The City of Beautiful Nonsense

by E. Temple Thurston

She hoped up to the last that he would mention it once more, and a thousand different times in a thousand different ways, decoyed their conversations into topics which would suggest it to his mind. Yet always with the caution of some wary animal pursued, John avoided it--sheered off and chose another path.

Even on the day of his departure, she yet thought that he would speak and, clinging gently to him, with her arms about his neck, she whispered:

"Have you nothing to say to me, John?"

"Nothing--nothing, dearest," he replied, adding the term of endearment as he saw the bitter look of disappointment in her eyes.

Then he was gone. For another year that vast chamber with its high windows, and that tiny room which peeped out into it, would be silent of the sound of his voice. For another year, night after night, these two old people would continue to look up in surprise when Claudina entered for the ceremony; they would continue to exclaim: "You don't mean to say it's ten o'clock, Claudina!" And perhaps, as the days wore on and the year drew itself out to the thin grey thread, the surprise would get fainter, the note of exclamation not so emphatic as it used to be. She took her breath in fear as she thought of it. Supposing the year were to pass and John had not married Jill? She went into the little altar in her bedroom and commenced a novena--one of the many that she began and dutifully finished, before that year had gone.

So, it may be seen, in these two old people, who have woven themselves so inextricably into this whole story of Nonsense, how Time has by no means finished with the picture it set itself the weaving on that mysterious 18th of March, whereof the calendar still keeps its secret.

John went back to his labours in London, but he left behind him, forces at work of which he knew nothing. The old gentleman was quite right. Nature has no need of the meddling hand. The seed had been transplanted into the mind of the little old white-haired lady and, in her, will the completion of Destiny be found.

For the first few weeks, she wrote her usual letters to John, avoiding the subject with a rigid perseverance which, she might have known, which certainly her husband knew, she could never hope to maintain. This perseverance did not break down all at once. She began with inconsequent allusions to Jill; then at last, when they called forth no word of a reply from John, she gave way to the passionate desire that was consuming her, commencing a long series of letters of counsel and advice such as an old lady will give, who believes that the world is the same place that it was when she was a girl.

"Have you ever spoken to her, John?" she asked in one of her letters. "With your eyes you have. I saw you do it that afternoon at tea. But the language of the eyes is not enough for a woman, who has never heard the sound of the spoken word in her ears."

"Tell her you love her--ask her to marry you, and if she says no--don't believe her. She doesn't mean it. It's more or less impossible for a woman to say yes the first time. It's over so soon."