"I know it is the fashion of your world, Patricia," Philip replied, quietly, "to scoff at all things; so narrow are the limits of this nineteenth-century philosophy that what we cannot understand we disbelieve, what we do not wish to recall we deny, and what we are forced to accept we despise. It is a cruel creed even for men, on the lips of a woman it becomes detestable. You may scoff as you please, Patricia, you cannot change or alter the old laws of God; as long as man is man and woman, woman, memory and remorse must have a place within their consciousness; and no matter how hard or callous you may have grown, or how learned in the world's theology, you cannot entirely quench the attributes bestowed upon you, when you became not only a beautiful creation, but a woman of soul and reason. The last ten years cannot be a blank to you, any more than our last meeting and parting can be."
Miss Hildreth laughed again, and wiping her slender finger-tips upon a tiny square of lace and muslin, from whose folds an odour of violets stole forth, she answered in an even lighter tone:
"My dear Philip, let me recommend to you a certain essay on the 'Art of Forgetting,' if you have not already read it. It is written by a modern philosopher, it is true, but nevertheless, he sounds the heights and depths of our social system, and evolves a theory therefrom for which he should receive an universal peerage, bestowed upon him by his indebted fellow-sufferers. In the art of forgetting lies one's only chance of freedom from remorse for the past, and the inconveniences of the future. Believe me, if we can only master thoroughly this hitherto neglected art, we need have no further fears either for our digestions or complexions. It was, I think, old Sir Piers who said that all one's nightmares, physical or moral, arose from one of two causes, an unruly liver, or a too vivid memory; let us give the old man the credit of the aphorism, in any case."
"Since you are so willingly blind, Patricia," cried Philip, roused from his apparent calm by the cool impertinence of her replies, "it seems a pity to force you to recall a past that dates back ten years. And yet I fear I must do so, for there are certain things that had better be explained between us now. Who knows but twice ten years may come and go before we meet again?"
He paused for a moment, but she made him no reply; her face and slim graceful figure were thrown into high relief against the dark hazel-trees, her silks and laces lay about her feet in careless profusion across the short green turf, her hands were folded in the lace scarf that wrapped her neck in its fleecy folds. Afar off in the darkness of the drooping branches, an owl hooted, and a bird or two answered in sleepy half-notes.
"It is not so very long ago," Philip continued, "since a letter came to me from you."
She shivered a little and drew her laces about her more closely.
"In that letter, Patricia, you had forgotten nothing; not one detail of the dream we dreamed together ten years ago. You wrote from your heart then; your heart that will sometimes make its cry heard, despite the crust of worldly artifice and selfishness you have built up upon it, and you appealed to me to recall the old days, 'to fold back the cere-cloth from the face of our dead past,' and see if something of beauty and sentiment did not still cling to its memory."
She put up one hand to her face and passed it hurriedly across her trembling lips; she did not speak, but her eyes grew large and dark in their entreaty. Mr. Tremain continued, unheeding either her eyes or gesture.
"I am not going to quote further from that letter, Patricia, and I will only tax your patience a very little longer, while I describe to you two visions conjured up by your appeal. I saw once more you, in your first fresh loveliness and beauty, radiant with youth, transformed by love; and I saw myself, as yet a raw, unfinished, unformed specimen of manhood; the Creighton of a suburban society, it is true, but nevertheless the veriest tyro in the affectations and niceties of town etiquette. You came within my circle, and you charmed me by the sweet graciousness of your beauty, the blue fire of your eyes, the frank candour of your witcheries. And you—you were content to let me play Strephon to your Chloe. And so that vision faded; and when next I saw you in fancy, you came towards me, from out a world of light beyond, from whence came also the echo of gay laughter and light jest; the silks and laces of your dress fell about you jealously, I remember their colour and their sheen, as you crept up to me, trembling. There was no glad exclamation on your lips, no joy in your eyes, no hand held out in welcome; hesitating and uncertain you stood before me, looking at me from under your downcast lids, and drawing one hand slowly over the other. And I, loving and eager, I, a very fool in love, never dreamed the reason of your changed demeanour; no, not until hours afterwards, when the night and the falling rain had cooled my passion. You were ashamed of me, Patty, ashamed of your rustic lover, who came into your presence with a heart on fire, but wearing an ill-fitting coat, and with manners more pronounced and enthusiastic than those of your little court in the room beyond."