"The pure and simple old theory. I know the theory. I believe in the theory. Bletherley"s Sh.e.l.ley-witted. But it"s theory. You meet the inevitable girl. The theory says you may meet her anywhen. You meet too young. You fall in love. You marry--in spite of obstacles. Love laughs at locksmiths. You have children. That"s the theory. All very well for a man whose father can leave him five hundred a year. But how does it work for a shopman?... An a.s.sistant master like Dunkerley? Or ... Me?"
"In these cases one must exercise restraint," said Parkson. "Have faith. A man that is worth having is worth waiting for."
"Worth growing old for?" said Lewisham.
"Chap ought to fight," said Dunkerley. "Don"t see your difficulty, Lewisham. Struggle for existence keen, no doubt, tremendous in fact--still. In it--may as well struggle. Two--join forces--pool the luck. If I saw, a girl I fancied so that I wanted to, I"d marry her to-morrow. And my market value is seventy _non res_."
Lewisham looked round at him eagerly, suddenly interested. "_Would_ you?" he said. Dunkerley"s face was slightly flushed.
"Like a shot. Why not?"
"But how are you to live?"
"That comes after. If ..."
"I can"t agree with you, Mr. Dunkerley," said Parkson. "I don"t know if you have read Sesame and Lilies, but there you have, set forth far more fairly than any words of mine could do, an ideal of a woman"s place ..."
"All rot--Sesame and Lilies," interrupted Dunkerley. "Read bits. Couldn"t stand it. Never _can_ stand Ruskin. Too many prepositions. Tremendous English, no doubt, but not my style. Sort of thing a wholesale grocer"s daughter might read to get refined. _We_ can"t afford to get refined."
"But would you really marry a girl ...?" began Lewisham, with an unprecedented admiration for Dunkerley in his eyes.
"Why not?"
"On--?" Lewisham hesitated.
"Forty pounds a year _res_. Whack! Yes."
A silent youngster began to speak, cleared an acc.u.mulated huskiness from his throat and said, "Consider the girl."
"Why _marry_?" asked Bletherley, unregarded.
"You must admit you are asking a great thing when you want a girl ..."
began Parkson.
"Not so. When a girl"s chosen a man, and he chooses her, her place is with him. What is the good of hankering? Mutual. Fight together."
"Good!" said Lewisham, suddenly emotional. "You talk like a man, Dunkerley. I"m hanged if you don"t."
"The place of Woman," insisted Parkson, "is the Home. And if there is no home--! I hold that, if need be, a man should toil seven years--as Jacob did for Rachel--ruling his pa.s.sions, to make the home fitting and sweet for her ..."
"Get the hutch for the pet animal," said Dunkerley. "No. I mean to marry a _woman_. Female s.e.x always _has_ been in the struggle for existence--no great damage so far--always will be. Tremendous idea--that struggle for existence. Only sensible theory you"ve got hold of, Lewisham. Woman who isn"t fighting square side by side with a man--woman who"s just kept and fed and petted is ..." He hesitated.
A lad with a spotted face and a bulldog pipe between his teeth supplied a Biblical word.
"That"s s.h.a.g," said Dunkerley, "I was going to say "a harem of one"."
The youngster was puzzled for a moment. "I smoke Perique," he said.
"It will make you just as sick," said Dunkerley.
"Refinement"s so beastly vulgar," was the belated answer of the smoker of Perique.
That was the interesting part of the evening to Lewisham. Parkson suddenly rose, got down "Sesame and Lilies," and insisted upon reading a lengthy mellifluous extract that went like a garden roller over the debate, and afterwards Bletherley became the centre of a wrangle that left him grossly insulted and in a minority of one. The inst.i.tution of marriage, so far as the South Kensington student is concerned, is in no immediate danger.
Parkson turned out with the rest of them at half-past ten, for a walk. The night was warm for February and the waxing moon bright. Parkson fixed himself upon Lewisham and Dunkerley, to Lewisham"s intense annoyance--for he had a few intimate things he could have said to the man of Ideas that night. Dunkerley lived north, so that the three went up Exhibition Road to High Street, Kensington. There they parted from Dunkerley, and Lewisham and Parkson turned southward again for Lewisham"s new lodging in Chelsea.
Parkson was one of those exponents of virtue for whom the discussion of s.e.xual matters has an irresistible attraction. The meeting had left him eloquent. He had argued with Dunkerley to the verge of indelicacy, and now he poured out a vast and increasingly confidential flow of talk upon Lewisham. Lewisham was distraught. He walked as fast as he could. His sole object was to get rid of Parkson. Parkson"s sole object was to tell him interesting secrets, about himself and a Certain Person with a mind of extraordinary Purity of whom Lewisham had heard before.
Ages pa.s.sed.
Lewisham suddenly found himself being shown a photograph under a lamp. It represented an unsymmetrical face singularly void of expression, the upper part of an "art" dress, and a fringe of curls. He perceived he was being given to understand that this was a Paragon of Purity, and that she was the particular property of Parkson. Parkson was regarding him proudly, and apparently awaiting his verdict.
Lewisham struggled with the truth. "It"s an interesting face," he said.
"It is a face essentially beautiful," said Parkson quietly but firmly. "Do you notice the eyes, Lewisham?"
"Oh yes," said Lewisham. "Yes. I see the eyes."
"They are ... innocent. They are the eyes of a little child."
"Yes. They look that sort of eye. Very nice, old man. I congratulate you. Where does she live?"
"You never saw a face like that in London," said Parkson.
"_Never_," said Lewisham decisively.
"I would not show that to every one," said Parkson. "You can scarcely judge all that pure-hearted, wonderful girl is to me." He returned the photograph solemnly to its envelope, regarding Lewisham with an air of one who has performed the ceremony of blood-brotherhood. Then taking Lewisham"s arm affectionately--a thing Lewisham detested--he went on to a copious outpouring on Love--with ill.u.s.trative anecdotes of the Paragon. It was just sufficiently cognate to the matter of Lewisham"s thoughts to demand attention. Every now and then he had to answer, and he felt an idiotic desire--albeit he clearly perceived its idiocy--to reciprocate confidences. The necessity of fleeing Parkson became urgent--Lewisham"s temper under these mult.i.tudinous stresses was going.
"Every man needs a Lode Star," said Parkson--and Lewisham swore under his breath.
Parkson"s lodgings were now near at hand to the left, and it occurred to him this boredom would be soonest ended if he took Parkson home, Parkson consented mechanically, still discoursing.
"I have often seen you talking to Miss Heydinger," he said. "If you will pardon my saying it ..."
"We are excellent friends," admitted Lewisham. "But here we are at your diggings."
Parkson stared at his "diggings." "There"s Heaps I want to talk about. I"ll come part of the way at any rate to Battersea. Your Miss Heydinger, I was saying ..."
From that point onwards he made casual appeals to a supposed confidence between Lewisham and Miss Heydinger, each of which increased Lewisham"s exasperation. "It will not be long before you also, Lewisham, will begin to know the infinite purification of a Pure Love...." Then suddenly, with a vague idea of suppressing Parkson"s unendurable chatter, as one motive at least, Lewisham rushed into the confidential.
"I know," he said. "You talk to me as though ... I"ve marked out my destiny these three years." His confidential impulse died as he relieved it.
"You don"t mean to say Miss Heydinger--?" asked Parkson.
"Oh, _d.a.m.n_ Miss Heydinger!" said Lewisham, and suddenly, abruptly, uncivilly, he turned away from Parkson at the end of the street and began walking away southward, leaving Parkson in mid-sentence at the crossing.
Parkson stared in astonishment at his receding back and ran after him to ask for the grounds of this sudden offence. Lewisham walked on for a s.p.a.ce with Parkson trotting by his side. Then suddenly he turned. His face was quite white and he spoke in a tired voice.
"Parkson," he said, "you are a fool!... You have the face of a sheep, the manners of a buffalo, and the conversation of a bore, Pewrity indeed!... The girl whose photograph you showed me has eyes that don"t match. She looks as loathsome as one would naturally expect.... I"m not joking now.... Go away!"