"I!"
"You ought to admire them if they voluntarily give up all those beautiful things--knowing beforehand they"ll only win men"s scorn. For you"ve always warned them!"
He didn"t even hear. "Ah, Ladies, Ladies!" half laughing, but really very much in earnest, he apostrophized the peccant s.e.x, "I should like to ask, are we men to look upon our homes as dusty din-filled camps on the field of battle, or as holy temples of Peace? Ah!" He leaned back in his corner, stretched out his long legs, and thrust his restless hands in his pockets. "If they knew!"
"Women?" asked Hermione, with the air of one painstakingly brushing up crumbs of wisdom.
Paul Filey nodded.
"Knew----?"
"They would see that in the ugly scramble they had let fall their crowns! If they only knew," he repeated, "they would go back to their thrones, and, with the sceptre of beauty in one hand and the orb of purity in the other, they would teach men to worship them again."
"And then?" said Miss Levering.
"Then? Why, men will fall on their knees before them." As Miss Levering made no rejoinder, "What greater victory do women want?" he demanded.
For the first time Miss Levering bent her head forward slightly as though to see how far he was conscious of the fatuity of his climax. But his flushed face showed a childlike good faith.
"Eh? Will any one tell me what they _want_?"
"Since you need to ask," said the gently smiling woman in the corner, "perhaps there"s more need to show than I"d quite realized."
"I don"t think you quite followed," he began, with an air of forbearance. "What I mean is----"
Miss Levering jumped up. "Lord Borrodaile!" He was standing at the little iron gate waiting for his hostess, who had stopped to speak to one of the gardeners. "Wait a moment!" Vida called, and went swiftly down the gra.s.s path. He had turned and was advancing to meet her. "No, come away," she said under her breath, "come away quickly"--(safe on the other side of the gate)--"and talk to me! Tell me about old, half-forgotten pictures or about young rose trees."
"Is something the matter?"
"I"m ruffled."
"Who has ruffled you?" His tone was as serene as it was sympathetic.
"Several people."
"Why, I thought you were never ruffled."
"I"m not, often."
They turned down into a little green aisle between two dense thickets of rhododendrons.
"It"s lucky you are here," she said irrelevantly.
He glanced at her face.
"It"s not luck. It"s foresight."
"Oh, you arranged it? Well, I"m glad."
"So am I," he answered quietly. "We get on rather well together," he added, after a moment.
She nodded half absently. "I feel as if I"d known you for years instead of for months," she said.
"Yes, I have rather that feeling, too. Except that I"m always a little nervous when I meet you again after an interval."
"Nervous," she frowned. "Why nervous?"
"I"m always afraid you"ll have some news for me."
"What news?"
"Oh, the usual thing. That a pleasant friendship is going to be interrupted if not broken by some one"s carrying you off. It would be a pity, you know."
"Then you don"t agree with Lord John."
"Oh, I suppose you _ought_ to marry," he said, with smiling impatience, "and I"m very sure you will! But I shan"t like it"--he wound up with an odd little laugh--"and neither will you."
"It"s an experiment I shall never try."
He smiled, but as he glanced at her he grew grave. "I"ve heard more than one young woman say that, but you look as if it might really be so."
"It is so."
He waited, and then, switching at the wild hyacinths with his stick--
"Of course," he said, "I have no right to suppose you are going to give me your reasons."
"No. That"s why I shall never even consider marrying--so that I shall not have to set out my reasons."
He had never seen that look in her face before. He made an effort to put aside the trouble of it, saying almost lightly--
"I often wonder why people can"t be happy as they are!"
"They think of the future, I suppose."
"There"s no such thing as the future."
"You can"t say there"s no such thing as growth. If it"s only a garden, it"s natural to like to see life unfolding--that"s the future."
"Yes, in spite of resolutions, you"ll be trying the great experiment."
He said it wearily.
"Why should you mind so?" she asked curiously; "you are not in love with me."
"How do you know?"
"Because you give me such a sense of rest."
"Thank you." He caught himself up. "Or perhaps I should thank my grey hair."