第46章

Now the question was, How had Orlando been getting on? I had an intuition that in his case the experiment had proved more enjoyable, but I am not one to break the bruised reed by making such a suggestion.On the contrary, I expressed my firm conviction that Orlando was probably even more miserable than she was.

"Do you really think so?" she asked eagerly, her poor miserable face growing bright a moment with hope and gratitude.

"Undoubtedly," I answered sententiously."To put the case on the most general principles, apart from Orlando's great love for you, it is an eternal truth of masculine sentiment that man always longs for the absent woman.""Are you quite sure?" asked Rosalind, with an unconvinced half-smile.

"Absolutely."

"I thought," she continued, "that it was just the other way about; that it was presence and not absence that made the heart of man grow fonder, and that if a man's best girl, so to say, was away, he was able to make himself very comfortable with his second-best!""In some cases, of course, it's true," I answered, unmoved;"but with a love like yours and Orlando's, it's quite different.""Oh, do you really mean it?"

"Certainly I do; and your mistake has been in supposing that an experiment which no few every-day married couples would be only too glad to try, was ever meant for two such love-birds as you.

Laws and systems are meant for the unhappy and the untractable, not for people like you, for whom Love makes its own laws.""Yes, that is what we used to say; and indeed, we thought that this was one of love's laws,--this experiment, as you call it.""But it was quite a mistake," I went on in my character as matrimonial oracle."Love never made a law so cruel, a law that would rob true lovers of each other's society for a whole month in a year, stretching them on the rack of absence--" There my period broke down, so I began another less ambitiously planned.

"A whole month in a year! Think what that would mean in a lifetime.How long do you expect to live and love together? Say another fifty years at the most.Well, fifty ones are fifty.

Fifty months equal--four twelves are forty-eight and two over--four years and two months.Yes, out of the short life God allows even for the longest love you would voluntarily throw away four years and two months!"This impressive calculation had a great effect on poor Rosalind;and it is a secondary matter that it and its accompanying wisdom may have less weight with the reader, as for the moment Rosalind was my one concern.

"But, of course, we have perfect trust in each other," said Rosalind presently, with charming illogicality.

"No doubt," I said; "but Love, like a good householder (ahem!), does well not to live too much on trust.""But surely love means perfect trust," said Rosalind.

"Theoretically, yes; practically, no.On the contrary, it means exactly the opposite.Trust, perfect trust, with loved ones far away! No, it is an inhuman ideal, and the more one loves the less one lives up to it.If not, what do these tears mean?""Oh, no!" Rosalind retorted, with a flush, "you mustn't say that.I trust Orlando absolutely.It isn't that; it's simply that I can't bear to be away from him."What women mean by "trusting" might afford a subject for an interesting disquisition.However, I forbore to pursue the matter, and answered Rosalind's remark in a practical spirit.

"Well, then," I said, "if that's all, the thing to do is to find Orlando, tell him that you cannot bear it, and spend the rest of your holiday, you and he, together.""That's what I thought," said Rosalind.

"Unfortunately," I continued, "owing to your foolish arrangement not to tell each other where you were going and not to write, as being incompatible with Perfect Trust, you don't know where Orlando is at the present moment.""No; but I have a good guess," said Rosalind."There's a smart little watering- place, not so many miles from here, called Yellowsands, a sort of secret little Monaco, which not many people know of, a wicked-innocent gay little place, where we've often talked of going.I think it's very likely that Orlando has gone there; and that's just where I was going when we met."I will tell the reader more about Yellowsands in the next chapter.Meanwhile, let us complete Rosalind's arrangements.

The result of our conversation was that she was to proceed to Yellowsands on the morrow, and that I was to follow as soon as possible, so as to be available should she chance to need any advice, and at all events to give myself the pleasure of meeting her again.

This arranged, we said good-night, Rosalind with ever such a brightened-up face, of which I thought for half an hour and then fell asleep to dream of Yellowsands.