"Hélas, mon ami!
C'est triste d'econter le chanson sans le chanter aussi."
—BRETON BALLARD.
As for me, I was delighted. Let one of us be happy, I thought; let Elizabeth, since I was evidently fated to be lonely!
Yes! Any love-story for me, Joan Matthews, seemed to be something quite past praying for.
Twice, now, I had fallen in love. Twice I had drawn a blank!
The first time I'd set my affections upon a philanderer (Harry Markham) who had given me every reason to think they were returned, but who probably hadn't "meant" anything, even before he deserted to Muriel.
The second time I had lost my heart to a man worth a hundred Harrys. This man (Dick Holiday) had never attempted to admire me. He was just helpful and jolly and friendly, but he'd never pretended to think of me in that other way. Yet I couldn't stop caring for him with all the best that was in me. And now he was Muriel's too; I only waited to hear when their engagement would be announced.
"Really I ought to be phenomenally lucky at cards, seeing the sort of luck I've had in Love!" I laughed at myself.
For I could still laugh; and here I must put forward something in my own defence! I was taking the second love-fiasco very differently from my first.
In London, over Harry's desertion, I had let go all ropes, and had fretted and wept myself into a nervous wreck.
Here on the Land, I never thought of behaving like that. I set my teeth to "stick" unhappy Love, which is a girl's equivalent for a soldier's "sticking" his most painful wound. I found I could still enjoy myself among the other girls, I could still be sympathetic over my chum's engagement. I could throw myself body and soul into the work on the farm, where the hay-harvest was now in full swing.