The Business of Life

"Speak to you! You silly boy, I expect to do little else for the rest of my life! I intend to converse and argue and importune and insist and nag and nag. Oh, Jim! Please ring for breakfast. I had no luncheon yesterday and less dinner."

A slight colour glowed under the white skin of her cheeks as Farris entered with the fruit; she lifted a translucent cluster of grapes from the dish, snipped it in half with the silver scissors, glanced at her husband and laughed.

"That's how hungry I am, Jim. I warned you. Of what are you thinking – with that slight and rather fascinating smile crinkling your eyes?"

She bit into grape after grape, watching him across the table.

"Share with me whatever amuses you, please!" she insisted. "Never with my consent shall you ever again laugh alone."

"You haven't seen last evening's and this morning's papers," he said, amused.

"Have they arrived? Oh, Jim! I wish to see them, please!"

He went into his room and brought out a sheaf of clippings.

"Isn't this all of the papers that you cared to see, Jacqueline?"

"Of course! What do they say about us? Are they brief or redundant, laconic or diffuse? And are they nice to us?"

She was already immersed in a quarter column account of "A Romantic Wedding" at "old St. George's"; and she read with dilated eyes all about the "wealthy, fashionable, and well-known clubman," which she understood must mean her youthful husband, and all about Silverwood and the celebrated collections, and about his lineage and his social activities. And by and by she read about herself, and her charm and beauty and personal accomplishments, and was amazed to learn that she, too, was not only wealthy and fashionable, but that she was a descendant of an ancient and noble family in France, entirely extinguished by the guillotine during the Revolution, except for her immediate progenitors.

Clipping after clipping she read to the end; then the simple notices under "Weddings." Then she looked at Desboro.

"I – I didn't realise what a very grand young man I had married," she said, with a shy smile. "But I am very willing to admit it. Why do they say such foolish and untrue things about me?"

"They meant to honour you by lying about you when the truth about you is far more noble and more wonderful," he said.

"Do you think so?"

"Do you doubt it?"

She remained silent, turning over the clippings in her hand; then, glancing up, found him smiling again.

"Please share with me – because I know your thoughts are pleasant."

"It was seeing you in these pretty Chinese robes," he smiled, "which made me think of that evening in the armoury."

"Oh – when I sat under the dragon, with my lute, and said for your guests some legends of old Cathay?"

"Yes. Seeing you here – in your Chinese robes – made me think of their astonishment when you first dawned on their mental and social horizon. They are worthy people," he added, with a shrug.

"They are as God made them," she said, demurely.

"Only they have always forgotten, as I have, that God merely begins us – and we are expected to do the rest. For, once made, He merely winds us up, sets our hearts ticking, and places us on top of the world. Where we walk to, and how, is our own funeral henceforward. Is that your idea of divine responsibility?"

"I think He continues to protect us after we start to toddle; and after that, too, if we ask Him," she answered, in a low voice.

"Do you believe in prayer, dear?"

"Yes – in unselfish prayer. Not in the acquisitive variety. Such petitions seem ignoble to me."

"I understand."

She said, gravely: "To pray – not for one's self – except that one cause no sorrow – that seems to me a logical petition. But I don't know. And after all, what one does, not what one talks about, counts."

She was occupied with her grapes, glancing up at him from moment to moment with sweet, sincere eyes, sometimes curious, sometimes shy, but always intent on this tall, boyish young fellow who, she vainly tried to realise, belonged to her.

In his morning jacket, somehow, he had become entirely another person; his thick, closely brushed hair, the occult air of freshness from ablutions that left a faint fragrance about him, accented their new intimacy, the strangeness of which threatened at moments to silence her. Nor could she realise that she belonged there at all – there, in her frail morning draperies, at breakfast with him in a house which belonged to him.

Yet, one thing she was becoming vaguely aware of; this tall, young fellow, in his man's intimate attire, was quietly and unvaryingly considerate of her; had entirely changed from the man she seemed to have known; had suddenly changed yesterday at midnight. And now she was aware that he still remained what he had been when he took the white blossom from her hand the night before, and left in her trembling palm, untouched, the symbol of authority which now was his forever.

Even in the fatigue of body and the deadlier mental weariness – in the confused chaos of her very soul, that moment was clearly imprinted on her mind – must remain forever recorded while life lasted.

She divided another grape; there were no seeds; the skin melted in her mouth.

"Men," she said absently, "are good." When he laughed, she came to herself and looked at him with shy, humourous eyes. "They are good, Jim. Even the Chinese knew it thousands of years ago. Have you never heard me recite the three-word-classic of San Tzu Ching? Then listen, white man!

"Jen chih ch'u
Hsing pen shan
Hsing hsiang chin
Hsi hsiang yuan
Kou pu chiao
Hsing nai ch'ien
Chiao chih tao
Kuei i chuan – "

She sat swaying slightly to the rhythm, like a smiling child who recites a rhyme of the nursery, accenting the termination of every line by softly striking her palms together; and the silken Chinese sleeves slipped back, revealing her white arms to the shoulder.

Softly she smote her smooth little palms together, gracefully she swayed; her silks rustled like the sound of slender reeds in a summer wind, and her cadenced voice was softer. Never had he seen her so exquisite.

She stopped capriciously.

"All that is Chinese to me," he said. "You make me feel solitary and ignorant."

And she laughed and tossed the lustrous hair from her cheeks.

"This is all it means, dear:

"Men at their birth
Are naturally good.
Their natures are much the same;
Their habits become widely different.
If they are not taught,
Their natures will deteriorate.
The right way in teaching
Is to attach the utmost importance to thoroughness —

"And so forth, and so forth," she ended gaily.