sweeter! + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +AT THE CAFE DE LA PAIX + +As love-making in which we have no share is apt to be either +tantalising or monotonous, I propose to skip the next fortnight +and introduce myself to the reader at a moment when I am once +more alone. It is about six o'clock on a summer afternoon, I am +in Paris, and seated at one of the little marble tables of the +Cafe de la Paix, dreamily watching the glittering tide of gay +folk passing by,-- + + + "All happy people on their way + To make a golden end of day." + + +Meditatively I smoke a cigarette and sip a pale greenish liquor +smelling strongly of aniseed, which isn't half so interesting as +a commonplace whiskey and soda, but which, I am told, has the +recommendation of being ten times as wicked. I sip it with a +delicious thrill of degeneration, as though I were Eve tasting +the apple for the first time,--for "such a power hath white +simplicity." Sin is for the innocent,--a truth which sinners +will be the first to regret. It was so, I said to myself, Alfred +de Musset used to sit and sip his absinthe before a fascinated +world. It is a privilege for the world to look on greatness at +any moment, even when it is drinking. So I sat, and privileged +the world. + +It will readily be surmised from this exordium that--incredible +as it may seem in a man of thirty--this was my first visit to +Paris. You may remember that I had bought Orlando's tickets, and +it had occurred to Sylvia and me to use them. Sylvia was due in +London to fulfil a dancing engagement within a fortnight after +our arrival; so after a tender good-bye, which there was no +earthly necessity to make final, I had remained behind for the +purposes of study. Though, logically, my pilgrimage had ended +with the unexpected discovery of Sylvia Joy, yet there were two +famous feminine types of which, seeing that I was in Paris, I +thought I might as well make brief studies, before I returned to +London and finally resumed the bachelorhood from which I had +started. These were the grisette of fiction and the American +girl of fact. Pending these investigations, I meditated on the +great city in the midst of which I sat. + +A city! How much more it was than that! Was it not the most +portentous symbol of modern history? Think what the word +"Paris" means to the emancipated intellect, to the political +government, to the humanised morals, of the world; not to speak +of the romance of its literature, the tradition of its manners, +and the immortal fame of its women. France is the brain of the +world, as England is its heart, and Russia its fist. Strange is +the power, strange are the freaks and revenges, of association, +particularly perhaps of literary association. Here pompous +official representatives may demur; but who can doubt that it is +on its literature that a country must rely for its permanent +representation? The countries that are forgotten, or are of no +importance in the councils of the world, are countries without +literature. Greece and Rome are more real in print than ever +they were in marble. Though, as we know, prophets are not +without honour save in their own countries and among their own +kindred, the time comes when their countries and kindred are +entirely without honour save by reason of those very prophets +they once despised, rejected, stoned, and crucified. Subtract its +great men from a nation, and where is its greatness? + +Similarly, everything, however trifling, that has been written +about, so long as it has been written about sufficiently well, +becomes relatively enduring and representative of the country in +which it is found. To an American, for example, the significance +of a skylark is that Shelley sang it to skies where even it could +never have mounted; and any one who has heard the nightingale +must, if he be open-minded, confess its tremendous debt to Keats: +a tenth part genuine song, the rest moon, stars, silence, and +John Keats,--such is the nightingale. The real truth about a +country will never be known till every representative type and +condition in it have found their inspired literary mouthpiece. +Meanwhile one country takes its opinion of another from the +apercus of a few brilliant but often irresponsible or prejudiced +writers,--and really it is rather in what those writers leave out +than in what they put in that one must seek the more reliable +data of national character. + +A quaint example of association occurs to me from the experience +of a friend of mine, "rich enough to lend to the poor." Having +met an American friend newly landed at Liverpool, and a hurried +quarter of an hour being all that was available for lunch, "Come +let us have a pork-pie and a bottle of Bass" he had suggested. + +"Pork-pies!" said the American, with a delighted sense of +discovering the country,--"why, you read about them in +Dickens!" Who shall say but that this instinctive association +was an involuntary severe, but not inapplicable, criticism? A +nightingale suggests Keats; a pork-pie, Dickens. + +Similarly with absinthe, grisettes, the Latin Quarter, and so on. + +Why, you read about them in Murger, in Musset, in Balzac, and in +Flaubert; and the fact of your having read about them is, I may +add, their chief importance. + +So rambled my after-dinner reflections as I sat that evening +smoking and sipping, sipping and smoking, at the Cafe de la Paix. + +Presently in my dream I became aware of English voices near me, +one of which seemed familiar, and which I couldn't help +overhearing. The voice of the husband said,--you can never +mistake the voice of the husband,-- + + 'T was the voice of the husband, + I heard him complain,-- + + +the voice of the husband said: "Dora, I forbid you! I will NOT +allow my wife to be seen again in the Latin Quarter. I permitted +you to go once, as a concession, to the Cafe d'Harcourt; but once +is enough. You will please respect my wishes!" + +"But," pleaded the dear little woman, whom I had an immediate +impulse, Perseus- like, to snatch from the jaws of her monster, +and turning to the other lady of the party of four,--"but Mrs. +---- has never been, and she cannot well go without a chaperone. +Surely it cannot matter for once. It isn't as if I were there +constantly." + +"No!" said the husband, with the absurd pomposity of his tribe. + +"I'm very sorry. Mrs. ---- will, of course, act as she pleases; +but I cannot allow you to do it, Dora." + +At last the little wife showed some spirit. + +"Don't talk to me like that, Will," she said. "I shall go if +I please. Surely I am my own property." + +"Not at all!" at once flashed out the husband, wounded in that +most vital part of him, his sense of property. "There you +mistake. You are my property, MY chattel; you promised obedience +to me; I bought you, and you do my bidding!" + +"Great heavens!" I ejaculated, and, springing up, found myself +face to face with a well-known painter whom you would have +thought the most Bohemian fellow in London. And Bohemian he is; +but Bohemians are seldom Bohemians for any one save themselves. +They are terrible sticklers for convention and even etiquette in +other people. + +We recognised each other with a laugh, and presently were at it, +hammer and tongs. I may say that we were all fairly intimate +friends, and thus had the advantage of entire liberty of speech. +I looked daggers at the husband; he looked daggers at me, and +occasionally looking at his wife, gave her a glance which was +like the opening of Bluebeard's closet. You could see the poor +murdered bodies dangling within the shadowy cupboard of his eye. +Of course we got no further. Additional opposition but further +enraged him. He recapitulated what he would no doubt call his +arguments,--they sounded more like threats,--and as he spoke I +saw dragons fighting for their dams in the primeval ooze, and +heard savage trumpetings of masculine monsters without a name. + +I told him so. + +"You are," I said,--"and you will forgive my directness of +expression,--you are the Primeval Male! You are the direct +descendant of those Romans who carried off the Sabine women. +Nay! you have a much longer genealogy. You come of those hairy +anthropoid males who hunted their mates through the tangle of +primeval forests, and who finally obtained their consent--shall +we say?--by clubbing them on the head with a stone axe. You talk +a great deal of nonsense about the New Woman, but you, Sir, are +THE OLD MALE; and," I continued, "I have only to obtain your +wife's consent to take her under my protection this instant." + +Curiously enough, "The Old Male," as he is now affectionately +called, became from this moment quite a bosom friend. Nothing +would satisfy us but that we should all lodge at the same pension +together, and there many a day we fought our battles over again. +But that poor little wife never, to my knowledge, went to the +Cafe d'Harcourt again. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +THE INNOCENCE OF PARIS + +This meeting with William and Dora was fortunate from the point +of view of my studies; for that very night, as I dined with them +en pension, I found that providence, with his usual foresight, +had placed me next to a very charming American girl of the type +that I was particularly wishful to study. She seemed equally +wishful to be studied, and we got on amazingly from the first +moment of our acquaintance. By the middle of dinner we were +pressing each other's feet under the table, and when coffee and +cigarettes had come, we were affianced lovers. "Why should I +blush to own I love?" was evidently my quaint little companion's +motto; and indeed she didn't blush to own it to the whole table, +and publicly to announce that I was the dearest boy, and +absolutely the most lovable man she had met. There was nothing +she wouldn't do for me. Would she brave the terrors of the +Latin Quarter with me, I asked, and introduce me to the terrible +Cafe d'Harcourt, about which William and Dora had suffered such +searchings of heart? "Why, certainly; there was nothing in +that," she said. So we went. + +Nothing is more absurd and unjust than those crude labels of +national character which label one country virtuous and another +vicious, one musical and another literary. Thus France has an +unjust reputation for vice, and England an equally unjust +reputation for virtue. + +I had always, I confess, been brought up to think of Paris as a +sort of Sodom and Gomorrah in one. Good Americans might go to +Paris, according to the American theory of a future state; but, +certainly I had thought, no good Englishman ever went +there--except, maybe, on behalf of the Vigilance Society. Well, +it may sound an odd thing to say, but what impressed me most of +all was the absolute innocence of the place. + +I mean this quite seriously. For surely one important condition +of innocence is unconsciousness of doing wrong. The poor +despised Parisian may be a very wicked and depraved person, but +certainly he goes about with an absolute unconsciousness of it +upon his gay and kindly countenance. + +"Seeing the world" usually means seeing everything in it that +most decent people won't look at; but when you come to look at +these terrible things and places, what do you find? Why, +absolute disappointment! + +Have you ever read that most amusing book, "Baedeker on Paris"? + +I know nothing more delightful than the notes to the Montmartre +and Latin Quarters. The places to which you, as a smug Briton, +may or may not take a lady! The scale of wickedness allowed to +the waxwork British lady is most charmingly graduated. I had +read that the cafe where we were sitting was one of the most +terrible places in Paris,--the Cafe d'Harcourt, where the +students of the Latin Quarter take their nice little domestic +mistresses to supper. But Baedeker was dreadfully Pecksniffian +about these poor innocent etudiantes, many of whom love their +lovers much more truly than many a British wife loves her +husband, and are much better loved in return. If you doubt it, +dare to pay attention to one of these young ladies, and you will +probably have to fight a duel for it. In fact, these romantic +relations are much more careful of honour than conventional ones; +for love, and not merely law, keeps guard. + +I looked around me. Where were those terrible things I had read +of? Where was this hell which I had reasonably expected would +gape leagues of sulphur and blue flame beneath the little marble +table? I mentally resolved to bring an action against Baedeker +for false information. For what did I see? Simply pairs and +groups of young men and women chattering amiably in front of +their "bocks" or their "Americains." Here and there a +student would have his arm round a waist every one else envied +him. One student was prettily trying a pair of new gloves upon +his little woman's hand. Here and there blithe songs would +spring up, from sheer gladness of heart; and never was such a +buzz of happy young people, not even at a Sunday-school treat. +To me it seemed absolutely Arcadian, and I thought of Daphnis and +Chloe and the early world. Nothing indecorous or gross; all +perfectly pretty and seemly. + +On our way home Semiramis was so sweet to me, in her innocent, +artless frankness, that I went to bed with an intoxicating +feeling that I must be irresistible indeed, to have so completely +conquered so true a heart in so few hours. I was the more +flattered because I am not a vain man, and am not, like some, +accustomed to take hearts as the Israelites took Jericho with the +blast of one's own trumpet. + +But, alas! my dream of universal irresistibility was but +short-lived, for next afternoon, as William and I sat out at some +cafe together, I found myself the object of chaff. + +"Well," said William, "how goes the love-affair?" + +I flushed somewhat indignantly at his manner with sanctities. + +"I see!" he said, "I see! You are already corded and +labelled, and will be shipped over by the next mail,--`To Miss +Semiramis Wilcox, 1001 99th St., Philadelphia, U.S.A. Man +with care.' Well, I did think you'd got an eye in your head. +Look here, don't be a fool! I suppose she said you were the +first and last. The last you certainly were. There are limits +even to the speed of American girls; but the first, my boy! You +are more like the twelfth, to my ocular knowledge. Here comes +Dubois the poet. He can tell you something about Miss Semiramis. + +Eh! Dubois, you know Miss Semiramis Wilcox, don't you?" + +The Frenchman smiled and shrugged. + +"Un peu," he said. + +"Don't be an ass and get angry," William continued; "it's all +for your own good." + +"The little Semiramis has been seducing my susceptible friend +here. Like many of us, he has been captivated by her +naturalness, her naivete, her clear good eyes,--that look of +nature that is always art! May I relate the idyl of your tragic +passion, dear Dubois, as an object lesson?" + +The Frenchman bowed, and signed William to proceed. + +"You dined with us one evening, and you thus met for the first +time. You sat together at table. What happened with the fish?" + +"She swore I was the most beautiful man she had ever seen,--and +I am not beautiful, as you perceive." + +If not beautiful, the poet was certainly true. + +"What happened at the entree?" + +"Oh, long before that we were pressing our feet under the +table." + +"And the coffee--" + +"Mon Dieu! we were Tristram and Yseult, we were all the great +lovers in the Pantheon of love." + +"And what then?" + +"Oh, we went to the Cafe d'Harcourt--mon ami." + +"Did she wear a veil?" I asked. + +"Oui, certainement!" + +"And did you say, `Why do you wear a veil,--setting a black +cloud before the eyes and gates of heaven'?" + +"The very words," said the Frenchman. + +"And did she say, `Yes, but the veil can be raised?' " + +"She did, mon pauvre ami," said the poet. + +"And did you raise it?" + +"I did," said the poet. + +"And so did I," I answered. And as I spoke, there was a crash +of white marble in my soul, and lo! Love had fallen from his +pedestal and been broken into a thousand pieces,--a heavy, dead +thing he lay upon the threshold of my heart. + +We had appointed a secret meeting in the salon of the pension +that afternoon. I was not there! (Nor, as I afterwards learnt, +was Semiramis.) When we did meet, I was brutally cold. I evaded +all her moves; but when at last I decided to give her a hearing, +I confess it needed all my cynicism to resist her air of +innocence, of pathetic devotion. + +If I couldn't love her, she said, might she go on loving me? +Might she write to me sometimes? She would be content if now and +again I would send her a little word. Perhaps in time I would +grow to believe in her love, etc. + +The heart-broken abandonment with which she said this was a sore +trial to me; but though love may be deceived, vanity is ever +vigilant, and vanity saved me. Yet I left her with an aching +sense of having been a brute, and on the morning of my departure +from Paris, as I said good-bye to William and Dora, I spoke +somewhat seriously of Semiramis. Dora, Dora-like, had believed in +her all along,--not having enjoyed William's opportunities of +studying her,--and she reproached me with being rather +hard-hearted. + +"Nonsense," said William, "if she really cared, wouldn't she +have been up to bid you good-bye?" + +The words were hardly gone from his lips when there came a little +knock at the door. It was Semiramis; she had come to say good- +bye. Was it in nature not to be touched? "Good-bye," she said, +as we stood a moment alone in the hall. "I shall always think +of you; you shall not be to me as a ship that has passed in the +night, though to me you have behaved very like an iceberg." + +We parted in tears and kisses, and I lived for some weeks with +that sense of having been a Nero, till two months after I +received a much glazed and silvered card to the usual effect. + +And so I ceased to repine for the wound I had made in the heart +of Semiramis Wilcox. + +Of another whom I met and loved in that brief month in Paris, I +cherish tenderer memories. Prim little Pauline Deschapelles! How +clearly I can still see the respectable brass plate on the door +of your little flat-- "Mademoiselle Deschapelles--Modes et +Robes;" and indeed the "modes et robes" were true enough. For +you were in truth a very hard-working little dressmaker, and I +well remember how impressed I was to sit beside you, as you plied +your needle on some gown that must be finished by the evening, +and meditate on the quaint contrast between your almost Puritanic +industry and your innocent love of pleasure. I don't think I +ever met a more conscientious little woman than little Pauline +Deschapelles. + +There was but one drawback to our intercourse. She didn't know a +word of English, and I couldn't speak a word of French. So we +had to make shift to love without either language. But sometimes +Pauline would throw down her stitching in amused impatience, and, +going to her dainty secretaire, write me a little message in the +simplest baby French--which I would answer in French which would +knit her brows for a moment or two, and then send her off in +peals of laughter. + +It WAS French! I know. Among the bric-a-brac of my heart I +still cherish some of those little slips of paper with which we +made international love--question and answer. + +"Vous allez m'oublier, et ne plus penser a moi--ni me voir. Les +hommes--egoistes-- menteurs, pas dire la verite . . ." so ran +the questions, considerably devoid of auxiliary verbs and such +details of construction. + +"Je serais jamais t'oublier," ran the frightful answers! + +Dear Pauline! Shall I ever see her again? She was but +twenty-six. She may still live. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +END OF BOOK THREE + +So ended my pilgrimage. I had wandered far, had loved many, but +I came back to London without the Golden Girl. I had begun my +pilgrimage with a vision, and it was with a vision that I ended +it. From all my goings to and fro upon the earth, I had brought +back only the image of a woman's face,--the face of that strange +woman of the moorland, still haunting my dreams of the night and +the day. + +It was autumn in my old garden, damp and forsaken, and the +mulberry-tree was hung with little yellow shields. My books +looked weary of awaiting me, and they and the whole lonely house +begged me to take them where sometimes they might be handled by +human fingers, mellowed by lamplight, cheered by friendly +laughter. + +The very chairs begged mutely to be sat upon, the chill white +beds to be slept in. Yes, the very furniture seemed even +lonelier than myself. + +So I took heed of their dumb appeal. + +"I know," I answered them tenderly,--"I too, with you, have +looked on better days, I too have been where bells have knoll'd +to church, I too have sat at many a good man's feast,--yes! I +miss human society, even as you, my books, my bedsteads, and my +side- boards,--so let it be. It is plain our little Margaret is +not coming back, our little Margaret, dear haunted rooms, will +never come back; no longer shall her little silken figure flit up +and down your quiet staircases, her hands filled with flowers, +and her heart humming with little songs. Yes, let us go, it is +very lonely; we shall die if we stay here all so lonely together; +it is time, let us go." + +So thereon I wrote to a furniture-remover, and went out to walk +round the mossy old garden for the last time, and say good-bye to +the great mulberry, under whose Dodonaesque shade we had sat half +frightened on starry nights, to the apple-trees whose blossom had +seemed like fairy-land to Margaret and me, town-bred folk, to the +apricots and the peaches and the nectarines that it had seemed +almost wicked to own,--as though we had gone abroad in silk and +velvet,--to the little grassy orchard, and to the little green +corner of it, where Margaret had fallen asleep that summer +afternoon, in the great wicker-chair, and I had brought a dear +friend on tiptoe to gaze on her asleep, with her olive cheeks +delicately flushed, her great eyelids closed like the cheeks of +roses, and her gold hair tumbled about her neck . . . + +Well, well, good-bye,--tears are foolish things. They will not +bring Margaret back. Good-bye, old garden, good-bye, I shall +never see you again,--good-bye. + + + + +BOOK IV + +THE POSTSCRIPT TO A PILGRIMAGE + + +CHAPTER I + + +SIX YEARS AFTER + +This book is like a woman's letter. The most important part of +it is the postscript + +Six years lie between the end of the last chapter and the +beginning of this. Meanwhile, I had moved to sociable chambers +within sound of the city clocks, and had lived the life of a +lonely man about town, sinking more and more into the comfortable +sloth of bachelorhood. I had long come to look back upon my +pilgrimage as a sort of Indian-summer youth, being, as the reader +can reckon for himself, just on thirty-seven. As one will, with +one's most serious experiences, hastening to laugh lest one +should weep, as the old philosopher said, I had made some fun out +of my quest, in the form of a paper for a bookish society to +which I belonged, on "Woman as a Learned Pursuit." It is +printed among the transactions of the society, and is accessible +to the curious only by loan from the members, and I regret that I +am unable to print any extracts here. Perhaps when I am dead the +society will see the criminal selfishness of reserving for itself +what was meant for mankind. + +Meanwhile, however, it is fast locked and buried deep in the +archives of the club. I have two marriages to record in the +interval: one that of a young lady whom I must still think of as +`Nicolete' to Sir Marmaduke Pettigrew, Bart., of Dultowers Hall, +and the other the well-known marriage of Sylvia Joy . . . + +Sylvia Joy married after all her fine protestations! Yes! but +I'm sure you will forgive her, for she was married to a lord. +When one is twenty and romantic one would scorn a woman who would +jilt us for wealth and position; at thirty, one would scorn any +woman who didn't. Ah me! how one changes! No one, I can +honestly say, was happier over these two weddings than I, and I +sent Sylvia her petticoat as a wedding present. + + +But it was to tell of other matters that I reopen this book and +once more take up my pen--matters so near to my heart that I +shrink from writing of them, and am half afraid that the attempt +may prove too hard for me after all, and my book end on a broken +cry of pain. Yet, at the same time, I want to write of them, for +they are beautiful and solemn, and good food for the heart. + +Besides, though my pilgrimage had been ended so long, they are +really a part, yea, the part for which, though I knew it not, all +the rest has been written--for they tell how I came to find by +accident her whom so long I had sought of design. + +How shall I tell of Thee who, first and last of all women, gave +and awoke in me that love which is the golden key of the world, +the mystic revelation of the holy meaning of life, love that +alone may pass through the awful gates of the stars, and gaze +unafraid into the blue abysses beyond? + +Ah! Love, it seemed far away indeed from the stars, the place +where we met, and only by the light of love's eyes might we have +found each other--as only by the light of love's eyes . . . But +enough, my Heart, the world waits to hear our story,--the world +once so unloving to you, the world with a heart so hard and anon +so soft for love. When the story is ended, my love, when the +story is ended-- + + + +CHAPTER II + + +GRACE O' GOD + +It was a hard winter's night four years ago, lovely and +merciless; and towards midnight I walked home from a theatre to +my rooms in St. James's Street. The Venusberg of Piccadilly +looked white as a nun with snow and moonlight, but the melancholy +music of pleasure, and the sad daughters of joy, seemed not to +heed the cold. For another hour death and pleasure would dance +there beneath the electric lights. + +Through the strange women clustering at the corners I took my +way,--women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and +Hittites,--and I thought, as I looked into their poor painted +faces,--faces but half human, vampirish faces, faces already +waxen with the look of the grave,--I thought, as I often did, of +the poor little girl whom De Quincey loved, the good-hearted +little `peripatetic' as he called her, who had succoured him +during those nights, when, as a young man, he wandered homeless +about these very streets,--that good, kind little Ann whom De +Quincey had loved, then so strangely lost, and for whose face he +looked into women's faces as long as he lived. Often have I +stood at the corner of Titchfield Street, and thought how De +Quincey had stood there night after night waiting for her to +come, but all in vain, and how from the abyss of oblivion into +which some cruel chance had swept her, not one cry from her ever +reached him again. + +I thought, too, as I often did, what if the face I seek should be +here among these poor outcasts,--golden face hidden behind a mask +of shame, true heart still beating true even amidst this infernal +world! + +Thus musing, I had walked my way out of the throng, and only a +figure here and there in the shadows of doorways waited and +waited in the cold. + +It was something about one of these waiting figures,--some +movement, some chance posture,--that presently surprised my +attention and awakened a sudden sense of half recognition. She +stood well in the shadow, seeming rather to shrink from than to +court attention. As I walked close by her and looked keenly into +her face, she cast down her eyes and half turned away. Surely, I +had seen that tall, noble figure somewhere before, that haughty +head; and then with the apparition a thought struck me--but, no! +it couldn't be she! not HERE! + +"It is," said my soul, as I turned and walked past her again; +"you missed her once, are you going to miss her again?" + +"It is," said my eyes, as they swept her for the third time; +"but she had glorious chestnut hair, and the hair of this woman +is--gilded." + +"It is she," said my heart; "thank God, it is she!" + +So it was that I went up to that tall, shy figure. + +"It must be very cold here," I said; "will you not join me in +some supper?" + +She assented, and we sought one of the many radiating centres of +festivity in the neighbourhood. She was very tired and cold, +--so tired she seemed hardly to have the spirit to eat, and +evidently the cold had taken tight clutch of her lungs, for she +had a cough that went to my heart to hear, and her face was +ghastly pale. When I had persuaded her to drink a little wine, +she grew more animated and spots of suspicious colour came into +her cheeks. So far she had seemed all but oblivious of my +presence, but now she gave me a sweet smile of gratitude, one of +those irradiating transfiguring smiles that change the whole +face, and belong to few faces, the heavenly smile of a pure soul. + +Yes, it was she! The woman who sat in front of me was the woman +whom I had met so strangely that day on that solitary moorland, +and whom in prophecy still more strange my soul had declared to +be, "now and for ever and before all worlds the woman God had +created for me, and that unless I could be hers and she mine, +there could be no home, no peace, for either of us so long as we +lived--" and now so strangely met again. + +Yes, it was she! + +For the moment my mind had room for no other thought. I cared +not to conjecture by what devious ways God had brought her to my +side. I cared not what mire her feet had trodden. She had +carried her face pure as a lily through all the foul and sooty +air. There was a pure heart in her voice. Sin is of the soul, +and this soul had not sinned! Let him that is without sin +amongst you cast the first stone. + +"Why did you dye that wonderful chestnut hair?" I asked her +presently--and was sorry next minute for the pain that shot +across her face, but I just wanted to hint at what I designed not +to reveal fully till later on, and thus to hint too that it was +not as one of the number of her defilers that I had sought her. + +"Why," she said, "how do you know the colour of my hair? We +have never met before." + +"Yes, we have," I said, "and that was why I spoke to you +to-night. I'll tell you where it was another time." + +But after all I could not desist from telling her that night, +for, as afterwards at her lodging we sat over the fire, talking +as if we had known each other all our lives, there seemed no +reason for an arbitrary delay. + +I described to her the solitary moorland road, and the +grey-gowned woman's figure in front of me, and the gig coming +along to meet her, and the salutation of the two girls, and I +told her all one look of her face had meant for me, and how I had +wildly sought her in vain, and from that day to this had held her +image in my heart. + +And as I told her, she sobbed with her head against my knees and +her great hair filling my lap with gold. In broken words she +drew for me the other side of the picture of that long-past +summer day. + +Yes, the girl in the gig was her sister, and they were the only +daughters of a farmer who had been rich once, but had come to +ruin by drink and misfortune. They had been brought up from +girls by an old grandmother, with whom the sister was living at +the time of my seeing them. Yes, Tom was her husband. He was a +doctor in the neighbourhood when he married her, and a man, I +surmised, of some parts and promise, but, moving to town, he had +fallen into loose ways, taken to drinking and gambling, and had +finally deserted her for another woman--at the very moment when +their first child was born. The child died "Thank God!" she +added with sudden vehemence, and "I--well, you will wonder how I +came to this, I wonder myself-- it has all happened but six +months ago, and yet I seem to have forgotten--only the broken- +hearted and the hungry would understand, if I could remember--and +yet it was not life, certainly not life I wanted--and yet I +couldn't die--" + +The more I came to know Elizabeth and realise the rare delicacy +of her nature, the simplicity of her mind, and the purity of her +soul, the less was I able to comprehend the psychology of that +false step which her great misery had forced her to take. For +hers was not a sensual, pleasure-loving nature. In fact, there +was a certain curious Puritanism about her, a Puritanism which +found a startlingly incongruous and almost laughable expression +in the Scripture almanac which hung on the wall at the end of her +bed, and the Bible, and two or three Sunday-school stories which, +with a copy of "Jane Eyre," were the only books that lay upon +the circular mahogany table. + +Once I ventured gently to chaff her about this religiosity of +hers. + +"But surely you believe in God, dear," she had answered, +"you're not an atheist!" + +I think an atheist, with all her experience of human monsters, +was for her the depth of human depravity. + +"No, dear," I had answered; "if you can believe in God, surely +I can!" + +I repeat that this gap in Elizabeth's psychology puzzled me, and +it puzzles me still, but it puzzled me only as the method of +working out some problem which after all had "come out right" +might puzzle one. It was only the process that was obscure. The +result was gold, whatever the dark process might be. Was it +simply that Elizabeth was one of that rare few who can touch +pitch and not be defiled?--or was it, I have sometimes wondered, +an unconscious and after all a sound casuistry that had saved +Elizabeth's soul, an instinctive philosophy that taught her, so +to say, to lay a Sigurd's sword between her soul and body, and to +argue that nothing can defile the body without the consent of the +soul. + +In deep natures there is always what one might call a lover's +leap to be taken by those that would love them--something one +cannot understand to be taken on trust, something even that one +fears to be gladly adventured . . . all this, and more, I knew +that I could safely venture for Elizabeth's sake, ere I kissed +her white brow and stole away in the early hours of that winter's +morning. + +As I did so I had taken one of the sumptuous strands of her hair +into my hand and kissed it too. + +"Promise me to let this come back to its own beautiful colour," +I had said, as I nodded to a little phial labelled "Peroxide of +Hydrogen" on her mantelshelf. + +"Would you like to?" she had said. + +"Yes, do it for me." + +One day some months after I cut from her dear head one long thick +lock, one half of which was gold and the other half chestnut. I +take it out and look at it as I write, and, as when I first cut +it, it seems still a symbol of Elizabeth's life, the sun and the +shadow, only that the gold was the shadow, and the chestnut was +the sun. + +The time came when the locks, from crown to tip, were all +chestnut--but when it came I would have given the world for them +to be gold again; for Elizabeth had said a curious thing when she +had given me her promise. + +"All right, dear," she had said, "but something tells me that +when they are all brown again our happiness will be at an end." + +"How long will that take?" I had said, trying to be gay, though +an involuntary shudder had gone through me, less at her words +than because of the strange conviction of her manner. + +"About two years,--perhaps a little more," she said, answering +me quite seriously, as she gravely measured the shining tresses, +half her body's length, with her eye. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +THE GOLDEN GIRL + +One fresh and sunny morning, some months after this night, +Elizabeth and I stood before the simple altar of a little country +church, for the news had come to us that her husband was dead, +and thus we were free to belong to each other before all the +world. The exquisite stillness in the cool old church was as the +peace in our hearts, and the rippling sound of the sunlit leaves +outside seemed like the very murmur of the stream of life down +which we dreamed of gliding together from that hour. + +It was one of those moments which sometimes come and go without +any apparent cause, when life suddenly takes a mystical aspect of +completeness, all its discords are harmonised by some unseen hand +of the spirit, and all its imperfections fall away. The lover of +beauty and the lover of God alike know these strange moments, but +none know them with such a mighty satisfaction as a man and a +woman who love as loved Elizabeth and I. + +Love for ever completes the world, for it is no future of higher +achievement, no expectation of greater joy. It lives for ever in +a present made perfect by itself. Love can dream of no greater +blessedness than itself, of no heaven but its own. God himself +could have added no touch of happiness to our happy hearts that +grave and sunny morning. You philosophers who go searching for +the meaning of life, thinkers reading so sadly, and let us hope +so wrongly, the riddle of the world--life has but one meaning, +the riddle but one answer--which is Love. To love is to put +yourself in harmony with the spheral music of creation, to stand +in the centre of the universe, and see it good and whole as it +appears in the eye of God. + +Even Death himself, the great and terrible King of kings, though +he may break the heart of love with agonies and anguish and slow +tortures of separation, may break not his faith. No one that has +loved will dream even death too terrible a price to pay for the +revelation of love. For that revelation once made can never be +recalled. As a little sprig of lavender will perfume a queen's +wardrobe, so will a short year of love keep sweet a long life. +And love's best gifts death can never take away. Nay, indeed, +death does not so much rob as enrich the gifts of love. The dead +face that was fair grows fairer each spring, sweet memories grow +more sweet, what was silver is now gold, and as years go by, the +very death of love becomes its immortality. + +I think I shall never hear Elizabeth's voice again, never look +into her eyes, never kiss her dear lips--but Elizabeth is still +mine, and I am hers, as in that morning when we kissed in that +little chancel amid the flickering light, and passed out into the +sun and down the lanes, to our little home among the +meadow-sweet. + +She is still as real to me as the stars,--and, alas, as far +away! I think no thought that does not fly to her, I have no +joys I do not share with her, I tell her when the spring is here, +and we sit beneath the moon and listen to the nightjar together. +Sometimes we are merry together as in the old time, and our +laughter makes nightfaring folk to cross themselves; my work, my +dreams, my loves, are all hers, and my very sins are sinned for +her sake. + +Two years did Elizabeth and I know the love that passeth all +understanding, and day by day the chestnut upon her head was more +and the gold less, till the day came that she had prophesied, and +with the day a little child, whose hair had stolen all her +mother's gold, as her heart had drained away her mother's life. + +Ah! reader, may it be long before you kneel at the bedside of her +you love best in the world, and know that of all your love is +left but a hundred heart-beats, while opposite sits Death, watch +in hand, and fingers upon her wrist. + +"Husband," whispered Elizabeth, as we looked at each other for +the last time, "let her be your little golden girl . . ." + +And then a strange sweetness stole over her face, and the dream +of Elizabeth's life was ended. + +As I write I hear in the still house the running of little feet, +a fairy patter sweet and terrible to the heart. + +Little feet, little feet--perhaps if I follow you I shall find +again our mother that is lost. Perhaps Elizabeth left you with me +that I should not miss the way. + +Tout par soullas. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Quest of the Golden Girl + diff --git a/old/ggirl10.zip b/old/ggirl10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5bfbf46 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ggirl10.zip |