That gentleman in his proper person watched her flitting down the seaward road. He had not seen her in her hat before, and daylight was failing fast, but he knew the shape and style of the airy little figure a long way off. He suspected Sarah of having contrived that it should be alone to-night; but he knew that Jenny was guiltless of any knowledge that lovers were around. Was he her lover? He put the question to himself, but shirked answering it. He would see what he was a couple of hours hence. One thing he was quite clear about, however, and that was that her defencelessness was to be respected.
Unconscious of his neighbourhood, she made her way to the pier, which was almost deserted, and seated herself on the furthest bench. There she composed herself in a little cloak that she had brought with her, and began to stare into the grey haze of sky and sea, starred with the riding lights of the ships at Williamstown, never once turning her head to look behind her. Anthony sat down at the inner angle of the pier, stealthily lit a pipe, crossed his legs, laid his right arm on the rail, and watched her.
"After all," he thought, "her father was an Eton boy; he really was—I have proved it—and he had a marquis to fag for him. His people were gentlefolks; so was he; showed it in every word he spoke, poor old boy. Maude, now—her grandfather was a bullock-driver, and couldn't write his name; and her father's a vulgar brute, in spite of his knighthood and his money-bags. And Oxenham is a Manchester cotton fellow—got the crest for his carriage and tablespoons out of a book. I don't see why they should want to make a row. Trade is trade, and we are all tarred with that brush. Goodness knows it would be a better world than it is if we all conducted business as she does—were as scrupulous and high-minded in our dealings with money. We are in no position to look down upon her on that ground. As for money, there's plenty; I don't want any more."
He puffed at his pipe, and the little figure grew dimmer and dimmer; but he could see that she had not stirred.
"Little mite of a thing! No bigger than a child she looks, sitting there—like a baby to nurse upon one's knee. In the firelight ... in the dusk before the lamps are lit ... gathered up in her husband's arms, with that little head tucked under his ear——"
He tapped his pipe on the pier-rail, rose, and walked up and down.
"Why not?" he asked himself plainly. "Could I regret it, when she is so evidently the woman to last? Beauty is but skin deep, as the copy-books so justly remark, but her beauty is not that sort; she's sound all through—a woman who won't be beholden to anybody for a penny—who makes her own frocks—takes care of them all like a father—stands against the whole world, with her back to the wall——"
Such were his musings. And, my dear girls—to whom this modest tale is more particularly addressed—I am credibly informed that quite a large number of men are inclined to matrimony or otherwise by considerations of the same kind. You don't think so, when you are at play together in the ball-room and on the tennis-ground, and you fancy it is your "day out," so to speak; but they tell me in confidence that it is the fact. They adore your pretty face and your pretty frocks; they are immensely exhilarated by your sprightly banter and sentimental overtures; they absolutely revel in the pastime of making love, and will go miles and miles for the chance of it; but when it comes to thinking of a home and family, the vital circumstances of life for its entire remaining term, why, they really are not the heedless idiots that they appear—at any rate, not all of them.
I was talking the other day to a much greater "swell" than Anthony Churchill ever was—a handsome and charming bachelor of high rank in the Royal Navy, about whom the young ladies buzzed like summer flies round a pot of treacle—and he was very serious upon the subject, and desperately melancholy. He was turning forty, and wearying for a haven of peace. There must have been any number of girls simply dying to help him to it, and yet he considered his prospects hopeless. "I see nothing for it," he said, "but to marry a good, honest cook, or spend a comfortless old age in solitude,"—not meaning by this that his dinner was of paramount importance to him, for his tastes were simple, but that he despaired of finding a lady whom the home of his dreams—and of his means—would hold. His dreams, he seemed to think, were out of date. In fact, he shared the views of the man in Punch, who was prevented from getting married by his love of a domestic life. And many others share those views. And thus the army of old maids waxes ever bigger and bigger—and they wonder why.
Not, of course, that I wish to disparage the old maid, especially if she can't help it; and far be it from me to teach the pernicious doctrine that a girl's business in life is to spread lures for a husband. I only say that an unmarried woman is not a woman, but merely a more or less old child; that marriage should come at the proper time, like birth and death; and that if it doesn't—if it falls out of fashion, as everybody can see that it is doing, in spite of nature and the parties concerned—then something must be very rotten somewhere. We will leave it at that.