Balloons | Page 2

imagined herself in humble surrender, laying her strong
personality at the feet of a still stronger one and being gently lifted up

on to a pedestal. It was curious, she thought, that her wonderful, unique
gift of tenderness should go unperceived. But how is one to show that
one is tender? It is so difficult for a maiden lady, living alone. She saw
visions of a huge man with whimsical, smiling eyes, who after seeing
her two or three times would call at her cottage. He would stand in the
door and simply say, "Ellen," and she would put her head on his
shoulder and cry gently while he stroked her hair. "Does my loving you
make you sad, little one?" he would say, and she would answer, "No,
no, they are tears of happiness."
Miss Wilcox thought it would be delightful to be called "little one."
And then, rather nervously and tremulously, she would murmur, "I am
afraid I am not very beautiful," and he would laugh a deep, joyous
laugh and say, "To me, you are the most beautiful woman in the
world."
But it never happened. Even the chinless curate, whose voice without
consonants gave the effect of an intoning bumble-bee, never took
advantage of her suggestions (frequently repeated) that he should drop
in to tea.
She tried to learn lawn-tennis and chess, but driving a ball into a net
and studying problems in the Sunday papers becomes very monotonous.
It was extraordinary how little provision life seemed to have made for
superior people with fastidious tastes, whereas an empty head and a
pretty face conquers the world! Miss Wilcox was very proud of the
epigram, "empty heads and pretty faces." She used it frequently, more
in sorrow than in anger. Vera was an excellent example. She was
incapable of "conducting a conversation," she never read a book, but
simply because her eyes sparkled and somehow or other, she always
reminded you of a Shepperson drawing, she was invariably surrounded
by a host of adorers. She was indifferent to the axioms, "boys will be
boys" and "gentlemen are different." In her philosophy, "girls would be
boys" and the difference between the sexes was simply one of what you
might and might not do.
"A positive savage," Miss Wilcox would explain and then, "You should
be more womanly, dear; men like a womanly woman." And Vera's eyes

would sparkle maliciously, for men undoubtedly did like Vera.
I do not know at what moment in life, if ever, we realise that we are
neither George Sands nor Juliets. Of course, if we are not beautiful, we
recognise early that beauty is nothing. What are features? The only
thing that matters is to have charm and expression. Then comes that
horrible gnawing doubt of our own magnetism. Is it possible that,
though we are not lovely, we are not irresistible either? That we will
have to go through life belonging neither to the triumphantly beautiful
nor to the triumphantly ugly? Miss Wilcox knew that she was not
exactly clever. But after all, what is prettiness and "men don't like
clever women." So she consoled herself with the thought that though
her manner "permitted no liberties," the warm tenderness of her true
nature must be apparent to the really discerning.
Poor Miss Wilcox! She had tried brightness and common-sense, Milton
and lawn-tennis, the arch and the aloof. She would have liked to have
been seductive and a little wicked, but she had found it easier to be
dignified and very good. Easier but no more satisfactory. Evidently
charm was a strange, mysterious thing, for which there was no recipe.
A dangerous force governing many things and subject to no law.
Every one was kind to Miss Wilcox. Lady Mary (Vera's mother) was
always asking her to picnics and lawn-tennis, parties and festivities of
all sorts. On these occasions, Sir Harry invariably chaffed her about the
curate, little knowing that his foolish jokes were a source of exquisite
and almost guilty pleasure to her. Was it, she wondered, altogether fair
to let him think that Mr. Simpson loved her? But she did enjoy it so
much, the nervous agonising sense of expectancy and then the sudden
hot blush. "Their little secret," Sir Harry called it and though, of course,
it was very wicked of her to let him continue under a misapprehension,
it was so difficult to clear the matter up, as, the more she protested, the
more confused she became, the more he was bound to think that there
was something in it.
Poor Miss Wilcox, battling with her conscience when Mr. Simpson's
passion was an invention of Vera's to whom old maids and curates were
simply stage properties. Vera with her long legs and her laughing eyes

and her happy, unimaginative youth--how was