It is superfluous to follow this love episode any further. I have met ladies who are always passionately anxious to know “what he said” when a girl announces her engagement, and who need no encouragement to tell in return “how John did it.” But I am all against emotional indecency, and unless any private conversations in this book have to be recorded in the interests of research, or are betrayed by the genial indiscretions of sympathy, they will be omitted. Evan is the last person who would wish anything to be said of him in that moment when Nature, who had always laughed at his attempts to make her acknowledge the sovereignty of such Divine Rule as he was able to imagine, pushed Evangeline into his arms and commanded him to take her or suffer the pains of hell.
He saw no reason to refuse. But the end was not yet, though it had become inevitable. Evan had reserves. Evangeline’s gallant forces had a tough time of it before they won. Suspicion was the hardest to beat down; Evan’s sisters had helped to make that so strong. He reviewed his bonny black doubts every day, and led them out against Evangeline’s joys. But there was all the difference in the world between his sisters’ cheerfulness and hers. Their pleasure in life was that of mice in a granary, hers was that of a rush of invaders over a rich country; she wanted all there was. Her assurance that God loves His world was invincible. Evan’s doubts suffered casualties that put them out of action; but for a happy marriage they should all have been dead. The smallest remnant of a strong army is dangerous.
These battles went on unobserved by Cyril. Susie noticed and said nothing, because she knew that unasked advice to a girl precipitates a crisis, and she hoped in secret that Evangeline loved her freedom too much to do what her mother would call “anything rash,” such as binding herself in marriage before she had reviewed all likely candidates. As weeks went on she became more anxious. There was a look of settled happiness about Evangeline that was not what you would expect of a young girl, Susie said to herself. It is a mistake to wear the heart on the sleeve. One of the great joys of her own girlhood had been the security of living behind a veil of misty sweetness that allowed the public free scope for their imagination of what might be behind it and yet committed her to nothing. Misunderstandings had arisen in that way but she had not suffered and those who had done so had only their own imaginations to blame. She still made use of the veil, and the only person who made her feel nervous about it was Cyril. He had the knack of twitching it away, and never tired of the joke, which seemed to compensate him for the nothingness he exposed. In one way only, her disappointment about Evangeline’s choice was a good thing to her. She felt it as a revenge on her husband for his cynicism about women and the jibes he aimed at her about their duplicity towards men. “Perhaps he will see now,” she said to herself—her very soul bridling at the Spirit of Man—“that they do need protection after all. If he really cared for her I could have discussed it with him and he could have got another A.D.C. until this had blown over. As it is, it must just go on, and I can’t prevent it—with the man here all day while the sons of rich people are sitting on office stools, shuffling oats and sugar through their fingers. Why can’t some of them come and ride with her and show her their motors? And I suppose Dicky will marry a rent collector with a wooden leg, or a socialist who stands on a chair and wants to take away our money.” Her thoughts wandered into all sorts of bitter possibilities, not at all in keeping with the maxim that “if everyone were happy and contented everything would come right,” which she brought in so delightfully at Mrs. Carpenter’s little informal conferences on social reform. “Mrs. Fulton is so original in what she says,” was a remark constantly made. But true it was that she thought differently at the moment. Circumstances alter cases, as she so often said.
Because of this grievance of hers against him, Cyril was not told of her fears, and in due time Evangeline’s battle was won. Evan frowned on the tattered remnant of his doubts and bade them go home. He went in, his heart stumbling and stopping, to the study where Cyril was asleep after a day’s hunting, and shut the door.
Cyril came down early before dinner, and found Evangeline reading the evening paper in the drawing-room.
“Hullo,” he said.
“Hullo, dear,” she replied, and went on reading.
“So you and Hatton have fixed it up,” he began. Evangeline put down the paper, and looked up at him.
“Is that all right?” she asked. “You’re not cross, are you?”
“No, I’m not cross, my dear,” he said, as if he were thinking of something else. “I suppose you wouldn’t tell me any more, would you? Why you really want him, for instance.”