第39章 THE SIXTH(10)

"What would a rich girl find out there in America? I don't know.I haven't the material to guess with.In London a girl might find a considerable variety of active, interesting men, rising politicians, university men of distinction, artists and writers even, men of science, men--there are still such men--active in the creative work of the empire.

"In America I suppose there is at least an equal variety, made up of rather different types.She would find that life was worth while to such people in a way that made the ordinary entertainments and amusements of her life a monstrous silly waste of time.With the facility of her sex she would pick up from one of them the idea that made life worth while for him.I am inclined to think there was someone in her case who did seem to promise a sort of life that was worth while.And that somehow the war came to alter the look of that promise.

"How?"

"I don't know.Perhaps I am only romancing.But for this young woman I am convinced this expedition to Europe has meant experience, harsh educational experience and very profound mental disturbance.There have been love experiences; experiences that were something more than the treats and attentions and proposals that made up her life when she was sheltered over there.And something more than that.What it is I don't know.The war has turned an ugly face to her.She has seen death and suffering and ruin.

Perhaps she has seen people she knew killed.Perhaps the man has been killed.Or she has met with cowardice or cruelty or treachery where she didn't expect it.She has been shocked out of the first confidence of youth.She has ceased to take the world for granted.It hasn't broken her but it has matured her.That I think is why history has become real to her.Which so attracts you in her.History, for her, has ceased to be a fabric of picturesque incidents; it is the study of a tragic struggle that still goes on.She sees history as you see it and I see it.She is a very grown-up young woman.

"It's just that," said Sir Richmond."It's just that.If you see as much in Miss Grammont as all that, why don't you want to come on with us? You see the interest of her.""I see a lot more than that.You don't know what an advantage it is to be as I am, rather cold and unresponsive to women and unattractive and negligible--negligible, that is the exact word--to them.YOU can't look at a woman for five minutes without losing sight of her in a mist of imaginative excitement.Because she looks back at you.I have the privilege of the negligible--which is a cool head.Miss Grammont has a startled and matured mind, an original mind.

Yes.And there is something more to be said.Her intelligence is better than her character.""I don't quite see what you are driving at.""The intelligence of all intelligent women is better than their characters.Goodness in a woman, as we understand it, seems to imply necessarily a certain imaginative fixity.Miss Grammont has an impulsive and adventurous character.And as Ihave been saying she was a spoilt child, with no discipline....You also are a person of high intelligence and defective controls.She is very much at loose ends.You--on account of the illness of that rather forgotten lady, Miss Martin Leeds--""Aren't you rather abusing the secrets of the confessional?""This IS the confessional.It closes to-morrow morning but it is the confessional still.Look at the thing frankly.You, Isay, are also at loose ends.Can you deny it? My dear sir, don't we both know that ever since we left London you have been ready to fall in love with any pretty thing in petticoats that seemed to promise you three ha'porth of kindness.A lost dog looking for a master! You're a stray man looking for a mistress.Miss Grammont being a woman is a little more selective than that.But if she's at a loose end as I suppose, she isn't protected by the sense of having made her selection.And she has no preconceptions of what she wants.You are a very interesting man in many ways.You carry marriage and entanglements lightly.With an air of being neither married nor entangled.She is quite prepared to fall in love with you.""But you don't really think that?" said Sir Richmond, with an ill-concealed eagerness.

Dr.Martineau rolled his face towards Sir Richmond."These miracles--grotesquely--happen," he said."She knows nothing of Martin Leeds....You must remember that....

"And then," he added, "if she and you fall in love, as the phrase goes, what is to follow?"There was a pause.

Sir Richmond looked at his toes for a moment or so as if he took counsel with them and then decided to take offence.

"Really!" he said, "this is preposterous.You talk of falling in love as though it was impossible for a man and woman to be deeply interested in each other without that.And the gulf in our ages--in our quality! From the Psychologist of a New Age I find this amazing.Are men and women to go on for ever--separated by this possibility into two hardly communicating and yet interpenetrating worlds? Is there never to be friendship and companionship between men and women without passion?""You ought to know even better than I do that there is not.

For such people as you two anyhow.And at present the world is not prepared to tolerate friendship and companionship WITHthat accompaniment.That is the core of this situation."A pause fell between the two gentlemen.They had smoothed over the extreme harshness of their separation and there was very little more to be said.

"Well," said Sir Richmond in conclusion, "I am very sorry indeed, Martineau, that we have to part like this."