“I should have thought,” she said, “that any man would. According to you every man must, unless he is married already, and then he’d be extremely sorry that he couldn’t.”
“In that sense of the words,” I said, “of course I do. Please fall in.”
“I daresay that the words don’t really mean what they seem to mean,” said Lalage. “Lots of those words don’t. I must look them out in the original Greek.”
After this our conversation became greatly confused. It had been slightly confused before. The reference to the original Greek completed the process. It seems to me, looking back on it now, that we sat there, Lalage on the edge of the water tank, I in my hammock chair, and flung illusive phrases and half finished sentences at each other, getting hot by turns, and sometimes both together. At last Lalage left me, quite as abruptly as she had come. I did not know what to make of the situation. There had been nothing but conversation between us. I always understood that under certain circumstances there is more than conversation, sometimes a great deal more. I picked up “Sword Play,” which lay on the ground beside me. It was the only authority to hand at the moment. I turned to the last chapter and found that the fencing professor and the haughty lady had not stopped short at conversation. When the lady finally unbent she did so in a very thorough way and things had passed between her and the gentleman which it made me hotter than ever to read about. I had not stirred from my chair nor Lalage from the edge of the tank while we talked. I was greatly perplexed. It was quite plain the history of the swordsman and his lady was not the only one which made me sure of this—that my love-making had not run the normal course. In every single record of such doings which I had ever read a stage had been reached at which the feelings of the performers had been expressed in action rather than in words. Lalage and I had not got beyond words, therefore I doubted whether I had really been love-making. I had certainly got no definite statement from Lalage. She had not murmured anything in low, sweet tones; nor had she allowed her head to droop forward upon my breast in a manner eloquent of complete surrender. I was far from blaming her for this omission. My hammock chair was adjusted at such an angle that unless she had actually stood on her head I do not see how she could have laid it against my breast, and if she had done that her attitude would have been far from eloquent, besides being most uncomfortable for me. Still the fact remained that I had not got by word or attitude any clear indication from Lalage that my love-making, supposing that I had been love-making, was agreeable to her.
Nor could I flatter myself that Lalage was any better off than I was. I had fully intended to make myself quite clear. The Archdeacon’s example had nerved me. I distinctly remembered the sensation of determining that this one crisis at least should be brought to a definite issue, but I was not at all sure that I had succeeded. The gentleman of title whose exploits filled the three hundred pages of “Sword Play” said: “I love you and have always loved you more than life”; and though he spoke in a voice which was hoarse with passion, his meaning must have been perfectly plain. I had not said, nor could I imagine that I ever should say, anything half so heroic. Had I said anything at all or was Lalage as perplexed as I was? This question troubled me, unnecessarily; for, as it turned out afterward, Lalage was not at all perplexed.
CHAPTER XXII
My mind concentrated on one question: Was I to consider myself as engaged to be married to Lalage? The phrase, with its flavour of vulgarity, set my teeth on edge; but no other way of expression occurred to me and I was too deeply anxious to spend time in pursuit of elegancies. It was absurd that I could not answer my question. A man ought to know whether he has or has not committed himself to a proposal of marriage. The Archdeacon, I felt perfectly certain, knew what he had done. And I ought to know whether Lalage had accepted or rejected the proposal. The Archdeacon can have had few if any doubts when Lalage left him. I made up my mind at last to lay the case before my mother. I determined to repeat to her, as nearly as possible, verbatim, the whole conversation which had taken place in the greenhouse. I knew that I should feel foolish while making these confidences. I should, indeed, appear positively ridiculous when I asked my mother to settle the question which troubled me. But my mother is extraordinarily sympathetic and, in any case, it was better to suffer as a fool than to continue to be the prey of perplexity. I sighed a little when I recollected that my mother had a keen sense of the ridiculous and that my dilemma was very likely indeed to appeal to it.
I found my mother in the drawing-room with the remains of afternoon tea still spread on a small table before her. I had just time to notice that two people had been drinking tea and that the second cup, balanced precariously on the arm of a chair, was half full. Then my mother crossed the room rapidly and kissed me three times. She may have done such a thing before. I think it likely that she did when I was a baby. She certainly never kissed me more than once at a time since I was old enough to remember what she did.
“I’m so delighted,” she said, “so very delighted. I can’t tell you how glad I am.”