‘True love is always unmistakable,’ replied his mother, who, in her time, had married the late James Dadd from a feeling that anything would be preferable to prolonged existence with Lady Kirk-Hammerton.
‘Yes; but it must have different manifestations. I remember when Tom Clifford was engaged to that Menzies girl he couldn’t bear her out of his sight, never let any other man have half a dozen words with her. Now, I don’t mind who Gundred talks to, or what she says—not a scrap. And—well, it’s always a joy to see her, of course—everyone must feel that—but I haven’t any wish to go about all day at the end of her hat-ribbon. Is that because I am cold-blooded, or is it the proper normal thing to feel?’
‘My dear boy is so full of chivalry,’ answered Lady Adela with affectionate vagueness. ‘No nice girl would like to be too much monopolized. It is hardly delicate.’
‘One had a sort of notion,’ continued Kingston, unregarding, ‘that love-making was more of a desperate flesh-and-blood affair. I suppose the real thing is more ethereal than the everlasting philanderings that one reads about. Heaven knows, they are earthly enough.’
‘Marriages are made in heaven,’ replied his mother reverentially.
‘And love is made on earth, I gather—at least, love of the novelist’s sort. Certainly marriage is happier in every way—calmer, less discomposing, more orderly and decent and—and—abstract, as it were. I cannot imagine anyone not loving Gundred. She appeals to everything that is best in one. And the crowning mercy of it all is that she never gives one thrills of any kind, never rouses any primitive, prosaic emotions. She is always just what one expects—gentle and charming and satisfactory—and nothing else. There is no intoxication about her. And, really, you know, that is a relief. One had imagined that love—love in the completest sense—was a kind of celestial drunkenness. It is a tremendous relief to find that it is only a quiet temperance drink after all—the Water of Life, as it were. I don’t think either my head or my stomach care very much for intoxicants.’
‘Your dear father was just the same,’ replied Lady Adela calmly; ‘two glasses of port never failed to upset him. Some people’s interiors are so sensitive. If one is in the least troubled that way, it is far better never to touch stimulants. Or peppermint, they say, does wonders.’
‘One has wrestled through loves of different kinds,’ said Kingston, securely continuing his soliloquy, ‘and it is certainly a blessed surprise to find that the real thing is placid and satisfying. The hunger and thirst of passion are fierce and dreadful—it never seemed likely that perfect happiness could be found in the mere appeasing of them. I am sure I much prefer the lasting, tranquil completeness of an emotion to the feverish clamour of an appetite. And that, after all, is what most people seem to mean by love. I have always rather hated violence and brutal manifestations. They seem a little vulgar, very crude and indecent, very unworthy of our higher emotional powers.’
‘My boy is so full of nice feeling,’ said Lady Adela; ‘violence is a terrible thing. I remember I once saw a dog run over by a tram. I have never forgotten it.’
‘One feels a certain something solid and eternal about real love,’ went on her son, contentedly talking to himself aloud under pretence of addressing his mother. ‘It is a huge level tract of feeling, stretching out into the immensities, without anything to break the enormous flat surface of it. It goes on for ever and ever, without valleys or pinnacles, or rough places of any kind. And surely that is better than perpetually scrambling up peaks and falling off them again, into abysses. Real love is not a mountain track; it is a solid turnpike road with a smooth, sound surface. One’s life jogs along it imperceptibly, and one’s attention need not be kept fixed on the driving to see where one is going. With Gundred I feel that I am with someone whom I have known for ages in the past, and whom I shall continue to know for ages in the future, without jars or disconnections. There is something monumental, something filling about the sensation. People who find the hot rough-and-tumble pandemian love enough for them would think the real heavenly feeling stodgy and perhaps—well, perhaps even a little dull. It does lack diversity somehow. It offers repletion without any sauces to appetise. But, then, I suppose the immensities must of necessity seem monotonous to our small, jigging intelligences.’