CHAPTER XV

On the day of the famous “Armistice,” old Mr. Durham did what was for him an unusual thing--he went to London. Moreover he rose so early and went off so surreptitiously that “Riverside Sam” opined “there must be something in the wind.” What that “something” was could not be divined, but the pretty little “Sentimentalist,” finding him gone when she called, as was her morning custom, at his cottage, was made somewhat anxious by his sudden departure. However there was no means of allaying her anxiety, as the one old cook-housekeeper who “managed” the cottage for him “didn’t know nothink” as she averred, except that “he’d got up, ’ad his coffee and went out,” telling her not to expect him home till the following day as he was going to town on business. The fair Sylvia heard this explanation, but was scarcely satisfied. It was not like him, she thought, to rush off suddenly to London without at least calling to see Dr. Maynard and telling him of his intended absence for a couple of days. And she,--like “Riverside Sam,”--felt there must be “something in the wind.”

On this particular day she happened to be very much alone. The Philosopher had taken himself off to Oxford almost as suddenly as old Durham had taken himself off to London,--her father was engrossed in the writing of an article for the dullest of monthly magazines, and the whole house was curiously silent. Far away in the great metropolis the sirens and guns had announced the “Armistice,”--that cessation of battle which appeared to make the German foe consider himself the victor,--but here in the heart of a quiet country there was a wonderful stillness--the lovely stillness of far-stretching fields and the slow-winding river,--a stillness too which suggested the monotony of life without some stirring action or emotion to vibrate through its tranquillity. And, for some inexplicable reason the usually well-braced and cheerful spirit of the Sentimentalist began to droop,--a cloud of melancholy darkened her mind, and she pictured herself alone--always alone!--alone in the old Manor house, stitching at her embroidery or working in her garden, with nothing further to look forward to but just placid comfort and well-being for the rest of her days! Surely she could never stand it! Better to marry the Philosopher and rub up against all his odd humours and eccentricities, than have nothing whatever to move her out of the rut of the easy commonplace! Better perhaps to become a “loud” woman like some of the modern vulgar,--women who stoop to the baseness of betraying their friends’ confidences and publishing them in “rag” newspapers for so much cash down,--better to be a “film” star (or tallow-dip!) than live wholly without any sort of “sensation”! And yet!--she raised her eyes and saw a warm shaft of the sun strike on a bunch of brown sedges near the river, flecking the whole plant with gold, and close by on a leafless twig, a robin perched, looking at her with its fearless bright eyes, and ruffling its bonny crimson breast, and as she saw this little “phrase” of nature, this wordless speech which means so much to the simple heart and pure mind, her mood changed and brightened.

“After all I’d rather live a dull life than a low one!” she said to herself. “I’d rather be honest than mean! I wouldn’t like to look at myself in the glass and know that I was a despicable little scandal-monger, raking up stories about my friends and sneering at them and taking money for doing it! That sort of thing may be ‘sensational’ but it’s disgraceful! And as for films and ‘stars,’ I hope they’ll all go out one day and never come back! And I’ll be content as I am--I’ve so much to be thankful for!--and if Jack ever comes home--”

She broke off in her musings here, being called by her father. She ran off to obey the summons, and was soon busy with the various trifles he wanted in the way of string, sealing-wax and a long envelope in which to enclose his magazine article for the post. The old gentleman looked very cheerful, and rubbed his hands joyously over “Armistice Day.”

“They’ve stopped killing each other for the time being,” he said. “And _that’s_ a mercy! Dear, dear! What fools men are, to be sure! As if any Governmental quarrel should be settled by the murdering of innocent men! There’s no sense of justice in it.”

“But is there any justice in anything?” queried Sylvia, with sadness in her tone as she put the question. “It doesn’t seem to me that there is!”

Her father looked at her tenderly.

“Anything the matter, little girl?” he asked. “You don’t seem very bright! What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,--really nothing!” she answered, quickly. “Only--I find it hard to believe in justice when such dreadful cruelties happen as have been happening in the war,--when innocent people are killed, and men torture each other in every imaginable way--”

“Yet justice is done,” said Dr. Maynard, gravely. “Sooner or later,--believe that, my dear! For all the lives wasted there will be a reckoning--not in _our_ way, but in God’s way! We must not doubt that Right is the ruling power, always bound to come uppermost!”

“It seems very long in coming sometimes,” she murmured, then suddenly and in a timid voice she said: “Dad dear!--do you know--can you imagine--that Mr. Craig has asked me to marry him?”

Dr. Maynard smiled.

“Oh, he has, has he? Well, I’m not surprised! And you,--what did you say to him?”

“I said ‘No,’” she replied. “I asked him not to go on with it--but--but--of course--I feel he has done me a great honour.”

The old scholar looked meditative.

“Um--um--perhaps he has--and perhaps he hasn’t! We men are apt to think too much of ourselves, and you women are prone to think too much of us! Craig is a clever fellow--but--well!--he’s a _leetle_ old for you, my pretty one!--just a _leetle_ worn and battered in the battle of life to be the husband of a small fairy like you! So that the ‘honour’ of his asking you to marry him doesn’t seem so great to my mind as the ‘honour’ of your accepting him--if you _did_!--which you won’t!”

“Which I won’t!” and she slipped a loving arm round his neck. “You’re sure of that, Dad? How do you know?”

He put one hand under her chin and turned her sweet face up to his own.

“How do I know?” he echoed, and laughed as he spoke. “Why, because you’re not in love with him! God bless my soul! Do you think I’m such an old noodle as not to know when a girl’s in love?--and my own little girlie too! There, there! You can’t play bo-peep with _me_! He has proposed to you--well and good!--it’s a bit of a cheek on his part, but never mind that!--and you’ve thought it might be a good thing for you to be established in life as the wife of a distinguished Oxford man,--but--see here, my child!” And his bantering tone changed to one of earnest and tender gravity. “We are living in queer times--this old world has got a shock straight to the heart in this war, and men and women are drifting away from the faith of their forefathers--the faith and right principle which made Britain ‘Great.’ Don’t go with the fatal ‘swim,’ Sylvia!--it’s bound to end in a whirlpool of trouble. Keep to the straight lines of life,--and one of those straight lines is love. Love, my little one!--nothing but real, pure love can make a woman happy in marriage.”

Sylvia nestled close to him.

“Dear Dad! You are quite eloquent!” she said, and smiled up into his eyes. “And you don’t think I’m in love with your distinguished friend?”

He laughed.

“Not a bit!” he replied. “Nor is he really in love with you! He thinks you a pretty little armful of charms--which you _are_--but he wouldn’t know how to treat you as a wife, nor would he know how to treat _any_ wife! He’s past all that. His habits are settled, and he wouldn’t change them to please any woman!”

“No, I suppose he wouldn’t!” she murmured meditatively. “And those habits are rather trying--sometimes!”

Her father laughed again.

“Of course they are! The habits of bookworms are always trying! _I’m_ a bookworm. _My_ habits are trying!”

“No, they’re not!” And she linked her arms round his neck and hugged him. “No, Dad, you’re just the dearest and best man in the world to me! You know that, don’t you?”

“Well, you make me believe so!” he answered, submitting to her caresses with a very good grace. “But when the gout is on me--”

“Ah, that’s not _you_!” she declared, lovingly. “That’s the gout _only_! You’re not in it!”

“I wish I were not!” he responded. “But I tell you what, Sylvia,--it’s less violent than it was. Craig has certainly helped me to ignore it--if he hadn’t kept me at work--”

“Ah, yes! ‘The Deterioration of Language!’” smiled Sylvia. “You must both be sorry that it is nearly finished--that great book!”

“It _is_ a great book!” he agreed, triumphantly. “And it’s a book that’s wanted. Language is getting more and more deteriorated every day. When you see the press circulating the vilest slang--such as ‘the blinkin’ this, that, or t’other’--the ‘bally’ rag of some special thing, and women, passing for ‘ladies,’ talk of ‘tommy rot’ in ordinary conversation, surely it’s time some protest was made! A slangy nation is always a decadent one--purity of speech is the result of purity of thought, while coarse language expresses coarseness of mind and morals.”

The old scholar was wandering off on his favourite theme and turned to get a book to confirm what he was saying. His daughter stood watching him for a moment,--then suddenly, in a hushed tone she said:

“Dad, do you think Jack Durham is really killed?”

He looked at her thoughtfully and kindly.

“Do I think so? My dear, I don’t know what to think--but so far as my own impressions go, I rather feel that he’s alive. Of course all the facts are against me,--all the same I cannot realise anything else. It seems to me impossible that he should be dead. I know there are thousands of young fellows like him who are gone--more’s the pity!--but”--here he paused and stretching out a hand drew his daughter tenderly towards him--“I suppose you were really fond of him?”

She hesitated, then spoke in rather a hushed tone.

“Yes, Dad--I think I was,--I think I _am_! And yet--do you know I never thought of being fond of him till your friend, the Philosopher”--and she smiled--“came on the scene. I really was quite taken with _him_!--he rather made a sort of love to me for a time, and I was quite proud that such a clever man should even _seem_ to like me. But after a while, such ugly sides of his character began to show--he could be so rough and rude--and--and--_selfish_! that I began to dislike him, as much as I had once liked him. And Jack--”

“Well?” interpolated her father, gently. “And Jack?’

“Jack was always kind,” she said, “and quite _un_selfish. He told me before he went away that he was fond of me--but he would not bind me to any promise or engagement--he left me quite free. Only one thing seemed to trouble him a little--he hoped I would not marry the Philosopher!”

“And yet you had some vague idea of doing it!” laughed her father.

“Only vague!” she responded. “Very vague!”

“Suppose the worst--that Jack is really gone--would you marry Craig?”

She thought a moment, then answered--

“No, I don’t think I could!”

“Right! You’d be a fool if you did! Dear child, you know what I’ve told you before this--there’s only one right way of marriage and that is great love on both sides. It’s no good playing with a sacrament. The thousands of miserable marriages and divorces are ample proofs of the mistakes men and women make in taking each other for better or worse on the strength of a mere ‘fancy,’ or by way of monetary convenience. Now I”--he paused--“I _loved_ your mother!--loved her above everything in the world!--and I know she loved _me_! She gave me YOU!--and though I may be a testy old fellow at times I love you next best to Her. And I want you to be happy, my little girl!--and for your sake I hope Jack Durham is _not_ killed. He’s not particularly clever--but I believe his heart is in the right place, and that he would make you a kind husband. Kindness is better than all the intellectual brilliancy in the world!”

He kissed her with lingering fondness, and then with an air of shaking off his mood of seriousness, resumed his groping among his books.

“And so Durham has gone to town?” he suddenly queried, looking round.

“Yes. So his housekeeper at the cottage told me this morning.”

“Some sudden business, I suppose! Craig won’t be back till to-morrow, so you’ll have to pass a quiet evening with me all alone! Poor little Sylvia! I’m afraid it’s very dull for you here sometimes.”

“It’s _not_,” she declared with emphasis. “When I find my own dear Dad’s company ‘dull’--I deserve to be branded as an ungrateful little brute! How can you think such a thing!”

His old eyes rested upon her sorrowfully.

“Ah, my dear! Times have changed!” he said. “In the old days ‘home’ was a happy abiding place for the young folk who honoured their old folk--but now, thanks to the stupid governments under which the people pay taxes and groan their lives away, ‘homes’ are broken up and old folk made mock of while the young are encouraged to run a wild life as they will, without faith in God or trust in any good save for themselves. _You_ are not of these--I have brought you up differently--but it’s an ‘old-fashioned’ bringing-up, Sylvia!--and you are not a ‘modern’ minded girl. Perhaps you’ll thank me for that some day--perhaps not!--but I maintain that an ‘old fashion’ which built up the homes of the nation and taught the people to believe in God and live clean, loyal, loving lives, was a ‘fashion’ worth following. No ‘new’ fashion will ever equal or surpass it!”