The Fourth Generation. Walter Besant

class looked, on the whole, as if they could not agree with me.”

      “You would have no love in poetry?”

      “Not extravagant love. These extravagancies are not found in the nobler poets. They are not in Milton, nor in Pope, nor in Cowper, nor in Wordsworth, nor in Browning. I have not, as you say, experienced the desire for love. In any case, it is only an episode. Poetry should be concerned with the whole life.”

      “So should love.”

      “Leonard,” she said, the doubt softening her face, “there may be something deficient in my nature. I sincerely wish that I could understand what you mean by desiring any change.” No, she understood nothing of the sacred passion. “But there must be no difference in consequence. I could not bear to think that my answer even to such a trifle should make any difference between us.”

      “Such a trifle! Constance, you are wonderful.”

      “But it seems to me, if the poets are right, that men are always ready to make love: if one woman fails, there are plenty of others.”

      “Would not that make a difference between us?”

      “You mean that I should be jealous?”

      “I could not possibly use the word ‘jealous’ in connection with you, Constance.”

      She considered the point from an outside position. “I should not be jealous because you were making love to some unseen person, but I should not like another woman standing here between us. I don’t think I could stay here.”

      “You give me hope, Constance.”

      “No. It is only friendship. Because, you see, the whole pleasure of having a friend like yourself—a man friend—is unrestrained and open conversation. I like to feel free with you. And I confess that I could not do this if another woman were with us.”

      She was silent awhile. She became a little embarrassed. “Leonard,” she said, “I have been thinking about you as well as myself. If I thought that this thing was necessary for you—or best for you—I might, perhaps—though I could not give you what you expect—I mean—responsive worship and the rest of it.”

      “Necessary?” he repeated.

      There was no sign of Love’s weakness in her face, which had now assumed the professional manner that is historical, philosophical, and analytical.

      “Let us sit down and talk about yourself quite dispassionately, as if you were somebody else.”

      She resumed the chair—Leonard’s own chair—beside the table; it was a revolving chair, and she turned it half round so that her elbow rested on the blotting-pad, while she faced her suitor. Leonard for his part experienced the old feeling of standing up before the Head for a little wholesome criticism. He laughed, however, and obeyed, taking the easy-chair at his side of the fireplace. This gave Constance the slight superiority of talking down to instead of up to him. A tall man very often forgets the advantage of his stature.

      “I mean, if companionship were necessary for you. It is, I believe, to weaker and to less fortunate men—to poets, I suppose. Love means, I am sure, a craving for support and sympathy. Some men—weaker men than you—require sympathy as much as women. You do not feel that desire—or need.”

      “A terrible charge. But how do you know?”

      “I know because I have thought a great deal about you, and because I have conceived so deep a regard for you that, at first, when I received your letter I almost—almost—made a great mistake.”

      “Well—but tell me something more. To learn how one is estimated may be very good for one. Self-conceit is an ever-present danger.”

      “I think, to begin with, that of all young men that I know you are the most self-reliant and the most confident.”

      “Well, these are virtues, are they not?”

      “Of course, you have every right to be self-reliant. You are a good scholar, and you have been regarded at the University as one of the coming men. You are actually already one of the men who are looked upon as arrived. So far you have justified your self-confidence.”

      “So far my vanity is not wounded. But there is more.”

      “Yes. You are also the most fortunate of young men. You are miles ahead of your contemporaries, because where they all lack something you lack nothing. One man wants birth—it takes a very strong man to get over a humble origin: another man wants manner: another has an unfortunate face—a harsh voice—a nervous jerkiness: another is deficient in style: another is ground down by poverty. You alone have not one single defect to stand in your way.”

      “Let me be grateful, then.”

      “You have that very, very rare combination of qualities which make the successful statesman. You are good-looking: you are even handsome: you look important: you have a good voice and a good manner as well as a good presence: you are a gentleman by birth and training: you have enough to live upon now: and you are the heir to a good estate. Really, Leonard, I do not know what else you could ask of fortune.”

      “I have never asked anything of fortune.”

      “And you get everything. You are too fortunate, Leonard. There must be something behind—something to come. Nature makes no man perfectly happy.”

      “Indeed!” He smiled gravely. “I want nothing of that kind.”

      “In addition to everything else, you are completely healthy, and I believe you are a stranger to the dentist; your hair is not getting prematurely thin. Really, Leonard, I do not think that there can be in the whole country any other young man so fortunate.”

      “Yet you refuse to join your future with mine.”

      “Perhaps, if there were any misfortunes or drawbacks one might not refuse. Family scandals, now—— Many noble houses have whole cupboards filled with skeletons: your cupboards are only filled with blue china. One or two scandals might make you more human.”

      “Unfortunately, from your point of view, my people have no scandals.”

      “Poor relations again! Many people are much pestered with poor relations. They get into scrapes, and they have to be pulled out at great cost. I have a cousin, for instance, who turns up occasionally. He is very expensive and most disreputable. But you? Oh, fortunate young man!”

      “We have had early deaths; but there are no disreputable cousins.”

      “That is what I complain of. You are too fortunate. You should throw a ring into the sea—like the too fortunate king, the only person who could be compared with you.”

      “I dare say gout or something will come along in time.”

      “It isn’t good for you,” she went on, half in earnest. “It makes life too pleasant for you, Leonard. You expect the whole of life to be one long triumphal march. Why, you are so fortunate that you are altogether outside humanity. You are out of sympathy with men and women. They have to fight for everything. You have everything tossed into your lap. You have nothing in common with the working world—no humiliations—no disgraces—no shames and no defeats.”

      “I hardly understand——” he began, disconcerted at this unexpected array of charges and crimes.

      “I mean that you are placed above the actual world, in which men tumble about and are knocked down and are picked up—mostly by the women. You have never been knocked down. You say that I do not understand Love. Perhaps not. Certainly you do not. Love means support on both sides. You and I do not want any kind of support. You are clad in mail armour. You do not—you cannot—even wish to know what Love means.”

      He made no reply. This turning of the table was unexpected. She had been confessing that she felt no need of Love, and now she accused him—the wooer—of a like defect.