The Fighting Chance

"I am learning," he replied simply.

"What, if you please?"

"Learning a little about what I am losing."

"You mean--me?"

"Yes."

She bent forward impulsively, balancing her body on the pool's rim with both arms, dropping her knee until her ankles swung interlocked above the water. "Listen," she said in a low, distinct voice: "What you lose is no other man's gain! If I warm and expand in your presence--if I say clever things sometimes--if I am intelligent, sympathetic, and amusing--it is because of you. You inspire it in me. Normally I am the sort of girl you first met at the station. I tell you that I don't know myself now--that I have not known myself since I knew you. Qualities of understanding, ability to appreciate, to express myself without employing the commonplaces, subtleties of intercourse--all, maybe, were latent in me, but sterile, until you came into my life. … And when you go, then, lacking impulse and incentive, the new facility, the new sensitive alertness, the unconscious self-confidence, all will smoulder and die out in me. … I know it; I realise that it was due to you--part of me that I should never have known, of which I should have remained totally ignorant, had it not blossomed suddenly, stimulated by you alone."

Slowly the clouded seriousness of her blue eyes cleared, and the smile began to glimmer again. "That is your revenge; you recommit me to my commonplace self; you restore me to my tinsel career, practically a dolt. Shame on you, Stephen Siward, to treat a poor girl so! … But it's just as well. Blunted perceptions, according to our needs, you know; and so life is tempered for us all, else we might not endure it long. … A pleasantly morbid suggestion for a day like this, is it not? … Shall we take a farewell plunge, and dress? You know we say good-bye to-morrow."

"Where do you go from here?"

"To Lenox; the Claymores have asked us for a week; after that, Hot Springs for another two weeks or so; after that, to Oyster Bay. … Mr. Quarrier opens his house on Sedge Point," she added demurely, "but I don't think he expects to invite you to 'The Sedges.'"

"How long do you stay there?" asked Siward irritably.

"Until we go to town in December."

"What will you find to do all that time in Oyster Bay?" he asked more irritably.

"What a premature question! The yacht is there. Besides, there's the usual neighbourhood hunting, with the usual packs and inevitable set; the usual steeple-chasing; the usual exchange of social amenities; the usual driving and riding; the usual, my poor friend, the usual, in all its uncompromising certainty. … And what are you to do?"