Part 41 (1/2)

CHAPTER XXIV

AN ENLIGHTENMENT

It might well seem that by now Winnie would have become accustomed to the discovery that things which had never entered her head might none the less occupy a large and una.s.sailable position in the heads of other people--nay, that she might, for safety's sake, allow for the likelihood of such a revelation when she laid plans or embarked on a course of conduct. But, in fact, this would be asking her to have learned very early a very hard lesson. It was not as if there were only one or two of these entrenched convictions; fresh ones leapt, as it were, from ambush at every step of her advance, at every stage of her pilgrimage, and manifested a strength on which she had not calculated, for which the airy and untrammelled flight of Shaylor's Patch speculation had not prepared her. It was all very well for her to declare that she accorded to others the freedom of thought and opinion which she claimed for herself. Of course she did; but the others made such odd uses of their liberty! Maxon's point of view, d.i.c.k Dennehy's point of view, Woburn Square's point of view, Bob Purnett's point of view (his--and G.o.dfrey Ledstone's!)--let these be taken as mastered and appreciated. Between them they had seemed to cover the ground pretty completely, to comprehend all the objections which could be raised by standards religious, social, or merely habitual. But no. Here was a man who was willing, for himself, to waive all the usual objections, but suddenly produced a new cult, an esoteric wors.h.i.+p, a tribal fetish of his own, evidently a very powerful fetish, to be propitiated by costly sacrifices, which he regarded himself as obviously necessary, and had no doubt would be easily understood by other people.

”How could I be expected to think of the regiment?” asked Winnie pathetically. ”I declare I thought of everything else--that's why I told him. He doesn't mind all the great world, but he does mind half a dozen women and a dozen boys somewhere in India! People are queer, aren't they, Mrs. Lenoir?”

But by now Mrs. Lenoir had been schooled; talks with both father and son had made her understand better, and, since the thing had to be thus, it was desirable that Winnie should understand also.

”Well, Winnie, that may be all his regiment is to you--a pack of women and boys in India; indeed that's pretty much what I called it myself.

But, in justice to Bertie, we must remember that to him it's a great--a great----”

”A great what?” Winnie was looking malicious over her friend's hesitation.

”Well, a great inst.i.tution,” Mrs. Lenoir ended, rather lamely.

”An inst.i.tution! Yes!” Winnie nodded her head. ”That's it--and I'm absolutely fated to run up against inst.i.tutions. They wait for me, they lie in hiding, they lurk round corners. And what a lot of them there are, to break one's s.h.i.+ns over!”

”They all come back to one in the end, I think,” said Mrs. Lenoir, smiling. She was glad to hear Winnie's philosophizing. It was a fair proof that neither here was there a broken heart, though there might be some disappointment and vexation. ”I was very hurt at first,” she went on, ”and it made me rude to the General. It's no use being hurt or angry, Winnie. We bring it on ourselves, if we choose to go our own way.

Whether it's worth taking the consequences--that's for each of us to decide.”

”Worth it a thousand times in my case,” said Winnie. ”All the same I didn't in the least understand what it would be like. Only--now I do understand--I'm going to face it. Fancy if I'd had fewer scruples, and effected a furtive entrance into the regiment! What mightn't have happened?”

Three days had elapsed from the date of Winnie's confession to the Major; they had changed the relative att.i.tudes of the two women. Mrs.

Lenoir had got over her disappointment and returned to her usual philosophy, her habitual recognition of things as they were, her understanding that with men their profession and their affairs must come first. Winnie had hardened towards her late suitor. Ready to be rejected on her own account, she could not bring herself to accept rejection on account of the regiment with meekness. After the great things she had defied, the regiment seemed a puny antagonist. All the same, little thing as it was, a mere dwarf of an inst.i.tution compared with her other giant antagonists, it, not they, now vanquished her; it, not they, now held Bertie Merriam back.

It must be confessed that she behaved rather maliciously during the days when the two officers were waiting for their s.h.i.+p. An exaggerated interest in the affairs of the regiment, an apparently ingenuous admiration of the wonderful _esprit de corps_ of the British service, earnest inquiries as to the means by which the newly promoted Commanding Officer hoped to maintain a high moral tone among his subalterns--these were the topics with which she beguiled the hours of lunch and dinner.

The Major wriggled, the General looked grave and pained; Mrs. Lenoir affected to notice nothing, for she saw that her young friend was for the moment out of hand and only too ready to quarrel with them all. For the rest, Miss Wilson--whose artificial existence was to end when she got on the steamer for Genoa--flirted with the Anstruther boys and lost her money gambling.

So time went on till the eve of the departure of father and son. At dinner that night Winnie was still waywardly gay and gaily malicious; when the meal was over she ran off into the garden, and hid herself in a secret nook. The Anstruther boys sought her in vain, and discontentedly repaired to the casino. But there was a more persistent seeker.

She was roused from some not very happy meditations by finding Bertie Merriam standing opposite to her. He did not apologize for his intrusion nor, on the other hand, ask leave to sit by her; he stood there, looking gravely at her.

”Why do you take a pleasure in making me unhappy?” he asked. ”Why do you try to make me look ridiculous, and feel as if I'd done something ungentlemanly? I'm not ridiculous, and I'm not aware of having done anything ungentlemanly. The subject is a very difficult one for me even to touch on with you; but I'm acting from honest motives and on an honest conviction.”

Winnie looked up in a moody hostility. ”Whenever I've acted from honest motives and on honest convictions, people have all combined to make me unhappy, Major Merriam.”

”I'm sincerely, deeply sorry for that, and I don't defend it. Still, the cases are not the same.”

”Why aren't they?”

”Because you wanted to do what you did. No doubt you were convinced you had the right, but you wanted to, besides. Now I don't want to do what I'm doing. That's the difference. I want it less and less every hour I spend with you--in spite of your being so disagreeable.” He smiled a little over the last words.

Winnie looked at him in curiosity. What was he going to say?

”You're not consistent. You say you like people to act up to their convictions; you feel wronged when people blame you for acting up to your convictions. Yet you punish me for acting up to mine. Will you let me put the thing before you frankly--since we're to part, probably for good, to-morrow?”

”Yes, you can say what you like--since we're to part to-morrow.”