“Quite a lady. You can see she hasn’t been bringing in trays all her life.”
Andy beamed at his guest, for he was at that stage of sentiment when an ordinary man or woman can no more help match-making than they can help breathing—though men carefully hide the craving. And after all, it is the most generous part of love—that desire to pass on happiness.
“Mrs. Jebb is so—so”—he sought for an adjective which should truthfully recommend the lady—“so chatty.”
“Now,” said Mr. Kirke, with the air of a connoiseur, “I can understand that woman fascinating a man who liked the airy-fairy type. It’s a matter of taste. For my part I like an armful. Always have. Always shall.”
So Andy saw that his first attempt at match-making had failed, and a few minutes later he allowed his guest to depart without protest. Then Mrs. Jebb went up to bed, after extinguishing the lamps in the hall and dining-room according to custom, and Andy sat down in his familiar seat by the study table.
He removed the sheet of blotting-paper which covered his little heap of manuscript and shook down the ink in his pen—after that he looked across the garden, though all was black darkness there and clouds had covered the stars; for it had already become a habit for him to sit at that table and look forth so. And Andy’s mother would have yearned and wondered if he had had one—to see the change in her boy. Boy still, beneath it all, as the best men are until their dying day—but putting on the mask of manhood. For loneliness and responsibility form such a forcing-house for qualities hitherto dormant that developments take place which seem almost incredible in the time.
The lamplight caught Andy’s face, which no stress could ever make anything but round and jolly-looking. He would always have, even in the deepest adversity, the appearance of a happy person who has been wounded by some incomprehensible mistake; but he looked now strong enough to suffer without bitterness—and that is, after all, the final test of strength.
As he glanced out into the soft dark of the garden with no one watching him to put his face on guard, his eyes gradually grew luminous. It was clear enough that he watched a dream. All the hot vigour of a young man’s love flowed in a molten tide into his imagination, where it blazed up and made a crimson, leaping glorious flame that enabled Andy to see quite clearly the City of Married Love as it looks to the eyes of a pilgrim. The high towers—the secret streets—the tender mist that glorifies the Enchanted Muddle—he seemed close to the gate as he sat there staring at the dim form of the trees against a starless sky.
Then the reading-lamp began to smell because Mrs. Jebb had forgotten the oil that morning, and of course Andy lost sight of his dream when it became necessary to extinguish the lamp and light a couple of candles.
But even that interruption did not cool the fire within him; it only blew across the leaping flames and caused the embers underneath to burn more fierce and even—a still, red heart of fire.