“If you don’t you’ll be carried!” returned Craig, firmly. “Make up your mind to that! And now let’s get to bed—you’re tired and I’m tired! Weddings are very exhausting affairs for all concerned—even for the bride and bridegroom.”
They left the study together and at the foot of the staircase which led to the upper rooms, Dr. Maynard paused—
“Craig,” he said, with pathetic earnestness. “Do you think she will be happy?”
The Philosopher looked at the old, frail figure compassionately. “Of course she will!” he replied. “Why shouldn’t she be? She has everything to make her so!”
“Yes—yes! That’s all very well!” and Maynard gave a half deprecating gesture. “But when the years go on, when the novelty has worn off—will she be able to live the life of social excitement wealth entails?—will she realise the wonderful love she has dreamed of? For she has always been a little dreamer of ideals—beautiful ideals all!—ideals such as the world loves to pull down into ruin!”
The Philosopher felt a little pang. Too well he knew the “ideals” of the little “Sentimentalist,” and too well he was aware that he himself had discouraged them and striven to pull them down—and yet—and yet—he had done his utmost to give her the “ideal” love he imagined she recognised in Jack Durham. He pulled himself together.
“We must leave all that to her husband,” he said. “He adores her—and depend upon it he will make her happy—that is as happy as any woman can be. You must bear in mind, Maynard”—here he became almost academical in tone—“that no woman is ever happy for long! It isn’t in her nature to be satisfied. When she has got one thing she wants another—and so on to the end of the chapter. But Sylvia has too good and sweet a character to be as variable and restless as most of her sex. Having Jack she has her heart’s desire—she doesn’t want Me!—or any other man! Good night!”
They parted then; but when he had locked himself in his bedroom the Philosopher went to its old-fashioned lattice window and threw it widely open. The night was beautiful; clear moonlight flooded the whole garden space, and he could see the winding alley of the rose-walk where on one never-to-be-forgotten day he had “lacerated” his hand in trying to gather a blush rose-bud for the “rose-lady” and she had “kissed the place and made it well.” It was a trifling incident, but to the would-be stoical and grimly cynical mind of the “Philosopher” it had meant a great deal. And now! Well!—now this was the first night of her honeymoon;—this was her marriage moonlight; and he—he stood outside the garden of Eden with no more roses to gather! Learning and scholarship, fame itself, seemed utterly worthless in comparison with the union of hearts beating with and for each other—the wisdom of the ages was dull, wearisome and all unsatisfying measured against the enchantment of tender eyes and caressing hands; and it was with something of a sharp mental pang that he recalled the sound of a sweet voice softly reciting from “Endymion” the “honey and water” lines—
“The silver flow
Of Hero’s tears, the swoon of Imogen,
Fair Pastorella in the bandit’s den,
Are things to brood on with more urgency
Than the death-day of empires!”
“True enough!” he murmured, addressing the quiet air. “When one is young—true enough! But when one is old—”