CHAPTER IX
Colonel Wimpole looked positively old that evening when he went down to dinner with his sister and Sylvia. His face was drawn and weary and the lids hung a little, in small wrinkles; but down in his grey eyes there was a far-off gleam of danger-light.
Sylvia looked down when she met him, and she was very silent and grave at first. At dinner she sat between him and Miss Wimpole, and for some time she scarcely dared to glance at him. He, on his part, was too much preoccupied to speak much, and she thought he was displeased.
Nevertheless, he was more than usually thoughtful for her. She understood by the way he sat, and even by the half-unconscious shrinking of the elbow next to her, that he was sorry for her. At table, seated close together, there is a whole language in one"s neighbour"s elbow and an unlimited power of expression in its way of avoiding collisions. Very perceptive people understand that. Primarily, in savage life, the bold man turns his elbows out, while the timid one presses them to his sides, as though not to give offence with them. Society teaches us to put on some little airs of timidity as a subst.i.tute for the modesty that few feel, and we accordingly draw in our elbows when we are near any one.
It is ridiculous enough, but there are a hundred ways of doing it, a hundred degrees of readiness, unwillingness, pride, or consideration for others, as well as sympathy for their troubles or in their successes, all of which are perfectly natural to refined people, and almost entirely unconscious. The movement of a man"s jaws at dinner shows much of his real character, but the movement of his elbows shows with fair accuracy the degree of refinement in which he has been brought up.
Sylvia was sure that the colonel was sorry for her, and the certainty irritated her, for she hated to be pitied, and most of all for having done something foolish. She glanced at Wimpole"s tired face, just when he was looking a little away from her, and she was startled by the change in his features since the early afternoon. It needed no very keen perception to see that he was in profound anxiety of some kind, and she knew of nothing which could have disturbed him deeply but her own conduct.
Under the vivid light of the public dining table, he looked old. That was undeniable, and it was really the first time that Sylvia had definitely connected the idea of age with him. Just beyond him sat a man in the early prime of strength, one of those magnificent specimens of humanity such as one sees occasionally in travelling but whom one very rarely knows in acquaintance. He could not have been more than twenty-eight years old, straight in his seat, broad-shouldered, with thick, close, golden hair and splendid golden beard, white forehead and sunburned cheeks, broad, well-modelled brows and faultless nose, and altogether manly in spite of his beauty. As he leaned forward a little, his fresh young face appeared beside the colonel"s tired profile, in vivid contrast.
For the first time, Sylvia realized the meaning of Wimpole"s words, spoken that afternoon. He might almost have been her grandfather, and he was in reality of precisely the same age as her father. Sylvia looked down again and reflected that she must have made a mistake with herself. Youth can sometimes close its eyes to grey hair, but it can never a.s.sociate the idea of love with old age, when clearly brought to its perceptions.
For at least five minutes the world seemed utterly hollow to Sylvia, as she sat there. She did not even wonder why she had thought the colonel young until then. The sudden dropping out of her first great illusion left a void as big and as hollow as itself.
She turned her head, and looked once more, and there, again, was the glorious, unseamed youth of the stranger, almost dazzling her and making the poor colonel look more than ever old, with his pale, furrowed cheeks and wrinkled eyelids. She thought a moment, and then she was sure that she could never like such a terribly handsome young man; and at the same instant, for the first time in her life, she felt that natural, foolish, human pity which only extreme youth feels for old age, and she wondered why she had not always felt it, for it seemed quite natural, and was altogether in accordance with the rest of her feelings for the colonel, with her reverence for his perfect character, her admiration for his past deeds, her attachment to his quiet, protective, wise, and all-gentle manliness. That was her view of his qualities, and she had to admit that though he had them all, he was what she called old. She had taken for love what was only a combination of reverence and attachment and admiration. She realized her mistake in a flash, and it seemed to her that the core had withered in the fruit of the universe.
Just then the colonel turned to her, holding his gla.s.s in his hand.
"We must not forget that it is your birthday, my dear," he said, and his natural smile came back. "Rachel," he added, speaking to his sister across the young girl, "let us drink Sylvia"s health on her eighteenth birthday."
Miss Wimpole usually took a little thin Moselle with the cold water she drank. She solemnly raised the gla.s.s, and inclined her head as she looked first at Sylvia and then at the colonel.
"Thank you," said Sylvia, rather meekly.
Then they all relapsed into silence. The people at the big table talked fast, in low tones, and the clattering of dishes and plates and knives and forks went on steadily and untunefully all around. Sylvia felt lonely in the unindividual atmosphere of the Swiss hotel. She hated the terribly handsome young man, with a mortal hatred, because he made the colonel look old. She could not help seeing him whenever she turned towards Wimpole. At last she spoke softly, looking down at her plate.
"Uncle Richard," she said, to call his attention.
He was not really her uncle, and she almost always called him "colonel,"
half playfully, and because she had hated the suggestion of age that is conveyed by the word "uncle." Wimpole turned to her quietly.
"Yes, my dear," he said. "What is it?"
"I suppose I was very foolish to-day, wasn"t I?" asked Sylvia, very low indeed, and a bright blush played upon her pretty face.
The colonel was a courteous man, and was also very fond of her.
"A woman need never be wise when she is lovely," he said in his rather old-fashioned way, and he smiled affectionately at the young girl. "It is quite enough if she is good."
But she did not smile. On the contrary, her face became very grave.
"I am in earnest," she said, and she waited a moment before saying more.
"I was very foolish," she continued, thoughtfully. "I did not understand--or I did not realize--I don"t know. You have been so much to me all my life, and there is n.o.body like you, of course. It seemed to me--I mean, it seems to me--that is very much like really caring for some one, isn"t it? You know what I mean. I can"t express it."
"You mean that it is a good deal like love, I suppose," answered the colonel, speaking gravely now. "Yes, I suppose that love is better when people believe each other to be angels. But it is not that sort of thing which makes love what it is."
"What is it, then?" Sylvia was glad to ask any question that helped to break through the awkwardness and embarra.s.sment she felt towards him.
"There are a great many kinds of love," he said; "but I think there is only one kind worth having. It is the kind that begins when one is young, and lasts all one"s life."
"Is that all?" asked Sylvia, innocently, and in a disappointed tone.
"All!" The colonel laughed softly, and a momentary light of happiness came into his face, for that all was all he had ever had. "Is not that enough, my dear?" he asked. "To love one woman or man with all one"s heart for thirty or forty years? Never to be disappointed? Never to feel that one has made a mistake? Never to fear that love may grow old because one grows old oneself? Is not that enough?"
"Ah, yes! That would be, indeed. But you did not say all those other things at first."
"They are just what make a life-long love," answered the colonel. "But then," he added, "there are a great many degrees, far below that. I am sure I have seen people quite really in love with each other for a week."
Sylvia suddenly looked almost angry as she glanced at him.
"That sort of thing ought not to be called love at all!" she answered energetically. "It is nothing but a miserable flirtation,--a miserable, wretched, unworthy flirtation."
"I quite agree with you," said Wimpole, smiling at her vehemence.
"Why do you laugh?" she asked, almost offended by his look. His smile disappeared instantly.
"You hit the world very hard, my dear," he answered.
"I hate the world!" cried Sylvia.
She was just eighteen. Wimpole knew that she felt an innocent and instinctive repulsion for what the world meant to him, and for all the great, sinful unknown. He disliked it himself, with the steady, subdued dislike which is hatred in such natures as his, both because it was contrary to his character, and for Sylvia"s sake, who must surely one day know something of it. So he did not laugh at her sweeping declaration. She hated the world before knowing it, but he hated it in full knowledge. That was a bond of sympathy like any other. To each of us the world means both what we know, and what we suspect, both what we see and the completion of it in the unseen, both the outward lives of our companions which we can judge, and their inward motives, which we dimly guess.
But on this evening Sylvia felt that the world was particularly odious, for she had suffered a first humiliation in her own eyes. She thought that she had lowered herself in the colonel"s estimation, and she had discovered that she had made a great mistake with herself about him.
"I hate the world!" she repeated, in a lower tone, almost to herself, and her eyes gleamed with young anger, while her delicate, curving lips just showed her small white teeth.
Wimpole watched her face.
"That is no reason for hating yourself," he said gently.
She started and turned her eyes to him. Then she blushed and looked away.
"You must not guess my thoughts," she answered. "It is not kind."
"I did not mean to. I am sorry."
"Oh--you could not help it, of course. I was so foolish to-day."
The blush deepened, and she said nothing more. The colonel returned to his own secret trouble, and on Sylvia"s other side Miss Wimpole was silently planning a charitable inst.i.tution of unusual severity, while she peeled an orange with the most scrupulous neatness and precision.
CHAPTER X