“Of course it doesn’t. The only thing that does matter,” she said, twisting a lock of his hair round her little finger and smiling at him through half-closed eyes, “is that we’ve made up our silly quarrel and are friends again,” and bending forward she kissed him quietly and happily.
He was naturally relieved that the sympathy between them had been reëstablished; but he realized how little he had made her appreciate his misgivings. Indeed, he would have found it hard to explain them to himself. Their love was no longer fresh and spontaneous. Its growth, as that of a wild flower that is taken from a hedge and planted in a conservatory, would be no longer natural. Other hands would tend it. In April’s mind the course of love was marked by certain fixed boundaries—the avowal, the engagement, the marriage service. She did not conceive of love as existing outside these limits. She had never been in love before; and naturally she regarded love as a state of mind into which one was suddenly and miraculously surprised, and in which one continued until the end of one’s life. There was no reason why she should think differently. Her training had taught her that love could not exist outside marriage—marriage that ordained one woman for one man.
But it was different for Roland, who had learned from the vivid and fleeting romances of his boyhood that love comes and goes, irresponsible as the wind that at one moment is shaking among the branches, scattering the leaves, tossing them in the air, only to subside a moment later into calm.
These misgivings passed quickly enough, however, in the delightful novelty of the situation. It was great fun being in love; to wake in the early morning with the knowledge that as soon as breakfast was over you would run down the road and be welcomed by a charming girl, whom you would counsel to shut the door behind you quickly so that you could kiss her before anyone knew you were in the house, who would then tilt up her face prettily to yours. It was charming to sit with her in the drawing-room and hold her hand and rest your cheek against hers, to answer such questions as, “When did you first begin to love me?”
Often they would go for walks together in the autumn sunshine; occasionally they would take a bus and ride out to Kew or Hampstead, and sit on the green grass and hold hands and talk of the future. These talks were a delicious excitant to Roland’s vanity. His ambitions were strengthened by her faith in him. He saw himself rich and famous. “We’ll have a wonderful house, with stables and an orchard, and we’ll have a private cricket ground and we’ll get a pro. down from Lord’s to look after it. And we’ll have fine parties in the summer—cricket and tennis during the day, and dances in the evening!”
“And a funny little cottage,” she would murmur, “somewhere down the river, for when we want to be all by ourselves.”
It was exciting, too, when other people, grown-up people, made significant remarks.
One afternoon he was at a tea-party and a lady asked him if he would come round to lunch with them the next day. “We’ve got a nephew of ours stopping with us. An awfully jolly boy. I’m sure you and he would get on well together.” Roland, however, had to excuse himself on the grounds of a previous engagement.
“I’m awfully sorry,” he said, “but I’ve promised to go on the river.”
“With April Curtis? Ah, I thought so.”