“It is to be presumed,” she said, as they walked on side by side, “that you have been exploring and investigating our—byways. Remember, my good Tony, that I live in The Hague, and may therefore be possessed of information that might be useful to you. It will probably be at your disposal when you need it.”
She looked at him with daring black eyes, and laughed. A strong man usually takes a sort of pride in his power. This woman enjoyed the same sort of exultation in her own cleverness. She was not wise enough to hide it, which is indeed a grim, negative pleasure usually enjoyed by elderly gentlemen only. Social progress has, moreover, made it almost a crime to hide one's light under a bushel. Are we not told, in so many words, by the interviewer and the personal paragraphist, that it is every man's duty to set his light upon a candlestick, so that his neighbour may at least try to blow it out?
Cornish had learnt to know Mrs. Vansittart at a period in her life when, as a young married woman, she regarded all her juniors with a matronly goodwill, none the less active that it was so exceedingly new. She had in those days given much good advice, which Cornish had respectfully heard. Fate had brought them together at the rare moment and in almost the sole circumstances that allow of a friendship being formed between a man and a woman.
They walked slowly side by side now under the trees of the Oude Weg, inhaling the fresh morning air, which was scented by a hundred breaths of spring, and felt clean to face and lips. Mrs. Vansittart had no intention of resigning her position of mentor and friend. It was, moreover, one of those positions which will not bear being defined in so many words. Between men and women it often happens that to point out the existence of certain feelings is to destroy them. To say, “Be my friend,” as often as not makes friendship impossible. Mrs. Vansittart was too clever a woman to run such a risk in dealing with a man in whom she had detected a reserve of which the rest of the world had taken no account. It is unwise to enter into war or friendship without seeing to the reserves.
“Do you remember,” asked Mrs. Vansittart, suddenly, “how wise we were when we were young? What knowledge of the world, what experience of life one has when all life is before one!”
“Yes,” admitted Cornish, guardedly.
“But if I preached a great deal, I at all events did you no harm,” said Mrs. Vansittart, with a laugh.
“No.”
“And as to experience, well, one buys that later.”
“Yes; and the wise re-sell—at a profit,” laughed Cornish. “It is not a commodity that any one cares to keep. If we cannot sell it, we offer it for nothing, to the young.”