In vain Flamby sought to reason with her unreasonable heart. What did she desire?—that Paul should love her? A hot flush crept all over her body. That his wife should die? Oh! what a coldly merciless thing was logic! Flamby at this point discovered that she had been weeping for quite a long time. She was very sorry for herself indeed; and recognising this in turn she began to laugh, perhaps rather hysterically. She was laughing when Mrs. Chumley came to look for her, nor could she stop.
"Whatever are you laughing about, dear? Has Don been telling you one of his ridiculous stories?"
"No. I just thought of a silly trifling thing, and began to laugh and couldn't leave off."
"Quite understand, dear. I've been like that. I once began laughing in the Tube; so unfortunate. And a man sitting opposite became really annoyed. He had a very odd nose, you see, and he thought I was laughing at it. I could see he thought so, which made me laugh all the more. I had to get out at the next station, dear. Most ridiculous, because I wasn't laughing at the poor man's nose at all, I was laughing at his funny umbrella."
X
Six months stole almost unobserved into a dim land of memories. The war, which ate up all things, did not spare the almanack; and what should appear to later generations as the most stirring period in the world's history, appeared to many of those who lived through it in London as a dreary blank in their lives, a hiatus, an interval of waiting—a time to be speedily forgotten when its dull aches were no more and absent dear ones again worked side by side for simple ends, and the sweeter triumphs of peace. Some there were whose sorrows drove them like Sarak in quest of the Waters of Oblivion, but, to all, those days were poppy days, unreal and meaningless; transitionary, as a bridge between unlike states.
Flamby made progress at Guilder's, growing more and more familiar with the technique of her art, but, under the careful guidance of Hammett, never losing that characteristic nonchalance of style which was the outstanding charm of her work. So many professors seem to regard their pupils as misshapen creatures, who must be reduced to a uniform pattern, but Hammett was not as one of these. He encouraged originality whilst he suppressed eccentricity, and although, recognising the budding genius in the girl's work, he lavished particular care upon her artistic development, he never tried to make love to her, which proved that he was not only a good painter, but also a sound philosopher. He took her to lunch once or twice to Regali's, which created a coterie of female enemies, but Flamby regarded all women in a more charitable manner since her meeting with Mrs. Chumley, and some of her enemies afterwards became her friends, for she bore them no malice, but sought them out and did her utmost to understand them. Her father had taught her to despise the pettiness of women, but in Mrs. Chumley's sweet sympathy she had found a new model of conduct. Her later philosophy was a quaint one.
"It isn't fair, Mrs. Chumley," she said one day, sitting on the settee in her little room, knees drawn up to chin and her arms embracing them—"it isn't fair to hate a girl for being spiteful. You might as well hate a cat for killing mice."
"Quite agree, dear. I am glad you think so."
"Women are different from men. They haven't got the same big interests in life, and they are not meant to have. I am sorry for women who have to live alone and fight for themselves. But I can't be sorry for those who want to fight. Loneliness must be very terrible, and there is really no such thing as a girl friend after school days, is there? Except for very ugly girls or very daft ones."