People Like That: A Novel

by Kate Langley Bosher

"But certainly a woman doesn't expect a man to think just as she thinks, to feel as she feels, to see as she sees, nor does he expect her to see and feel and think his way in all things. As individuals they—"

"Of course I wouldn't expect, wouldn't want my husband to feel toward all things as I feel. I would not want a stupid husband with no mind of his own! You know very well it is nothing of that sort. If, however, we cared not at all for the same sort of books; if we saw little alike in art and literature, in music or morals, in science or religion; if the same interests did not appeal; if to the same impulse there was no response—we could hardly hope for genuine comradeship. In most of those things we are together, but life is so much bigger than things, and in our ideas of life and what to do with it we are pretty far apart."

"Are we? Are you very sure? Are you perfectly sure, Danny, that we are so very far apart?"

Something warm and sweet, so tempestuously sweet that it terrified, for a moment surged, and, half-blinded, I looked up at him. "Do you mean—?" My fingers interlocked with his.

"That I would like to live in Scarborough Square?" He smiled unsteadily and shook his head. "No, I wouldn't know how to live there. I wouldn't fit in. I am just myself. You are a dozen selves in one. But I am beginning to see dimly what you see clearly. Concerning my selfishness there is certainly nothing hazy. The walls around my house have been pretty high, and perhaps they should come down. You have much to teach me. I have a habit of questioning—"

"So have I. All thinking people question. But in spite of my questioning, perhaps because of it, I know now that my life—must count. It isn't mine to use just for myself, or in the easiest way. If there's anything to it, I've got to share it. Down in Scarborough Square I've been seeing myself in the old life, and when I go back to it I cannot—keep silent concerning what I have learned. I think perhaps we've failed—the men and women of our world even more discouragingly than the men and women of the worlds I've learned to know. As your wife you might not care to have me say—"

I stopped, silenced by the view which lay revealed before us, then I gave a little cry. Peak after peak of tree-filled mountains raised their heads to a sky of brilliant blue whose foam-clouds curled and tumbled in fantastic shapes, and in the valley below was the silence and peace of a place unpeopled. I turned to Selwyn, and long resistance yielding to that for which there was no words, I let him see the fulness of surrender. For a long moment we did not speak, then I drew away from his arms. "We must get out. It is a heavenly vision. I want—"

Getting down from the high, old-fashioned buggy, Selwyn held his arms out to me, lifted me in them to the ground. "I, too, want here—my heavenly vision." It was difficult to hear him. Drawing my face to his, he kissed me again. "You have told me that you loved me. You are mine and I am going to marry you."

He turned his head and listened, in his face something of the old impatience. The soft whir of an automobile broke the silence of the sun-filled, breeze-blown air, and I made effort to draw away from Selwyn's arms. "Some one is coming," I said, under my breath. "Shall we go on or stay here?"

"Stay here. Why not?" Frowningly, Selwyn for a moment waited, then, with his hand holding mine, we walked nearer the edge of the mountain's plateau and looked at the ribbon-like road that wound up to its top. The noise of the engine was more distinct than the car, but gradually the latter could be seen clearly, and presently three figures were distinguished in it.