E. F. Benson

“ Then, when his day's work was done, at whatever hour that might be, it was as if the word 'business' was unknown to him, and there sat at table, dressed in loose and somewhat ill-fitting clothes, a man of very simple and kindly nature, a connoisseur in cookery, art, and millinery, a gentleman at heart, and to the backbone an American—one who, in spite of his gentleness, was without breeding; one who, in spite of his deep and varied knowledge, was without culture.
He and Amelie were seated at lunch alone together on the day following Mrs. Emsworth's triumphant debut. ”

“ Things in America, in fact, had gone quite stupendously awry; she was upset, angry at herself and others, and, what to her was perhaps most aggravating of all, uncertain of herself. To one usually so lucid, so intensely reasonable as she was, this was of the nature of an idiocy; it was as if she—the essential Sybil—stood by, while a sort of wraith of herself sat feeble and indifferent in a chair, unable to make up its mind about anything. She longed to take this phantom by the shoulders and shake it into briskness and activity again, open its head and dust its brain for it. ”

“ Dorothy felt a strong though momentary impulse to box her ears. It would probably have been a good thing if she had yielded to it. She herself had felt for Amelie a sort of wondering pity that a matter so long dead could possibly be bitter still, and, acting under that, she had done her best to reassure her. But Amelie had slapped that generous impulse in the face; she had also chosen to express doubt as to the truth of what she had been told; and a rather more pronounced felinity awoke in Dorothy's face.
'You had better go and talk it out with Bertie,' she said. ”

“ There is a church, isn't there? Come to church, Bertie.'
'No,' said Bertie.
'That is always the way,' remarked Ginger; 'and it is the same with me. I never want to do what anybody else proposes; so don't propose to me, Sybil.'
'Ginger, why don't you do something?' asked Sybil.
'I will go to church,' said Ginger.
'No, you won't. I want you to tell Bertie and me about America. You haven't been there, have you?'
'No. The capital is New York,' said Ginger; 'and you are sick before you get there. When you get there, you are sick again. Then you come back. That is why I haven't been. ”

“ Two electric broughams were waiting at the Pall Mall entrance as Mrs. Palmer rustled out between rows of liveried men, whose sole office appeared to be to look reverential as she passed, as if to have just seen her was the Mecca of their aspirations. Then, after a momentary hesitation between the two young men, Bertie followed her dazzling opera-cloak into the first brougham, and, amid loud and voluble regrets on her part that there was not room for three, and the exaction of a solemn promise that Charlie would not quarrel with his friend for having monopolized her, they started. ”

“ Palmer, that lay like a shadow on him, as his present inability to feel as he once felt. He had unlocked the despatch-box where he kept the letters on his return this morning with Amelie, and read one through again. Passion vibrated there—a passion which had once been his; he could recall it perfectly; he could remember with the most vivid distinctness the rapture of desire in which he had written those sheets of adoration. It had seemed to him then that life was this: that the whole world, and whatever it contained that was lovely and worth the worship of man, found in her its completion. ”

“ Brancepeth laid her hand on Sybil.
'Every day I thank God for what you are doing,' she said, 'and I thank you; but—but I suppose I have been more sanguine than I should. Is there no chance for Charlie?'
Sybil threw her arms out with a hopeless gesture.
'I don't know—literally I don't know. I like him so much that I can't offer him only liking; and I don't know that I have anything more to offer him. It is all very difficult. I don't suppose there is a woman in the world who knows herself so badly as I do. ”

“ Even a flower should be made to do its best, to look its best, and last as long as possible. Even flowers should be strenuous, and here was she and nine-tenths of her nation drifting like thistledown on a moor wherever the wind happened to carry it. To work—that was the impulse she had brought back with her from America—not to scheme merely with her busy brain, to intrigue, to find, as she always had found, endless amusement and entertainment in watching others, even though she exerted her intellect to its fullest in intelligently watching them ”

“ Bertie Keynes, you, Judy, Ginger—you all want me to be what you call sensible, and live as long as possible. But my indifference to life is stronger than your desire that I should live. My mother alone wishes me to do as I choose, because she understands.'
He paused, and saw that Sybil was looking, not at him, but into the fire, and that unshed tears stood in her eyes, fighting with some emotion that would not let them fall. ”

“ Palmer felt, how Gallio felt, how he himself felt, and he was afraid he knew how Amelie felt.
Sybil had much to say.
'It is quite like a fairy-story, Bertie. Here are Charlie and I—the poor young man who proposed to drop into an early grave, and who proposed to me instead, who has now no more idea of dropping into a grave than I have—and here are you and Amelie, with Molesworth once more your home. Bertie, if you hadn't fallen in love with Amelie, you would have argued yourself the most obtuse young man in the world. Why she fell in love with you is harder to say. ”

“ Oh, Charlie, on what tiny things life and happiness depend! Just as a bullet may pass within an inch of your head, and not touch you, when another inch would have killed you, so the smallest incident may turn the whole course of things. For, do you know, if I had not been in Mrs. Emsworth's room when Mr. Bilton came in, I believe I should have married him.'
'Well, then you see that had just got to happen,' said Charlie, smiling at her. ”

“ Palmer that evening? It was not in his nature to hate anything, so it cannot be said that he hated her screaming, her insensate conversation, her lack of all that is summed up in the words breeding and culture, but he saw these loud defects, and knew of their existence. On the other hand, he saw and knew also of her intense good-nature, her true kindliness of heart, and believed in the integrity of her life; so, if it was fair to consider her presence in London typically as of the nature of a barbarian invasion, it must be confessed that England had fallen into the hands of very kindly foes. ”

“ Ginger sighed heavily.
'Vanity of vanities,' he said. 'A year ago Bertie thought that nothing would be intolerable if he had money. We most of us think the same until we have got it. Then we find that nothing, on the whole, matters less. That one sees in America. We are supposed to take our pleasures sadly. But in America they take them seriously as well. All the gold of the Indies cannot make a man gay. And all the Palmerization that is going on does not add one jot to anybody's happiness.'
'I hate it,' said Judy suddenly. 'I look on America as some awful cuttlefish. ”

“ So the momentous afternoon arrived that was to bring the Prince in Mrs. Adelboden's private railway-carriage to Newport or in Mrs. Palmer's motor to Mon Repos, and still no word of enlightenment had come which should pierce the thick clouds of doubt which hid the face of the future. Newport and Long Island were both en fête, and at the rail-way-station of the one, and on the lawns of Mon Repos at the other, the rival factions were awaiting the supreme moment in a tense, unnatural calm. Mrs. Palmer alone was absent from her guests, sitting at the telephone. ”

“ Like every other woman or man who has ever loved, she had imagined for herself the ideal lover, and enshrined it in some human tabernacle. To her Bertie was the one and only tabernacle wherein her love could dwell. He had told her with a limpid directness in the early days of their engagement that when he came a-wooing he had come, of set purpose, to a wealthy house, and this declaration, which would in a nature less sweet and generous than hers have prompted, in case of a lover's quarrel, the stifled whisper 'you wished to marry me for my money,' had not the most shadowy existence in her. ”

“ Judy went to the window and looked out.
'I like that fog,' she said, 'because it renders all traffic and business of all sorts out of the question. I like the feeling that London, anyhow, has to pause, and just twiddle its thumbs until God makes the wind blow.'
'After all, a fog comes from smoke, and it was man who lit the fires,' remarked Ginger parenthetically.
'You needn't remind one of that,' said she. 'Now, Sybil told me there were no fogs in New York. That is awful. Her letters were awful. The whole of life was a ceaseless grind; if you stopped for a moment, you were left behind. ”

“ Massington smiled.
'That is what I like,' she said. 'I like hearing a railway-whistle when I am not going in the train; I like hearing a church bell when I am not going to church; I like seeing somebody looking very hot when I am quite cool; I like hearing somebody sneeze when I haven't got a cold; I like—oh, I like almost everything,' she concluded broadly.
'I wonder if you, I, we shall like America,' said a voice, which apparently came from two shins and a knee in a basket-chair.
'America?' said Sybil. ”

“ Is that an insult to your mother's guests? I think it is. Anyhow, I was one of the silly, wicked people. But now I am not silly or wicked; I am very good, and very innocent, and I want to take everything into my arms and stroke it. My God! what a beautiful world! I am so glad I did not die in the night.'
Amelie laughed. This mood found in her a ready response.
'Yes, yes,' she cried; 'go on. I know what you mean. You want to be rid of all else, to be just a consciousness in the world. I have felt that. What does it say?'
Dorothy shook her head. ”

“ Brancepeth waited for Sybil's reply; it came as direct as his.
'Oh, Charlie, you always confuse things,' she said. 'You do not mean the quest of the impossible, but the quest of the improbable. The quest of the improbable is the secret of our striving. Anyone can grasp the impossible; it is merely an affair of the imagination. I can amuse myself by planning out what my life would be if I were a man. ”

“ It is so absurd to desire more than you can use. It is a mistake the whole world makes, except, perhaps, Judy.'
'I don't think Ginger does,' said Charlie.
'Oh yes; he desires, at least, to say more than he means. Consequently people attach no importance to what he says.'
Charlie laughed.
'Which, being interpreted, means that Ginger has been saying something which you are afraid is correct.'
Sybil Massington stopped.
'Charlie, for a man you have a good deal of intuition. That is partly what makes me never think of you as a man. ”

“ Well, it must surely be far more difficult to change one's nature in so radical a way.'
'I think you did not run very fast when Apollo began Judy.
'That does not suit you, either, dear,' remarked Sybil. 'Well, then, I am not to marry Charlie. Am I to marry anybody? That is the point. Or am I to consider that marriage is not for me?'
'How can I tell you, Sybil?' asked Judy, rather perplexed. 'I dare say there are men who regard marriage like you. You can calmly contemplate marrying a man whom you just like. ”

“ Emsworth's room, had grown up fungus-like in her mind, this unhurrying, relentless activity, so typical of him and of the nation to which he belonged, which had so stirred her in America, stirred her again. The practical side of her nature responded to it, as an exhausted man responds to alcohol. It woke in her the need to do something definite with her life; it reminded her that the mere observation of other people was not to her, as it was to Ginger, a sufficient excuse for her existence. ”

“ Lewis Palmer can't stop; his wife can't stop; I can't stop, in my small way. But you at present have the power of stopping. It is the most exquisite thing in the world. To us, to me, I assure you, it is like a cool breeze on a hot day to see you leisurely English people. In England you have a leisured class; we have none. Our wealthy class is the least leisured of all. ”

“ If she lived in a back fourth-floor flat in New York, I shouldn't go to stay with her. You see, I like rich people; I like the quality of riches just as you like the quality of generosity. By the way, you must be rather rich to be generous to any extent, so the two are really synonymous; I'm glad I thought of that. Anyhow, I am going to stay with her.'
Judy got up.
'You are going to stay with her in order to meet other people who are rich,' she said.
'Why not?' asked Sybil. 'Other things being equal, I should prefer to marry a rich man than a poor one. ”

“ Others, by the aid of the puffy railway, mount to the top of the hills above the town, and spend enraptured days in sliding down again on toboggans to the village of Klosters. Motion, in fact, of any other sort than that of walking is the aim and object of Davos life—an instinct dictated and rendered necessary by the keen exhilaration of the air. At no other place in the world, perhaps, is the sluggard so goaded to physical activity; at no other, perhaps, is the active brain so lulled or intoxicated into quiescence. ”

“ Yet behind all this, even as the sky extends for millions of miles behind a stormy and cloudy foreground, lay his feeling for Amelie herself. True, once in his life the passion for a woman had burned in him with so absorbing and fierce a flame that for more than two years afterwards he had soberly believed that he never again could feel any touch of passion for another. His adoration for Dorothy Emsworth had been his first grande passion ”

“ Men whose lives are morally unedifying might doubt it, so he said to himself, but merely because they have never experienced it at all. To them has come a succession of strong desires, but this never. And though he did not give, nor did he make pretence of giving, to Amelie that which Mrs. Emsworth could find no use for, yet he gave her very honestly another way of love: he gave her very strong and honest affection; he gave her immense admiration; lie gave her as much, for he was of ardent nature, as many men have ever felt. ”

“ What use is it when one is dead? I am living on the capital; I intend to spend it all. I shall die sooner, no doubt—but, oh, Harold, what an awful old person I should be at sixty if I proposed, which I do not, to live as long. Look at the old women who have spent their youth as I have done. Rouge on their raddled cheeks, clinging to life, mortally afraid of dying, trying to get a few more successes, with one bleary eye anxiously fixed on some back door into heaven, the other roaming round to see if they can't have another little flirtation before they die. ”