“It may be, for all I know,” she parried. “But I should think two modern young people would know when they—”
“But do they, always? A man may behave exactly like the Duke, have all the symptoms, and not guess for the longest while what really is the matter with him. Frequently he blames it on the wrong lady. Sometimes somebody has to take him aside and speak roundly to him—the girl’s father, for instance. And there are enough bad marriages to make me believe that lovers often make a wrong diagnosis. It’s still a mystery to me. Cupid and his arrows was not a bad theory. He was a wretched shot, you know; frightfully bad. That would explain a lot of mismating.”
“But the Countess?” she persisted. “She wanted to marry a woman just because she found her dressed in man’s clothing; and what did she do later? Promptly switched off to the lady’s brother, Sebastian. There! I have settled your theory. She had never seen Sebastian before. She couldn’t get any—any pestilence or plague from a man who wasn’t about.”
Blynn laughed. “I didn’t want to lecture to you; but the theory is rather complicated and you have hit upon a fine illustration. How far can love carry? We say, as far as one can see distinctly. The Elizabethans put no limit—as far as the ends of the earth, to the very stars and back again.
“Beatrice and Benedict are in love long before they know it. Petruchio has picked out his Katharine before he sees her. Viola is in love with the Duke the moment she hears his name. You see, they took their cue from the carrying power of the mysterious plague. Look the way La Grippe is ravaging us; and we think it has travelled from the Far East. Besides, they believed the stars arranged all this sort of thing. We don’t believe in fate. Therefore we make ourselves too wise. I incline toward the Elizabethan theory. Do you know Crashaw’s lines ‘To His Supposed Mistress’?
‘Who’er she be
That not impossible She
That shall command my heart and me;
Wher’er she lie,
Locked up from mortal eye