"Very selfish, if we stand in each other's way. And, after all, Jack, what we both need to make life really successful is something we have neither of us got. We are only soap-boilers, you know, and society----"
"Society!" he echoed sternly. "What has society to do with it? I didn't think you were so worldly."
"I am not worldly," she retorted, in quite an aggrieved tone; "unless, indeed, it is worldly to be sensible, to think of you as well as of myself--to be unselfish and straightforward."
"Straightforward! What, do you call it straightforward to let me hang round you as I have done?"
"Really, Jack, you are impayable with your hangings round! Can you not find a less objectionable phrase?"
She was fencing with him, and he saw it, saw it and resented it with the almost coarse resentment of a nature stronger and yet less obstinate than hers.
"Yes, if you like. I'll say you have played fast and loose with me--as you have. You have known for years that I cared for you, and that I intended to marry you. And when a girl allows that sort of thing to go on without a word, and doesn't mean it, I say she is a flirt--a heartless flirt, and I have nothing more to do with her."
He turned his horse as he spoke, and without another word rode off, leaving her to go home with the groom. Inexcusable violence, no doubt. Alice told herself so again and again in the vain effort to get rid of a certain surprised remorse, for the girl was emphatically a moral coward, and any display of high-handed resentment, so far from rousing her opposition, invariably made her doubtful of her own wisdom. She hated scenes most cordially, hated, above all things, to have opprobrious epithets hurled at her; for she clung with almost piteous tenacity to her own virtue. It was too hard, too unkind of Jack to blame her, and yet despite this, his condemnation seemed to dim that lodestar of her firmament--common sense. After all, if he liked her, why should they not marry? Why should such devotion be sacrificed to the Moloch of position? In truth, as she thought over the incident, an odd mixture of anger and regret came to upset her usual placidity, so that, much to her own surprise, she broke down helplessly into tears over her mother's conventional inquiry as to how she had enjoyed her ride. Nor could she find any reason for this unwonted emotion, beyond the fact that Jack had been brutal and called her a flirt, and had ridden away, declaring that he would have nothing more to say to her. That such would be the case Mrs. Woodward, as she administered sal volatile and talked about the trying heat, felt was most devoutly to be wished; but a long course of three volume novels warned her of the danger of trusting to the permanence of lovers' quarrels. So after her daughter had been provided with darkness and eau-de-cologne, and a variety of other feminine remedies against the evil effects of emotion, she went off to her own sitting-room to consider the position by the light of her five-and-forty years of human experience. To begin with, the girl's feelings were clearly more deeply implicated than she, or for the matter of that Alice herself, had imagined. The question, therefore, came uppermost whether this fact ought to be admitted or deprecated; whether in short this evident dislike to giving her cousin pain was the result of a romantic attachment or simply the natural kindliness of a girl for a young fellow she had known from infancy. Now the cogitations of mothers over their daughters' matrimonial prospects are always fair game for both moralist and novelist. For some mysterious reason the least display of prudence is considered worldly; yet, on the face of it, a woman who has had, say, five-and-twenty years of married life cannot possibly fail to see how much of her own life has been made or marred by influences which she never considered in accepting Dick, Tom, or Harry. In nine cases out of ten it is the remembrance of her own ignorance which makes her espouse the cause of the lover who can bring the greatest number of chances for content. And it is idle to deny, for instance, that a girl marrying into a family which will welcome her is far less likely to quarrel with her husband than one who is looked on askance by her mother-in-law. There is, in sober truth, an immense deal to be said in favour of the French theory which holds that given a favourable nidus, and kindly atmosphere, the germ of happiness is more likely to grow into a goodly tree, and bear fruit a thousandfold, than when it is planted in a hurry by two inexperienced gardeners in the first pot which they fancy in the great Mart. Owing, however, to our somewhat startling views as to the sanctity of the romantic passion over the claims of duty towards oneself and others, these minor considerations are considered mercenary to the last degree, and the mother who is courageous enough to confess them openly is held up to obloquy. Why, it is difficult to say, since none of us really believe in the popular theory. It will not hold water for an instant when put to the practical test of experience; even if we leave out of consideration the fact that fully one-half of the people one meets have never felt, and have never felt the desire to feel, an absorbing passion.
Mrs. Woodward, for instance, had not; moreover she had brought Alice up from the cradle to share her views of life, and had never once found her way barred by any bias towards a more passionate outlook. In fact, she was, in her mother's estimate, the very last girl in the world to find sentiment soothing. On the contrary, it distressed her, made her cry, necessitated her lying down with smelling-salts and a hot-bottle. Then above all things she loved a certain refined distinction and exclusiveness. Even as a child she had held her head high in the soap-boiling connection, and though she would no doubt be very fairly happy with Jack, the Macleod family was distinctly more suitable. The question, therefore, soon resolved itself, not into whether the outworks of the girl's placidity should be defended, but how this could best be effected. How in short Jack could be prevented from posing as a martyr; for Mrs. Woodward was sharp enough to see that, at present at any rate, the danger lay entirely in her daughter's remorse.
"It was very unkind of Jack I must say," she commented skilfully on the story which Alice unfolded to her after a time; "but you mustn't be hard on him, my dear. Men never have so much self-control as we have, and no doubt the knowledge that you were right vexed him. They get over these little rebuffs very quickly."