"And what might you be doing now, Perry?" enquired my companion, swinging his long, booted legs and stealing a backward glance at his fair, young wife seated on the driving seat beside Diana. "Isn"t she perfectly wonderful?" he murmured.
"She is!" I answered.
"Her hair," he sighed; "her hair, you"ll notice, is--"
"The most glorious in all the world!" quoth I.
"Absolutely, Perry! Beyond all doubt--"
"Though it is not really black, Anthony--"
"Black!" he exclaimed, turning on me with a sort of leap.
"No, not black, Anthony, sometimes it seems full of small fires--"
Now at this he laughed and I laughed, all unheeded by the two upon the driving seat who talked softly and questioned each other with their lovely faces very close together, while Diogenes the knowing slowed to his meditative amble.
"You must forgive me, Perry, I--I"ve only been a Benedict since two o"clock. But tell me of yourself; what you are doing, how you live and where?"
"I am learning the art of working in iron, Anthony, and of making and mending kettles--"
"Gad--a tinker, Perry?"
"Yes. And I am living in a wood with one Jerry Jarvis, Jessamy Todd, and Diana--"
"The famous Jessamy?"
"Yes. He is instructing me in the n.o.ble art."
"Good heavens! And your--your people?"
"They perforce acquiesce."
"In--in everything, Perry--your marriage?"
"What else can they do?"
"And when you are married, how shall you live?"
"Travel the country tinkering with Jerry--or buy a cottage until I come into my property."
"And then, Perry?"
"I--don"t know. You see, Anthony, if--if the people in our world should make any difficulty about the pure angel who will be my wife, well, I"ll see the people of our world d.a.m.ned and go back to my cottage."
"No, you shall come to us, Perry, to Barbara and me, we shall always be proud and happy to welcome you both--in country or town and as for--your Diana, such beauty may surely go anywhere, and my Barbara is in love with her already, "egad. Look at "em, Perry, look at "em! Did ever eyes behold two such gloriously handsome creatures?"
Thus we talked of things that had been and of things that were to be, making many plans for the future, a future which, by reason of youth and love, stretched before each one of us in radiant perspective. So we talked and laughed, finding joy in all things, more especially in each other and were all a little sorry, I think, when the ambling Diogenes brought us to Hadlow at last. And here, at the "Bear" we sat down to a merry meal that ended all too soon.
"Good-bye--oh, good-bye, dearest Diana!" sighed Barbara a little tearfully, as she leaned from the chaise for a last caress. "If I have learned to love you so quickly don"t let it seem strange--it is just because you are Diana--and I have so few friends, and none like you.
So be my friend, Diana, will you, dear--and when you are married bring your husband to see us in London--or wherever we happen to be, only--oh, be my friend, because--I love you."
"I will," said Diana, "your friend always, because--I love you too."
So the chaise rolled away. And presently Diana and I jogged camp-wards behind Diogenes, through an evening fragrant with new-mown hay; from tree and hedgerow birds were singing their vesper hymn and we drove awhile in wistful silence. But suddenly Diana turned and caught my hand so that I wondered at the eager clasp of these fingers and the tremulous yearning in her voice when she spoke.
"O Peregrine--oh, my dear--if only G.o.d would make me--like her--a lady--like Barbara. Do you think He would if--I pray--very hard?"
"Of course!" said I, kissing her hand. "Though, indeed--"
"Then I will, dear Peregrine--this very night--and every night."
CHAPTER x.x.xVII
A DISQUISITION ON TRUE LOVE
"Love," said his lordship, laying down his fishing rod, "love, from the philosophically materialistic standpoint, is an unease, a disquiet of the mind, fostered in the male by hallucination, and in the female by determined self-delusion."
"Sir," said I, "your meaning is somewhat involved, I would beg you to be a little more explicit."
"Then pray observe me, Peregrine! An ordinary young man falls in love with an ordinary young woman because, for some inexplicable reason, she appears to him a mystery, bewitchingly incomprehensible. Suffering under this strange hallucination, he wooes, whereupon our ordinary young woman, shutting her eyes to the ordinariness of our very ordinary young man, now deliberately deludes herself into the firm belief that he is the virile presentment of her own impossible, oft-dreamed ideal. So they are wed (to the infinite wonder of their relations) and hence the perpetuation of the species."
"My lord, you grow a little cynical, I think," said I, "surely Love has dowered these apparently so ordinary people with a vision to behold in each other virtues and beauties undreamed of by the world in general. Surely Love possesses the only seeing eye?"
"The Greeks thought differently, Peregrine, or wherefore their blindfolded Eros?"
"Sir, the mind of man has soared since those far times, I venture to think?"
"Perhaps!" said his lordship, shaking his head. "But love between man and woman is much the same, a power to enn.o.ble or debase, angel of light or demon of h.e.l.l, a thing befouled and shamed by brutish selfishness or glorified by sacrifice. Yes, love is to-day as it was when mighty Babylon worshipped Bel. Yesterday, to-day and for ever, love was, is, and will be the same--the call of nature coming to each of us through the senses to the soul for evil or for good."
"But, my lord," said I, stirred beyond myself, "ah, sir, be love what it may--no two ever loved as Diana and I, so truly, so deeply--"
"O my lovely, loving lover--O sublime egoist!" exclaimed my companion.
"How many other lovers through the ages have thought and said and written the very same?
"Others may have loved mayhap, But never, oh, never as thou and I."
"This is the song of all the amorists of all the ages. Man has been saying this since ever he was man. Here is love"s universal, deathless song, written or sung to-day and by lovers long, long forgotten,
"Whoever loved like thou and I, No lovers ever loved as we!""
"Nor did they, sir!" I maintained doggedly. "My love for Diana is a thing wholly apart, an inspiration to all things good and great."