The Glory of the Conquered | Page 4

me!"--was her passionate prayer.

CHAPTER II
THE LETTER
What was that story the old Greeks told about love being the union--or
reunion--of the two halves of an originally perfect whole? The envious
gods--who were a very bad lot--cut the original perfect being in two.
Then love is a finding of one's own--also, a getting ahead of the gods. I
have more respect for the old Greeks to-night than I ever had before!
But you cannot know just how it is. You are younger than I, and I do
not believe the fear of life passing you by ever entered and chilled your
heart. You were always sure it was coming some time, weren't you, my
new-found little one? You could not have had that calm, sweet look in
those big eyes of yours had you feared the best of life might be
withheld from you. But can you fancy what it would mean to have felt
for many years that somewhere there was a cool, sweet spring of

eternal joy, and to become fearful your footsteps might never lead you
to those blessed waters? And then can you fancy the profound
thankfulness that would fill one's being, when after long wandering,
after several mistakes and disappointments, the music of those waters
was borne to the ear? And when, almost fearful to believe, and yet very,
very sure, one stepped a little nearer, can you fancy the joy in finding
the cooling breeze from that eternal spring upon one's face, of seeing it
there as one had ever dreamed of it, knowing that beside it one could
drink deep--long and very deep--of those life-giving, soul-satisfying
waters? Can you fancy the all-pervading thankfulness, almost
unbelievable joy, in that first hour of standing beside the long-desired,
the half-despaired of water of life?
"Thank God I was not weak enough to resign the whole for the half!
There was once a voice said to me: 'This is a pretty good spring. There
is not much chance of your finding the other. Why not take this?' But
something--your voice from a far distance?--called me on.
"A strange enough letter for a man to be writing the girl who has just
promised to marry him! Conventionally, I suppose, I should say to you:
'I never knew anything like this before.' And instead I am saying:
'There was something once of somewhat similar exterior. But I was
mistaken. I was disappointed.' But doesn't this make you see--dear new
love--dear real love--how happy I am, and why?
"But you poor little girl--how I've cheated you! Why, liebchen--God
bless the Germans for inventing that name for you--you were entitled to
weeks and weeks of beautiful, delicate courtship. Will you forgive me
for jumping right over those days when I should have sent you roses
and nice pretty notes, and prepared you in proper and approved way for
all of this? But I had been waiting for you so long that when I found
you, I just couldn't wait a minute longer.
"And it was Georgia--my red-headed, freckled, foolish cousin Georgia
did this! Why, liebchen, I'll take my oath right this minute Georgia
hasn't a freckle! I'm even willing--(oh Lord, am I?--Yes, by the gods I
_am_)--to read every abominable line she writes for that abominable
paper. Am I an ingrate? Didn't Georgia bring me to _you?_--and is

anything too much, even to the reading of her stuff--yes, by Jove, and
liking it?
"Now prepare yourself to receive the sympathy of every one you know
when you tell them you are going to marry me. Some kind of divine
hallucination is upon you, acting for my good, and you do not see how
profoundly you are to be pitied. But other people will see, and will tell
you about it, only you will think they are under a hallucination, which
is one of the phases of yours. The truth is I am a grubbing old scientist.
I prowl around in laboratories and don't know much of anything else,
and more than half the time my hands are stained with unaesthetic
colours you won't like at all. And they tell me I have a foolish way of
sitting and thinking about one thing, and that sometimes I don't do
things I say I am going to--meet my appointments and things like that,
although of course that won't apply to you. And here you might have
married some artist chap, or society fellow who would know all about
the proper thing!
"But never mind, poor little girl--I'll make it up to you. You may miss
some of the lesser, but you'll have the greater. You'll have the love that
enfolds one's whole being--the love that is eternal. Yes, dear--eternal.
The mariner has his compass, the astronomer his stars, the Swiss
peasant has his