CHAPTER XVIII
Itmust be by the light of a great confidence in himself that a man rejoices in fatalism. As I walked along the cliffs that morning to meet Clarissa, the beating of my heart was high. For that one hour I had believed in Fate, in the imperishable reason in all things. But as I saw her pass round the distant corner and vanish out of sight, the whole order of the world was plunged in chaos. I began to ask myself what freak of circumstance had sent me out upon such an errand of folly.
By the very movement of her body, the very temper of her step, as I watched her walking back to Ballysheen, I knew that I had awakened in her a living despot of determination.
Women are like that. Nothing will alter them. It proves to me conclusively how little I know of their nature when I brought reason and a spirit of logic along with me to urge Clarissa to the sacrifice of her romance. For it is not with women that they are unreasonable. To be reasonable, one must know what reason is. Now I would swear that, as a sex, they do not know the first meaning of the word. Their intelligence is of another, perhaps a higher, order altogether. Reason, with a woman, only aggravates her to determination. Intuition, on the other hand, with a man, aggravates him to obstinacy. That is why I think—and maybe I am wrong—that the order of a woman's intelligence is higher than that of a man's. Determination is the better part of obstinacy.
Now I had aggravated Clarissa to determination. In those few moments of her anger she had left all her timidity, all her childlikeness, behind her. So far from increasing the doubt of him, which I know must have been already in her mind, I had in one simple movement—the relation of my story—swept it utterly away. She believed in and loved him then more wholly and completely than she had ever done before, and, as I thought it all out, point by point, along the rigid line of logic, I came to the conclusion that God and my mother had not qualified me for so deft and delicate a business as the meddling with a woman's heart.
"Dandy," said I, presently, "we'd better get back to lunch. We've made hopeless fools of ourselves. Even God, who made woman, knows how to treat them no better than we. Or why did He send that man into her life? It's not losing a woman to see no more of her. We should not have lost, we should have won her, if she'd gone back to Dominica. But we've lost her utterly now. Unless—unless—" the hope of it leapt suddenly into my mind—"unless he never marries her."
It was one of those things too great and generous in circumstance to count upon. No sooner did it enter my thoughts, than back came the picture of Clarissa—a child by her bedside upon her knees—praying God that she would never see me again; at which, when I had contemplated it for a moment, I rose quickly to my feet.
"Dandy," I said again, "we'd better get back to London." Therefore, taking the tone of my voice, he fell behind disconsolately to my heels and, in silence, we walked back to Ballysheen. Only once did I look round at him. It was when a rabbit scurried across the path in front of us. Then I turned my head.
"Did you see him?" said I.
He stood still and stared up into my face.
"I did," said he, "but I didn't want to."
I know that feeling so well. I was quite aware I had to go back to lunch. God knows I did not want to.