“i’ve seen the interloper,” said elizabeth.
she was walking with john by the river. he had called for her at the green man, and had proposed a walk.
“yes?” said john. there was enquiry in his tone.
“he isn’t,” said elizabeth, “in the remotest degree what i imagined him, except for his size. he—well, it is extraordinarily difficult to describe him.”
“you feel that?”
“there’s something so childlike about him,” pursued elizabeth. “if i were to attempt to put into words what i mean, he seems to me like a child, who had started out to get something, entirely sure that he wanted it; and then, when he found it in his grasp, he discovered it to be totally different from what he imagined it. he expected [pg 247]a sort of toy, and he has found an enormous responsibility. he doesn’t know what to make of it. he is utterly perplexed, and it hasn’t occurred to him that the simplest plan would be to renounce it.”
john opened eyes of wonder.
“i always knew you were shrewd, my dear elizabeth,” he remarked, “but how you have arrived at these conclusions in so brief a space of time, beats me altogether.”
“then you think i’m right?” she demanded.
“i am pretty sure of it. but the thing is, that he sees the responsibility without exactly recognizing it, and, as you say, the simple way out of the difficulty hasn’t occurred to him in consequence.”
elizabeth mused, looking at the running water.
“but that’s not all,” she went on. “there’s more i can’t fathom. these are merely material difficulties to grapple with. he is faced with something deeper. you can call me absurd if you like. i daresay i am being a little exalté, but he has a look in his eyes as if he had caught a glimpse of the vision beautiful, and he is a bit bewildered.”
“oh, no,” said john quietly, “i’ll not call you absurd.”
elizabeth cast a quick look at him and lapsed [pg 248]into silence. the second problem was already absorbing her vastly more than the first. it was infinitely greater, the issue infinitely more important. to the first problem, when david had once grasped it fairly, there was so simple a solution, did he but choose to take it. in any case, however, it was, to her mind, on another plane. it didn’t belong to the same category as this second problem. of course you may say that the mental problem existed solely in elizabeth’s imagination. but then she did not think it did; nor, you will realize, did john.
suddenly she spoke again, and quite irrelevantly to her former remarks.
“what particular interest has—sir david, i suppose i must call him, in dress clothes?”
“dress clothes?” queried john bewildered.
“dress clothes,” reiterated elizabeth. “i happened to say—quite idly, you understand,—that you’d sooner go without your dinner than not dress for it. he asked me if i meant that, and when i replied that i did, i saw at once that, far from being the little trivial matter i had believed it, it was, to him, of the most vital and grave importance.”
[pg 249]
“oh, my dear elizabeth!” john’s eyebrows went up. he gazed at his sister in comical dismay.
“well?” demanded elizabeth. “you would.”
“oh, i daresay,” said john ruefully. “but—well, the man hasn’t a dress suit. apparently he doesn’t possess such a thing, and father maloney swore that it was an entirely unnecessary article in the country. corin and i dined at delancey castle in morning dress to keep him in countenance. and now you—” he broke off.
contrition, profound and utter contrition, wrote itself on elizabeth’s face.
“i ought to have guessed there was something momentous in the question,” she said remorsefully, “and yet how could i! how small i must have made him feel!”
“and what a cheat he must think father maloney!” said john grimly. “he’ll believe we were all laughing at him in our sleeves.”
“you needn’t rub it in,” groaned elizabeth. “these kind of horrid little contretemps make one feel guiltier and more remorseful than quite a good-sized venial sin. you needn’t tell me i’ve no business to feel like that. of course i haven’t. but kindly remember it’s only in my feelings and not [pg 250]in my reason, i’m experiencing the sensation. what can i do? tell him i was only joking?”
“he’ll not believe you,” john assured her, “though certainly your remark was, i trust, not intended to be taken in deadly earnest. perhaps,” continued john hopefully, “it may open his eyes a little more to his unsuitability for the position of head of delancey castle.”
“it may,” said elizabeth succinctly, “but all the same i wish i hadn’t lent a hand to the operation. it’s nearly as bad as forcing open the eyes of a two-days-old kitten. i’d far sooner have left the business to time.”
“time,” remarked john gloomily, “is an old cheat. you never know what he will be up to. he has a way of contracting hours into briefest seconds when you want their full value, and of expanding them into an eternity when you’ve no use for them. oh! he’s a wily beggar is time.”
elizabeth laughed.
“what is it?” she asked. “hadn’t you better make a clean breast of it?”
“of what?” demanded john evasively.
“the exact manner of time’s trickery,” responded elizabeth. “or anything else you please. [pg 251]of course i know there’s something on your mind.”
“you profess to be a reader of minds?”
“not a bit of it,” smiled elizabeth. “only, having eyes in my head, i use them. also, having been endowed with a certain amount of intelligence i use that also. and adding the two together——”
“you have guessed?” queried john.
“a dim guess,” said elizabeth, “and one which will find no outlet in speech without further proof.”
she sat down on a tree trunk.
“let us rest,” said she.
john stretched himself on the grass at her feet.
“well,” he said, “perhaps your guess is right.”
“there is someone?” she demanded, promptly forgetting her former announcement.
john nodded.
“ah!” elizabeth’s eyes gleamed. “and of course it can only be the one someone. i am glad.”
“so would i be,” returned john, “if it weren’t such a one-sided affair.”
“you mean that she doesn’t—” elizabeth broke off, dismay in voice and eyes.
[pg 252]
“oh, i don’t know,” said john gloomily. “how can i tell? she’s friendly, she’s—she’s adorable, but—” he flung out his hand, as who should say, “and there’s the whole of it.”
“you haven’t asked her?”
“asked her!” john’s tone was almost scornful. “where’s your intuition, my dear sister? wouldn’t you see me in permanent radiant joy, or black despair, if i had? as it is, i am swinging from the one to the other, and the swing of the pendulum stays down infinitely longer than it stays up. there’s old time at his games.” he pulled at the rushes by the river bank.
“but,” quoth elizabeth calmly, “why don’t you ask her?”
“ask her! i have not known her a fortnight yet. i have only seen her eight times.”
“it has been enough for you,” said elizabeth, still calmly.
“for me, yes,” allowed john. “but for her! there’s the crux of the matter. what have i got to offer her?” his tone was despairing.
elizabeth looked at him. there was the gleam of a tender smile in her eyes.
[pg 253]
“just the one thing,” she said softly, “that is of the smallest value. yourself.”
“but—” began john.
elizabeth interrupted him.
“listen,” she said, and there was a curious earnestness in her voice, “if she doesn’t care for you yourself, nothing else you could offer would have the smallest value in her eyes. at least, not if she’s the woman i take her to be. and she must be that woman, or i don’t for a moment believe you would love her. oh, john, dear, don’t you understand that women, the right kind of women, don’t want the external things a man can give? they want him himself, and the things that are part of him, the things without which he wouldn’t be himself at all. i mean love, loyalty, friendship. i don’t believe the majority of people have a notion how important the last is. that is why there are so few ideal marriages.”
“hum!” mused john.
“it’s true,” said elizabeth.
“then what is your advice?” demanded john.
“ask her, of course.” elizabeth’s tone was refreshingly certain. “you can’t expect her to propose, can you? how do you know that time [pg 254]isn’t playing exactly the same tricks with her? ask her,” reiterated elizabeth, “at the very first opportune moment.”
“that,” said john laughing ruefully, “is precisely what i have been waiting for.”
