“A war widow is an interesting personality,” he said, in rasping tones. “I grant you that! Just now she is the ‘rage’—the pivot of smart society! She gets herself up in the most attractive way—wears the most enchanting headgear adorned with a long, flowing, airy, black veil, and when she has a pretty face looks a pathetic picture. And she goes on posing with the pathos and the veil, till she finds another man to replace the one she has lost. All very natural and nice! But I don’t see why you should ‘pose’ in the fashionable attitude! You were not engaged to the missing Jack—and if we take it for granted—as we must—that he is dead, you have no occasion to seek for some one in his stead. You have the offer of a husband who would be kind to you and protect you to the utmost of his power—who would love you—”
She looked up, her eyes wet and sorrowful.
“Ah, no!” she said in a thrilling voice. “Not love! You do not know what love is or you would not hurt me!”
He was taken aback for a moment—her accents were so plaintive.
“Have I hurt you?” And he was conscious of a sense of shame. “Really? Well—I apologise! Of course you think me a clumsy brute—I dare say I am—I can’t help myself—”
“You could help yourself!” she said, almost passionately. “Yes, you could if you tried! You could help being cruel! You are cruel in your cold, sharp words!—your cynical estimate of all that makes life worth living! As for Jack, if you had once realised the awfulness of war—if you could, with all your cleverness, reading and learning, get imagination enough to picture him or any other brave young man lying dead on the battle-field, half trampled in mud, all the beautiful, gay, strong spirit of him gone for ever,—oh!—you surely would have some sort of feeling!—even for me!—for his poor father!—you would not, could not put it aside as a light matter for ill-placed jesting! You know—yes, you know very well that I would never ‘pose’ as a war widow,—so why do you say such an unkind thing?”
Her sweet face, quivering with suppressed pain moved him more than her words. He rose from his comfortable chair, stretched himself and smiled,—then came over to her where she sat.
“We are getting melodramatic,” he said, “and that will never do! As I before said, I apologise! You are not a war widow. And you will not ‘pose’ as one. Good! That’s settled. You will put the missing Jack in a shrine of your own fancy and surround his image with the incense of a sentimental faith. And you will not marry me? No, certainly not! Not yet! But—perhaps—some day! I do not lose hope—I am not disheartened! Dear child, I am very sorry to have said anything to vex you—try to forget it! But when you are calm again—when you are quite normal—I want you to think quietly to yourself—think sensibly in a perfectly matter-of-fact way—that life is not as the vulgar put it ‘all beer and skittles’—nor is it all honey and roses, and women have more or less a difficult time of it if they are alone in the world. They ought to be treated kindly; but they are not. Now I offer myself as a sort of wall,—the kind of wall through which Pyramus and Thisbe—(that is to say, Sentiment and Folly) may just peer at intervals—a wall against which you may lean without any fear of knocking it down. A wall is not a pretty thing—but it is sometimes useful. In short”—here he very gently laid his hand on her bent head—“I am here if you want me,—I don’t hesitate to say that I shall be glad if you do want me!—but,—if you don’t—why then I must just grin and bear it!—and do my best to be unselfish!”
A sudden surprise smote her, touched with remorse. There were “points” in his curious temperament and character which she had not recognised, and to which she had scarcely done justice. One of these “points” was that being selfish he knew that he had that failing. It is a great achievement for any man, especially a “philosopher,”—to know and to recognise his chief fault, even while still persisting in it. She looked up from under the touch of his hand on her head and smiled.
“What a pleasant man you might be if you liked!” she said, impulsively. “Only—”