A Nest of Linnets

by Frank Frankfort Moore

The possible joys of the many temptations which he had resisted appealed to his imagination. So one thinks what one could have done with the sums with which one’s banker has absconded; and the result was to increase his bitterness. But perhaps what poor Dick felt most bitterly of all was his inability to sustain the dignified rôle of a cynical man of the world with which he had started the day. The reflection that he had completely broken down the moment that the girl appeared even in the distance, and that he had given way to his disappointment just as if he were nothing more than a schoolboy, was a miserable one. He wept at the thought of his own weeping, and beat his pillow wildly in vexation; and an hour had passed before he was able to control himself.

He sprang from the bed with a derisive cry of “What a fool I am!—a worse fool than Halhed! Good heavens! A girl!—she is nothing but a girl; and where’s the girl who is worth such self-abasement? I am a man, and I’ll show myself to be a man, even though she elect to marry every dolt in Bath!”

He felt that if she had appeared in the lobby outside his door at that moment, he would not break down. He would be able to smile upon her as Mr. Walpole was accustomed to smile when saying something very wicked and satirical. He knew that he was quite as witty and a good deal readier than Horace Walpole; but even if he lacked something of the polish which Walpole—sitting up all the night for the purpose—was able to give to a phrase, he believed that he could still say enough to let Betsy Linley learn what sort of a man he was. He would let her see that he was a man of the world looking on with a tolerant, half-amused smile and quite a disinterested manner at such incidents of life as marrying and giving in marriage. Oh, the cynical things that could be said about marriage! Some such things had, of course, already been said by the wits, but they had not nearly exhausted the subject. It would be left for him to show Miss Linley how supremely ridiculous was the notion of two people believing—or rather pretending to believe—that they could find satisfaction only in each other’s society!

Oh, the notion of marriage was utterly ridiculous! What was it like? Was it not the last refuge of the unimaginative? Or should he suggest that marriage was the pasteboard façade of a palace of fools?

Oh yes, he felt quite equal to the task of saying a number of witty things on the subject of marriage in general; but when he came to think of all that might be said on the subject of a young woman’s agreeing to marry an old man, he felt actually embarrassed by the wealth of cynical phrases which lent themselves to a definition of such an incident.

He kept pacing his room, becoming more cynical every moment, until he had almost recovered his self-respect, and had forgotten that singular lapse of his from the course which he had marked out for himself in the morning—that lapse into the tears of true feeling from his elaborate scheme of simulated indifference—when the dinner-bell sounded.

He cursed the clanging of the thing. He was in no humour for joining the family circle: he knew that his sisters would delight in discussing the topic of the hour, and as for his brother....

Then it occurred to him that, seeing he would have to face his relations some time, he would excite their suspicion less were he to meet them at once. He now believed himself to be quite equal to sustaining the rôle of the indifferent man of fashion in the presence of his relations, though he had ignominiously failed to realise his ideal after a certain point earlier in the day.

He dipped his face in a basin of water to remove every trace of his weakness—the poor fellow actually believed that tears were an indication of weakness—and he was surprised to find how easily the marks were obliterated. He was comforted by the reflection that his tears had been very superficial; they were not even skin deep,—so that he had not, after all, been so foolish as he fancied—he had been unjust to himself. He only needed a fresh ruffle to give a finishing touch to his freshness.

He descended to the dining-room lazily, and entered languidly. He found that the other members of the family had not been polite enough to wait for him for the two minutes he had taken to complete his toilet. They were deep in their leg of mutton, and the younger Miss Sheridan was calling for another dish of potatoes. The big wooden bowl which, Irish fashion, lay upon a silver ring, was still steaming, but it was empty.