"It wasn't about being married that he was disappointed," said Peggy. "You can be disappointed about other things, you know," she explained indulgently.
"Oh," said Philip.
"Yes. Haven't you ever been disappointed yourself? Wanting to go to a party, and not being allowed to at the last minute, and all that?"
"Oh, yes," agreed Philip. "Not parties, but other things. But I didn't know grown-up people could be disappointed about anything. I thought they could do anything they liked."
Hitherto Philip, simple soul, had regarded disappointment and hope deferred as part of the necessary hardships of youth, bound to melt away in due course, in company with toothache, measles, tears, treats, early bedtimes, and compulsory education, beneath the splendid summer sun of incipient manhood. Most of us cherish the same illusion; and the day upon which we first realise that quarrels and reconciliations, wild romps and reactionary dumps, big generous impulses and little acts of petty selfishness, secret ambitions and passionate longings, are not mere characteristics of childhood, to be abandoned at some still distant milestone, but will go on with us right through life, is the day upon which we become grown up.
To some of us that day comes early, and whenever it comes it throws us out of our stride—sometimes quite seriously. But in time, if we are of the right metal, we accept the facts of the situation, shake ourselves together, and hobble on cheerfully enough. In time this cheerfulness is increased by the acquisition of two priceless pieces of knowledge; one, that things are just as difficult for our neighbour as ourself; the other, that by far the greatest troubles in life are those which never arrive, but expect to be met halfway.
It is the people who grow up early who do most good in the world, for they find their feet soonest. To others the day comes late,—usually in company with some great grief or loss,—and these are most to be pitied, for we all know that the older we get the harder it becomes to adapt ourselves to new conditions. Many a woman, for instance, passes from twenty years of happy childhood straight into twenty years of happy womanhood and motherhood without speculating very deeply as to whether she is happy or not. Then, perhaps, the Reaper comes, and takes her husband, or a child, and she realises that she is grown up. Her life will be a hard fight now. But, aided by the sweetness and strength of Memory, accumulated throughout the sunny years that lie behind, she too will win through.
There are others, again, to whom the day of growing-up never comes at all. They are the feeble folk, perpetually asking Why, and never finding out. Still, they always have to-morrow to look forward to, in which they are more fortunate than some.
Meanwhile Miss Marguerite Falconer was explaining to the untutored Philip that it is possible for grown-up people to suffer disappointment in two departments of life,—the only two, she might have added, that really matter at all,—Love and Work.
"How was your father disappointed, exactly?" asked Philip.