Athalie

"Clive, that girl ought to be easy. To look at her you'd

say she was made of wax, easily moulded, and fashioned to be

loved, and to love. But, by God, I don't think it's in her to

love.... For, if it were--good night. She'd have raised the

devil in this world long ago. And some of us would have done

murder before now.

"If I had not dined so copiously and so rashly I wouldn't

write you all this. I'd write a page or two and lie to you,

politely. And so I'll say this: I really do believe that it

is in Athalie to love some man. And I believe, if she did

love him, she'd love him in any way he asked her. He hasn't

come along yet; that's all. But Oh! how he will be hated when

he does--unless he is the marrying kind. And anyway he'll be

hated. Because, however he does it, he'll get one of the

loveliest girls this town ever set eyes on. And the rest of

us will realise it then, and there will be some

teeth-gnashing, believe me!--and some squirming. Because the

worm that never dieth will continue to chew us one and all,

and never, never let us forget that the girl no man of our

sort could really condescend to marry, had been asked by

every one of us in turn to marry him; and had declined.

"And I'll add this for my own satisfaction: the man who gets

her, and doesn't marry her, will ultimately experience a

biting from that same worm which will make our lacerations

resemble the agreeable tickling of a feather.

"We're a rotten lot of cowards. And what hypocrites we are!

"I saw Fontaine sending flowers to his wife. He'd been at

Athalie's all the evening. There are only two occasions on

which a man sends flowers to his wife; one of them is when

he's in love with her.

"Aren't we the last word in scuts? Custom-ridden,

habit-cursed, afraid, eternally afraid of something--of our

own sort always, and of their opinions. And that offering of

flowers when the man who sends them hopes to do something of

which he is ashamed, or has already done it!

"How I do run on! In vino veritas--there's some class to

pickled truth! Here are olives for thought, red peppers for

honesty, onions for logic--and cauliflower for constancy--and

fifty-seven other varieties, Clive--all absent in the canned

make-up of the modern man.

"'When you and I behind the veil have passed'--but they don't

wear veils now; and now is our chance.