|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 61
XXX
The serene life came all to an end very suddenly, and with no warning.
One day I had been sitting with Cynthia, and the child was playing on
the floor with some little things--stones, bits of sticks, nuts--which
it had collected. It was a mysterious game too, accompanied with much
impressive talk and gesticulations, much emphatic lecturing of
recalcitrant pebbles, with interludes of unaccountable laughter. We had
been watching the child, when Cynthia leaned across to me and said:
"There is something in your mind, dear, which I cannot quite see into.
It has been there for a long time, and I have not liked to ask you about
it. Won't you tell me what it is?"
"Yes, of course," I said; "I will tell you anything I can."
"It has nothing to do with me," said Cynthia, "nor with the child; it
is about yourself, I think; and it is not altogether a happy thought."
"It is not unhappy," I said, "because I am very happy and very
well-content. It is just this, I think. You know, don't you, how I was
being employed, before I came back, God be praised, to find you? I was
being trained, very carefully and elaborately trained, I won't say to
help people, but to be of use in a way. Well, I have been wondering why
all that was suspended and cut short, just when I seemed to be finishing
my training. I have been much happier here than I ever was before, of
course. Indeed I have been so happy that I have sometimes thought it
almost wrong that any one should have so much to enjoy. But I am
puzzled, because the other work seems thrown away. If you wonder whether
I want to leave our life here and go back to the other, of course I do
not; but I have felt idle, and like a boy turned down from a high class
at school to a low one."
"That is not very complimentary to me!" said Cynthia, laughing. "Suppose
we say a boy who has been working too hard for his health, and has been
given a long holiday?"
"Yes," I said, "that is better. It is as if a clerk was told that he
need not attend his office, but stay at home; and though it is pleasant
enough, he feels as if he ought to be at his work, that he appreciates
his home all the more when he can't sit reading the paper all the
morning, and that he does not love his home less, but rather more,
because he is away all the day."
"Yes," said Cynthia, "that is sensible enough; and I am amazed sometimes
that you can be so good and patient about it all--so content to be so
much with me and baby here; but I don't think it is quite--what shall I
say?--quite healthy either!"
"Well," I said, "I have no wish to change; and here, I am glad to think,
there is never any doubt about what one is meant to do."
And so the subject dropped.
How little I thought then that this was to be the end of the old scene,
and that the curtain was to draw up so suddenly upon a new one.
But the following morning I had been wandering contentedly enough in the
wood, watching the shafts of light strike in among the trees, upon the
glittering fronds of the ferns, and thinking idly of all my strange
experiences. I came home, and to my surprise, as I came to the door,
I heard talk going on inside. I went hastily in, and saw that Cynthia
was not alone. She was sitting, looking very grave and serious, and
wonderfully beautiful--her beauty had grown and increased in a
marvellous way of late. And there were two men, one sitting in a chair
near her and regarding her with a look of love; it was Lucius; and I saw
at a glance that he was strangely changed. He had the same spirited and
mirthful look as of old, but there was something there which I had
never seen before--the look of a man who had work of his own, and had
learned something of the perplexity and suffering of responsibility. The
other was Amroth, who was looking at the two with an air of
irrepressible amusement. When I entered, Lucius rose, and Amroth said to
me:
"Here I am again, you see, and wondering whether you can regain the
pleasure you once were kind enough to take in my company?"
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|