Well, of course, Jack! How ridiculous you are! Should I be here if I didn't know Mr. Cazenove?
I haven't the least notion. I only know you wouldn't be at home.
I had business at the Horse Guards. I shall be home to dinner, though.
Oh dear, I wish I had known that. There's only mutton.
Good-bye. [_Kiss._] Good-bye, Mr. Cazenove.
I will come with you. [_To GERALD._] I am due at your aunt's.
If I am visible behind Caroline. Madam, your servant. [_Aside to SYLVESTER._] Cheer up, Sylvester! I'll join you at the club, and we will wind the night up at the Empire.
That is so like a man! Doesn't say he's coming home, and then expects six courses and a savoury!
There is a difference between cold mutton and six courses, to say nothing of the savoury.
It is a fine distinction, and in no way affects the validity of my argument.
Husbands are all alike. The ancient regarded his wife as a slave, the modern regards her as a cook.
You're very argumentative to-day. I haven't seen you for six weeks, and you've come home in a nasty, horrid temper!
I had a few pulls on the river; and being out of training----
Now I understand why you didn't write to me.
[_Drops his hand and turns away pettishly._
About the book? [_She gives him a quick glance._] Oh, I had nothing to say, except that I was getting on all right. I've written the first chapter.
And I've written the last. [_Opening portfolio._] Connoting the results of our arguments.
We'll put those in afterwards. [_GERALD looks at her._] That's how Victoria always writes her novels. She begins at the end.
Don't let us talk philosophy to-day. I want to talk to you about something else.
Yes, in love, Mrs. Sylvester--in real love.
Something quite different from what we had supposed. We've been on the wrong tack altogether. We have imagined something we have labelled love; we have put it into a crucible, and reduced it to its elements.
And we have found those elements to be, community of interest and sympathy of soul.
But unfortunately for our theory, the thing we put into the crucible wasn't love at all.
It was at Mapledurham you made this discovery?
That word just describes her. She is a woman--nothing more or less. Away went all my theories into air. My precious wisdom was stripped bare before me, and in its nakedness I saw my folly. Not with laborious thought; but in one vivid flash I learned more than I ever learned at Oxford.