The notable point in the psychology of these two marriages surely is that in neither case was the bride the free selection of the bridegroom, except in the sense that he was absolutely free to take or leave either. He never, strictly speaking, fell in love at all. He found himself in a well, and love trickled in. But even in this metaphor he never was over head and ears. He never wished to be a glove on any hand, to press any cheek. To call him passionately in love with either of the two sisters would have been just as absurd as to say that Romeo "got very fond" of Rosaline and Juliet. Exchange the phrases, and each fits its place. Challis got very fond of both his wives, being an affectionate sort of chap. But he remained a stranger to the divine intoxication which is known in its fulness only to Romeo and his like, and which some men never know at all.
Short of this last sort may often be found men who have escaped Romeo's experience early in life, yet whom some cunning context of circumstance may just upset, and convert for the moment into idiots as infatuated as the young Montague and Capulet we have cried over so many a time. For our own part, we count none quite safe from what is really an ennobling phase of sheer madness; except it be, for instance, a Charles the Second, a Rochester, a Tiberius, or a Joe Smith. Id genus omne is safe enough.
[CHAPTER XXIII]
HOW CHALLIS CALLED ON MISS ARKROYD IN GROSVENOR SQUARE. A SPRAINED ANKLE. ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE. KING SOLOMON AND HIS DJINN BOTTLE
Mr. Elphinstone, responsible for No. 101, Grosvenor Square, and the morals and dignity of the family that dwelt in it, was not without uneasiness about the literary and artistic circles that his two young ladies had elected to move in. This description is superficial; it judges from externals. Say that Mr. Elphinstone's appearance conveyed that he, like Atlas, had the whole house on his shoulders—was practically answerable for the honourable repute of all his subordinates, and morally for that of his superiors. That was the construction Alfred Challis felt obliged to put on such flawless shaving; such a weighty deference to the slightest personalities—his own, for instance—on production of adequate credentials; such a hypnotic suggestion of having foregone an episcopate elsewhere to take service with a beloved family whose interests he had at heart. It was a construction not free from the derision Mr. Challis was in the habit of meting out to dignitaries of all sorts. In this case he may not have been free from personal feeling; for he must have been aware that Elphinstone regarded him as an interloper—one who outraged the sacred traditions of the household, calling at unearthly hours in a soft felt hat, and smoking on the doorstep until compelled to throw away too much cigar by hearing that the family was at home.
This is substantially what was happening about two hours after Mr. Eldridge had declined to shed any light on anything at all, and his wife had departed enjoining silence about Heaven-knows-what. Challis, désœuvré by the mystification, had found himself unable to invent any single thing a Scythian mercenary would have been likely to say in English blank verse, and an approach towards Marianne of a conciliatory sort was met by, "I must see Steptoe now about the dinner." Unfortunately, this speech was absolutely passionless; if it had only been tempersome, there might have been a row. And a row—as the Press delights to phrase it—might have spelt salvation. But Challis could see in it nothing that justified more than a languid "All right!" on his part. And he had departed to the banks of the Danube again, with no better success than before.
Presently his wife knocked at his door in an excluded, ostracised sort of way, and he got up to open it. She was dressed for going out. "I won't disturb you," she said. "Don't come out. I only wanted to say that if the man comes about the gas you had better see him, because he won't believe Steptoe, and the meter is certainly out of order. That's all."
It was one of those queer little turning-points of existence. Challis was not ready with any reply that would have caused a moment's delay and saved the situation. Before he could manage more than general assent, Marianne was gone, too far for anything short of demonstrative recall. He did not see his way to this, and the chance was lost.