"You don't mean to say you believe a single word of it," I said, amazed.
"Oh, yes, Aunt Anne, of course I do. Why, don't you remember you yourself advised me to study it. I'm _sure_ it's all true, only it's difficult to disentangle."
Jimmy came down next day, and a more crestfallen man I have never seen. I was dividing my white pinks, and he collapsed on a bench, and looked at me.
"You've given in about Mr. Wilson," I said drily.
"I have. Gertrude came round to it quite suddenly last night."
"Bear up," I said "They will probably be very happy."
"I don't find I mind much now it's decided on. And between ourselves Gertrude and Joan did not hit it off too well. I used to get a bit rattled between the two of them. It will be more peaceful when Joan is married."
"Then I don't see why you look so woe-begone."
"Anne," he said solemnly, "you made the great mistake of your life when you refused me."
"You could not expect me to leave a brand new kitchen boiler for you. I told you that at the time."
"We should have suited each other," went on Jimmy, drearily, ignoring manlike, my reasons for celibacy. "We are both," he paused and then added with dignity, "contemplatives by nature. We should have sat down in two armchairs for life. I should never have been a magistrate, and a chairman of a cursed Parish Council. I should just have been happy."
"I _have_ been happy," I said, "I _am_ happy."
"You have had a beautiful life: one long siesta. That is so like you. _You_ have fetched it off and I've missed it. Just as Gertrude has missed this match for Joan, and you have fetched it off for Dulcie. If I had married you you would never have wanted me to exert myself. That was why my higher nature turned to you like a sunflower to the sun. You ought to have taken me. After all, you are the only woman I have ever proposed to," said the twice married man.
"I thought as much," I said, pulling my white pinks apart.
"You might have known," he said darkly, and a glint of malice momentarily shone in his kindly eyes, "that trouble would some day overtake you for your wicked selfishness in refusing me."
I did not notice what he was saying so much as that alien expression in my old friend's face. I stared at him.