Phyllis of Philistia | Page 2

meant
to help him in his work."
"Ah, what a fool the man is! How could any man in his senses give up
a thing of flesh and blood like you, for the sake of proving or trying to
prove, that some people who lived five or six thousand years ago--if
they ever lived at all--would have rendered themselves liable to
imprisonment, without the option of a fine, if they lived in England
since the passing of certain laws--recent laws, too, we must remember!"
"Papa!"
"Anyhow, you have done with him, my dear. A man who can't see that
crime is really a question of temperament, and sin invariably a question
of geography--well, we'll say no more about it. At what hour did you
say he was coming?"
"Four. I don't think I shall break down."
"Break down? Why on earth should you break down? You have a mind
to know, and you know your own mind. That's everything. But of
course you've had no experience of matters of this sort. He was your
first real lover?"
Phyllis' face became crimson. She retained sufficient presence of mind,
however, to make a little fuss with the window-blind before letting it
down. Her father stared at her for a moment, and there was rather a
long pause before he laughed.
"I said 'real lover,' my dear," he remarked. "The real lover is the one
who talks definitely about dates and the house agent's commission. As
a rule the real lover does not make love. True love is born, not made.
But you--Heavens above! perhaps I did an injustice to you--to you and
to the men. Maybe you're not such a tyro after all, Phyllis."

Phyllis gave a very pretty little laugh--such a laugh as would have
convinced any man but a father--perhaps, indeed, some fathers--that
she was not without experience. Suddenly she became grave. Her father
never loved her so dearly as when that little laugh was flying over her
face, leaving its living footprints at the corners of her eyes, at the
exquisite curve of her mouth. It relieved her from the suspicion of
priggishness to which, now and again, her grave moods and appropriate
words laid her open. She was not so proper, after all, her father now felt;
she was a girl with the experiences of a girl who has tempted men and
seen what came of it.
She spoke:
"It is a very serious thing, giving a man your promise and then----"
"Then finding that your duty to him--to him, mind--forces you to tell
him that you cannot carry out that promise," said her father. "Yes, it is a
very serious thing, but not so serious as carrying out that promise
would be if you had even the least little feeling that at the end of three
months he was not a better man than you suspected he was at the
beginning. There's a bright side to everything, even a honeymoon; but
the reason that a honeymoon is so frequently a failure is because the
man is bound to be found out by his wife inside the month. It is better
that you found out now, than later on, that you could not possibly be
happy with a man who spoke slightingly of the patriarchs and their
wives. Now I'll leave you, with confidence that you will be able to
explain matters to Mr. Holland."
"What! you won't be here?"
Dismay was in the girl's face as she spoke. She had clearly looked for
the moral support of her father's presence while she would be making
her explanation to the man whom she had, a few months before,
promised to marry, but whom she had found it necessary to dismiss by
letter, owing to her want of sympathy in some of his recent utterances.
"You won't be here?"

"No; I have unfortunately an engagement just at that hour, Phyllis,"
replied Mr. Ayrton. "But do you really think there is any need for me to
be here? Personally, I fancy that my presence would only tend to
complicate matters. Your own feeling, your own woman's instinct, will
enable you to explain--well, all that needs explanation. I have more
confidence in your capacity to explain since you gave that pretty little
laugh just now. Experience--ah, the experience of a girl such as you are,
suggests an astronomer without a telescope. Still, there were
astronomers before there were telescopes; and so I leave you, my
beloved child--ah, my own child once again! No cold hand of a lover is
now between us."
It was not until he was some distance down Piccadilly that it occurred
to him that he should have pictured the lover with a warm hand; and
that omission on his part caused him a greater amount of irritation than
anyone