A Duet (with an occasional chorus) | Page 7

I have given an impulse to your life: that you read more,
study more, take a keener interest in everything. You could not
possibly have said a thing which could have given me more pleasure
than that. It is splendid! It justifies me in aspiring to you. It satisfies my
conscience over everything which I have done. It must be right if that is
the effect. I have felt so happy and light-hearted ever since you said it.
It is rather absurd to think that I should improve you, but if you in your
sweet frankness say that it is so, why, I can only marvel and rejoice.
But you must not study and work too hard. You say that you do it to
please me, but that would not please me. I'll tell you an anecdote as a
dreadful example. I had a friend who was a great lover of Eastern
literature, Sanskrit, and so on. He loved a lady. The lady to please him
worked hard at these subjects also. In a month she had shattered her
nervous system, and will perhaps never be the same again. It was
impossible. She was not meant for it, and yet she made herself a martyr
over it. I don't mean by this parable that it will be a strain upon your
intellect to keep up with mine. But I do mean that a woman's mind is
DIFFERENT from a man's. A dainty rapier is a finer thing than a
hatchet, but it is not adapted for cutting down trees all the same.
Rupton Hale, the architect, one of the few friends I have down here, has
some most deplorable views about women. I played a round of the
Byfleet Golf Links with him upon Wednesday afternoon, and we
discussed the question of women's intellects. He would have it that they
have never a light of their own, but are always the reflectors of some
other light which you cannot see. He would allow that they were
extraordinarily quick in assimilating another person's views, but that
was all. I quoted some very shrewd remarks which a lady had made to
me at dinner. 'Those are the traces of the last man,' said he. According
to his preposterous theory, you could in conversation with a woman
reconstruct the last man who had made an impression to her. 'She will
reflect you upon the next person she talks to,' said he. It was ungallant,
but it was ingenious.

Dearest sweetheart, before I stop, let me tell you that if I have brought
any happiness into your life, you have brought far, far more into mine.
My soul seemed to come into full being upon the day when I loved you.
It was so small, and cramped, and selfish, before--and life was so hard,
and stupid, and purposeless. To live, to sleep, to eat, for some years,
and then to die--it was so trivial and so material. But now the narrow
walls seem in an instant to have fallen, and a boundless horizon
stretches around me. And everything appears beautiful. London Bridge,
King William Street, Abchurch Lane, the narrow stair, the office with
the almanacs and the shining desks, it has all become glorified, tinged
with a golden haze. I am stronger: I step out briskly and breathe more
deeply. And I am a better man too. God knows there was room for it.
But I do try to make an ideal, and to live up to it. I feel such a fraud
when I think of being put upon a pedestal by you, when some little hole
where I am out of sight is my true place. I am like the man in Browning
who mourned over the spots upon his 'speckled hide,' but rejoiced in
the swansdown of his lady. And so, my own dear sweet little
swansdown lady, good-night to you, with my heart's love now and for
ever from your true lover,
FRANK.
Saturday! Saturday! Saturday! oh, how I am longing for Saturday,
when I shall see you again! We will go on Sunday and hear the banns
together.





CHAPTER III
--THE OVERTURE CONCLUDED

St. Albans, June 14th.

Dearest Frank,--What a dreadful thing it is to have your name shouted
out in public! And what a voice the man had! He simply bellowed
'Maude Selby of this parish' as if he meant all this parish to know about
it. And then he let you off so easily. I suppose he thought that there was
no local interest in Frank Crosse of Woking. But when he looked round
expectantly, after asking whether there was any known cause or just
impediment why we should not be joined together, it gave me quite a
thrill. I felt as if