Man and Maid

The day after my marriage I did not come into the salon until just

before luncheon, at half-past twelve o'clock. My bride was not there.

"Her Ladyship has gone out walking, Sir Nicholas," Burton informed me as

he settled me in my chair.

I took up a book which was lying upon the table. It was a volume of

Laurence Hope's "Last Poems." It may have come in a batch of new

publications sent in a day or two ago, but I had not remarked it. It was

not cut all through, but someone had cut it up to the 86th page and had

evidently paused to read a poem called "Listen Beloved," the paper knife

lay between the leaves. Whoever it was must have read it over and over,

for the book opened easily there, and one verse struck me forcibly:

"Sometimes I think my longing soul remembers

A previous love to which it aims and strives,

As if this fire of ours were but the embers

Of some wild flame burnt out in former lives.

Perchance in earlier days I did attain

That which I seek for now, so all in vain.

Maybe my soul and thine were fused and wed

In some great night, long since dissolved and dead."

And then my eye travelled on to the bottom of the page.

"Or has my spirit a divine prevision

Of vast vague passions stored in days to be

When some strong souls shall conquer their division

And two shall be as one eternally."

We are both strong souls, shall we have the strength to conquer outside

things and be really "one eternally"?

Alathea must have been looking at this not an hour or more ago, what did

it make her think of, I wonder?

I determined to ask her to read the whole poem presently, when we should

be sitting together in the afternoon.

It had come on to rain and was a wretched dismal day, I wondered why

Alathea had gone out. Probably she is as restless as I am, and being

free to move, she can express her mood in rapid walking!

I began to plan my course of action.

To go on disturbing her as much as possible-To give her the impression that I once thought her perfection, but that

she herself has disillusioned me, and that I am indifferent to her now.

That I am cynical, but am amused to discuss love in the abstract.

That I have friends who divert me, and that I really only want her to be

a secretary and companion, and that any interest I may show in her is

merely for my own vanity, because she is, to the world, my wife!