The Business of Life

She endured the contact shyly and seriously, as usual, bending her head aside to avoid his lips.

"Do you suppose," he said laughingly, "that you could ever bring yourself to kiss me, Jacqueline?"

She did not answer, and presently he released her, saying: "You never have yet; and now that we're engaged – "

"Engaged!"

"You know we are!"

"Is that what you think, Jim?"

"Certainly! I asked you to marry me – "

"No, dear, I asked you. But I wasn't certain you had quite accepted me – "

"Are you laughing at me?"

"I don't know – I don't know what I am doing any more; laughter and tears seem so close to each other – sometimes – and I can never be certain which it is going to be any more."

Her eyes remained grave, but her lips were sweet and humourous as she stood there on the stairs, her chin resting on the sheaf of carnations clasped to her breast.

"What is troubling you, Jacqueline?" he asked, after a moment's silence.

"Nothing. If you will hold these flowers a moment I'll decorate you."

He took the fragrant sheaf from her; she selected a magnificent white blossom, drew the stem through the lapel of his coat, patted the flower into a position which suited her, regarded the effect critically, then glanced up out of her winning blue eyes and found him watching her dreamily.

"I try to realise it, and I can't," he said vaguely. "Can you, dear?"

"Realise what?" she asked, in a low voice.

"That we are engaged."

"Are you so sure of me, Jim?"

"Do you suppose I could live life through without you now?"

"I don't know. Try it for two minutes anyway; these flowers must stand in water. Will you wait here for me?"

He stepped forward to aid her, but she passed him lightly, avoiding his touch, and sped across the corridor. In a few minutes she returned and they descended the stairs together, and entered the empty library. She leaned back against the table, both slender hands resting on the edge behind her, and gazed out at the sparrows in the snow. And she did not even appear to notice his arm, which ventured around her waist, or his lips resting against the lock of bright hair curling on her cheek, so absorbed she seemed to be in her silent reflections.

After a few moments she said, still looking out of the window: "I must tell you something now."

"Are you going to tell me that you love me?"

"Yes – perhaps I had better begin that way."

"Then begin, dearest."

"I – I love you."

His arm tightened around her, but she gently released herself.

"There is a – a little more to say, Jim. I love you enough to give you back your promise."

"My promise!"

"To marry me," she said steadily. "I scarcely knew what I was saying yesterday – I was so excited, so much in love with you – so fearful that you might sometime be unhappy if things continued with us as they threatened to continue. I'm afraid I overvalued myself – made you suspect that I am more than I really am – or can ever be. Besides, I frightened you – and myself – unnecessarily. I never could be in any danger of – of loving you – unwisely. It was not perfectly fair to you to hint such a thing – because, after all, there is a third choice for you. A worthy one. For you could let me go my way out of your life, which is already so full, and which would fill again very easily, even if my absence left a little void for a while. And if it was any kind of pity you felt for me – for what I said to you – that stirred you to – ask of me what I begged you to ask – then I give you back your promise. I have not slept for thinking over it. I must give it back."

He remained silent for a while, then his arms slipped down around her body and he dropped on one knee beside her and laid his face close against her. She had to bend over to hear what he was saying, he spoke so low and with such difficulty.

"How can you care for me?" he said. "How can you? Don't you understand what a beast I was – what lesser impulse possessed me – "

"Hush, Jim! Am I different?"

"Good God! Yes!"

"No, dear."

"You don't know what you're saying!"

"You don't know. Do you suppose I am immune to – to the – lesser love – at moments – "

He lifted his head and looked up at her, dismayed.

"You!"

"I. How else could I understand you?"

"Because you are so far above everything unworthy."

"No, dear. If I were, you would only have angered and frightened me – not made me sorry for us both. Because women and men are something alike at moments; only, somehow, women seem to realise that – somehow – they are guardians of – of something – of civilisation, perhaps. And it is their instinct to curb and silence and ignore whatever unworthy threatens it or them. It is that way with us, Jim."

She looked out of the window at the sky and the trees, and stood thinking for a while. Then: "Did you suppose it is always easy for a girl in love – whose instinct is to love – and to give? Especially such a girl as I am, especially when she is so dreadfully afraid that her lover may think her cold-blooded – self-seeking – perhaps a – a schemer – "

She covered her face with her hand – the quick, adorable gesture he knew so well.

"I —did ask you to marry me," she said, in a stifled voice, "but I am not a schemer; my motive was not self-interest. It was for you I asked it, Jim, far more than for myself – or I never could have found the courage – perhaps not even the wish. Because, somehow, I am too proud to wish for anything that is not offered."

As he said nothing, she broke out suddenly with a little sob of protest in her voice: "I am not a self-seeking, calculating woman! I am not naturally cold and unresponsive! I am – inclined to be – otherwise. And you had better know it. But you won't believe it, I am afraid, because I – I have never responded to – to you."

Tears fell between her fingers over the flushed cheeks. She spoke with increasing effort: "You don't understand; and I can't explain – except to say that to be demonstrative seemed unworthy in me."

He put his arms around her shoulders very gently; she rested her forehead against his shoulder.

"Don't think me calculating and cold-blooded – or a fool," she whispered. "Probably everybody kisses or is kissed. I know it as well as you do. But I haven't the – effrontery – to permit myself – such emotions. I couldn't, Jim. I'd hate myself. And I thought of that, too, when I asked you to marry me. Because if you had refused – and – matters had gone on – you would have been sorry for me sooner or later – or perhaps hated me. Because I would have been – been too much ashamed of myself to have – loved you – unwisely."

He stood with head bent, listening; and, as he listened, the comparison between this young girl and himself forced itself into his unwilling mind – how that all she believed and desired ennobled her, and how what had always governed him had made of him nothing more admirable than what he was born, a human animal. For what he began as he still was – only cleverer.