One must not praise oneself up, even in one's diary. But one may, one must, be sincere. And it is the simple truth, that the more I compared the full-length portrait of Susan with the full-length portrait of myself, the deeper and more inscrutable became the mysteries of life. I looked at the two portrayed forms and the two portrayed faces as critically and with as much detachment as if I had never seen the originals in the real world.
Ruddington has seen Susan thrice. But he has seen me thrice also. He says that I was with Susan every one of the three times. Perhaps Susan's brushing jogged my wits; but, face to face with that double portrait, I couldn't help being reminded of what I scolded Susan for saying this morning. As a matter of purely speculative interest, as a curious human problem, I couldn't help saying to myself: "He saw us both. Why didn't he fall in love with me?"
To be immodestly candid, the only answer I could arrive at was: "I don't know!"
Of course, what he says in his letter to Susan about shrinking from making love to Miss Langley is absurd. It is merely a fanciful thought after the event, a pretty conceit, a gossamer compliment partly to Susan and mainly to himself. He fell wildly, instantly, irresistibly in love with Susan because there is Something in Susan which gave him no choice. He looked at me and was cold, because the Something has been left out.
Never before to-day have I looked at myself in a glass hungrily. But to-day I peered with all the strength of my eyes into the confused depths of the secret. It was no good. I cannot read the riddle.
I will write this page without reserve. It is no more my merit, my own work, that I am beautiful than it would be my fault, my disgrace, if I had been born ugly. I will call a spade a spade, and beauty beautiful. So here goes.
If Susan is pretty, I am beautiful, and I am more beautiful than Susan is pretty. If Susan is as graceful as a nymph, I am as noble as a goddess. If Susan's blue eyes are as blue as the sky, my brown eyes are deeper than the sea. If Susan is curds and cream, I am fire and snow. If Susan can turn plain men into heroes, I ought to raise heroes into gods.
Yes. Although I have a hundred deformities of mind, a thousand uglinesses of conduct and character, which I could help and for which I am to blame, it is the plain truth that God chose to make me beautiful. Has not every one told me so, as long as I can remember? But Heaven knows that, although I have always felt glad, it has never made me puffed up or vain. And I'm thankful it hasn't. If it had, this would have been a bitter day for my pride. For, after all, Ruddington saw us both; and he fell in love with Susan.
I can think of only one answer to the enigma, and I hope it isn't the right one. I suspect that men of abundant manliness, like Lord Ruddington and Gibson, instinctively seek for their opposites in the shape of some passive, clinging femininity like Susan's. They demand that the woman shall be pretty as well as clinging and passive and feminine; because they know that they are brave, and that the brave deserve the fair, I suspect that these strong characters find sweet repose in a simple woman's characterlessness. Their eager spirits recuperate in her placidity.
Conversely, a flabbier man rejoices in a strenuous, all-alive woman. Take poor Alice. She is taller than I am; stronger, quicker, harder, more self-willed. And I suppose that is why Hugh, in his humdrum way, adores her, and is wretched when she's away, like a faithful hound.