In these matters, there comes a time, the one moment, when words have to be spoken. As with a pear which has half an hour of perfect ripeness, so in love there is a day – an hour – a moment – when the words that mean so much must be spoken. It is a most unfortunate thing if the lover chooses the wrong moment. It is also very unfortunate if the ripeness is on one side only.
Leonard Campaigne made this mistake. Being a self-contained young man, he thought about himself a great deal more than he thought of other people: it is not necessarily a sign of selfishness or of obtuseness – not at all; it is a defect with men of strong natures and ambitious aims to think habitually about themselves and their aims. Therefore, while he himself was quite ripe for a declaration, he did not ask himself whether the ripeness was also arrived at by the other person concerned. Unfortunately, it was not. The other person concerned was still in the critical stage: she could consider her friend from the outside: she felt, as yet, no attraction towards the uncritical condition, the absorption of love.
Leonard did not suspect this arrest, so to speak, of development. He assumed that the maiden’s heart had advanced pari passu with his. He wrote a letter, therefore, a method of wooing which is less embarrassing than that of speech – I believe that girls prefer the latter. Certainly, it is difficult to be glowing in a letter; nor, if there should be any doubt, is a letter so persuasive as the voice, aided by the pressure of the hand and the ardour of the eye.
“My Dear Friend,
“I am about to imperil a situation the preservation of which is my greatest happiness. You have allowed me to talk to you freely about my cherished ambitions. You have even done me the honour of consulting me about your own. I would not throw away this position of confidence for any consideration whatever. Let me, however, venture to put before you a simple question. I ask you to consider the possibility of a change in this situation. This change – there is only one which we can consider – would not in any way affect this confidence, but should draw it more closely. How it would affect me I will tell you if you allow me.
Not a loverlike letter at all, is it? Yet there were possibilities about it. You see, he held out the hope that more would be told. The young lady answered by asking a few days for consideration. She was to send or bring her reply that morning.
Constance knocked at the door. She came in from her rooms without a hat. She took a chair – Leonard’s own wooden chair – and sat down, beginning to talk about other things, as if such a matter as a proposal of marriage was of no importance. But that was only her way, which was always feminine.
“I was told last night,” she said, “at the club – fancy, at the club! – that I have been compromising myself by dining night after night with you and letting you walk home with me. That is their idea of woman’s liberty. She is not to form friendships. Don’t abuse our members. Pray remember, Leonard, that I do not in the least mind what they say.”
At the first glance at her face, one could understand that this girl was not in the least alarmed as to what women might say of her. It was a proud face. There are many kinds of pride – she might have been proud of her family, had she chosen that form; or of her intellect and attainments; or of her beauty – which was remarkable. She was not proud in any such way; she had that intense self-respect which is pride of the highest kind. “She was a woman, therefore, to be wooed,” but the wooer must meet and equal that intense self-respect. This pride made her seem cold. Everybody thought her intensely cold. Leonard was perhaps the only man who knew by a thousand little indications that she was very far from cold. The pose of her head, the lines of the mouth, the intellectual look in her eyes, the clear-cut regularity of her features, proclaimed her pride and seemed to proclaim her coldness.
“I always remember what you say, Constance. And now tell me what you came to say.”
She rose from the chair and remained standing. She began by looking at the things over the mantel as if she was greatly interested in tobacco and cigarettes. Then she turned upon him abruptly, joining her hands. “What I came to say was this.”
He read the answer in her face, which was frank, hard, and without the least sign of embarrassment, confusion, or weakening. It is not with such a look that a girl gives herself to her lover. However, he pretended not to understand.
“What is it?”
“Well, it is just this. I have thought about it for a whole week, and it won’t do. That is my answer. It won’t do for either of us. I like you very much. I like our present relations. We dine together at the club. I come in here without fuss. You come to my place without fuss. We talk and walk and go about together. I do not suppose that I shall ever receive this kind of invitation from any man whom I regard so much. And yet – ”
“ ‘Yet!’ Why this obstructive participle? I bring you” – but he spoke with coldness due to the discouragement in the maiden’s face – “the fullest worship of yourself.”
She shook her head and put up her hand. “Oh no! – no!” she said. “Worship? I want no worship. What do you mean by worship?”
“I mean the greatest respect – the greatest reverence – the greatest admiration – ”
“For what?”
“For Constance Ambry.”
“Thank you, my friend. Some of the respect I accept with gratitude, not all of it. Still, I dare say, at this moment, you mean it all. But consider a little. Do you worship my intellect? Confess, now. You know that it is distinctly inferior to your own. I know it, I say. If you came to me pretending to worship an intellect inferior to your own, I should lose my respect for you, or I should lose my faith in your truthfulness. It cannot be my intellect. Is it, then, worship of my genius? But I have no genius. And that you know very well. Is it worship of my attainments? They are far below most of the scholars of your University and the Fellows of your college. You cannot possibly pretend to worship my attainments – ”
“Let me worship Constance Ambry herself.”
She laughed lightly.
“It would be very foolish of you to do so. For you could not do so without lowering your standards and your character, by pretending what is not the case. For I am no higher than yourself in any of the virtues possible to us both: not a bit higher: I believe that my standards of everything – truth, honour, courage – patience – all – all – everything are like my intellect, distinctly lower than your own. Such is the respect which I entertain for you. Therefore, my friend, do not, pray, think of offering me worship.”
“You wrong yourself, Constance. Your nature is far higher than mine.”
She laughed again. “If I were to marry you, in a week you would find out your mistake – and then you might fall into the opposite mistake.”
“How am I to make you understand?”
“I do understand. There is something that attracts you. Men are so, I suppose. It is face, or voice, or figure, or manner. No one can tell why a man is attracted.”
“Constance, is it possible that you are not conscious of your beauty?”
She looked him full in the face, and replied slowly: “I wish I understood things. I see very well that men are more easily moved to love than women. They make the most appalling mistakes: I know of some – mistakes not to be remedied. Do not let us two make a mistake.”
“It would be no mistake, believe me.”
“I don’t know. There is the question of beauty. Women are not fascinated by the beauty of other women. A man is attracted by a face, and straightway attributes to the