Part 63 (1/2)
”Then why don't you believe?”
”Supposing one can't.”
”Can't?”
”It isn't given to everyone, you know.”
”Then you think we're just like poor animals--”
”Don't say 'poor' animals,” he interrupted. ”They're ever so much happier than we.”
”Nonsense! They don't know.”
”To be ignorant is to be happy. When will you understand that?”
”Never.”
”I know what you're thinking of--all the so-called mental development of mankind--love, memory, imagination, sympathy--all the finer susceptibilities of our nature. Is it that what you were thinking of?”
”Vaguely. But I couldn't find the words so nicely as you do.”
”Perhaps I read 'em and got 'em by heart. But don't you see that all the fine things I mentioned have to be paid for by increased liability to mental distress, to forms of pain to which coa.r.s.e natures are, happily, strangers?”
”You talk like an unpleasant book,” she laughed.
”And you look like a radiant picture,” he retorted.
”Ss.h.!.+ Here we are.”
”The moon's rising: it's full tonight. Think of me if you happen to be watching it,” he said.
”I shall be fast asleep.”
”And looking more charming than ever, if that be possible. I shall be having a row with my father.”
”I daresay you can hold your own.”
”That's what makes him so angry.”
Mrs. Farthing, upon opening the door, was surprised to see Mavis standing beside young Mr Perigal.
”I think you can get home safely now,” he remarked, as he raised his straw hat.
”Thanks for seeing me home.”
”Don't forget your fish. Good night.”
Mavis thought it well not to enter into any explanation of Perigal's presence to her landlady. She asked if supper were ready, to sit down to it directly she learned that it was. But she did not eat; whether or not her two hours spent in Perigal's company were responsible for the result, it did not alter the fact that her mind was distracted by tumult. The divers perplexities and questionings that had troubled her with the oncoming of the year now a.s.sailed her with increased force.
She tried to repress them, but, finding the effort unavailing, attempted to fathom their significance, with the result of increasing her distress. The only tangible fact she could seize from the welter in her mind was a sense of enforced isolation from the joys and sorrow of everyday humanity. More than this she could not understand.