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Chapter XII. The New Element.

'I suppose you will get married one of these days, Berta?' said Mrs. Retlaw, meditatively, one day.

Philiberta had been living at her friend's house for nearly a month, and had no sort of idea of leaving Dunedin yet. The two were sitting, somewhat en déshabille, close over a glowing fire in Mrs. Retlaw's sanctum. The day had been bitterly cold, with a keen wet wind blowing in from the sea. Now night was coming on, with a drizzly close rain that made cosy rooms and warm hearths unusually pleasant to think about.

'I suppose you will get married some day?' said Mrs. Retlaw.

'I suppose that is what it will come to,' replied Philiberta, looking up so seriously that her friend laughed outright.

'I wonder what he will be like,' she said.

'To tell you the truth, I have often wondered that myself,' Said Philiberta.

'Oh, then,' in a tone of disappointment, 'you have not got him in your mind's eye yet?'

'No. Why do you speak like that? Did you think I had?'

'Well, I might have had a vision—but never mind!'

Then there was a pause, which Mrs. Retlaw terminated rather abruptly.

'Heatherwood's a nice young fellow, isn't he?' she said.

Berta looked up again and laughed.

'So that was your vision, was it? Dear friend, don't begin match-making.'

'Why shouldn't I try, though? It is every happy married woman's duty to get the single ones happily married as soon as possible.'

'I should like to be as happy as you, if I do marry,' said Philiberta. 'Your happiness is a pleasant thing to behold.'

'Yes; not many couples run together as well as Harry and I do,' responded Mrs. Retlaw. 'Marriage is an awful risk, though; a hazardous lottery. Dozens of people have said that before, page 89but that does not make it any the less true, you know. Without intending to advance any immoral theory, Berta, I must say that it is a pity marriages are not more easily annulled in this country, or that people might not make a trial of each other a while before tying the irrevocable knot.'

'What, live with each other unmarried?' cried Philiberta, shocked.

'Well, not quite that. At least, not in the sense you seem to understand. But they should be allowed, nay, compelled, to see more of each other before marriage than they do under existing arrangements now. They should see each other at all times and seasons, in sickness and in health; in good temper and in bad; when well dressed and when otherwise. Now, they meet at appointed times, and are always on their best behaviour at those times. I know girls who get themselves up most elaborately to meet their sweethearts, and are never even respectably clad at other seasons. And I know men who are all smiles and amiability when in the presence of the beloved one that exhibit a perfectly fiendish temper otherwheres. After marriage the thing is reversed, and it is the husband and wife who get the untidiness and the snarls that cannot in decency be displayed to the world. It is one thing meeting twice or thrice a week, and another living together always—just two—with the door shut on the world outside.'

'And a happy thing that last, when two people care enough for each other,' said Philiberta.

'Ah, yes, when they do. But it is a severe test, and even when the love between them is perfect, I think an occasional separation is good for both. People who live together continually get too used to each other. I read something like that in a book the other day, which said that people grew tired of each other then because the magnetism gives out The love current gets sluggish if it is never interrupted.'

'Does Mr. Retlaw agree with you in this?' asked Philiberta, with a smile. 'Does he see the advantage of occasional separation?'

'Not at all. But then all men lack the subtlety of thought page 90and feeling that women possess. At least, that is this woman's true opinion. Harry does not like me to go away, but how he does like me to come back. And yet the one cannot be without the other. I cannot come back without going away, and so he would miss a great enjoyment.'

'True. But your argument is rather a worn one, you know. It has been very often said that there is never pleasure without pain, never evil without good. But, for my part, if I were happy enough in any one condition, I should be content to let well alone, I think, and not run any risk by experimenting.'

'That is if—–' began Mrs. Retlaw, and then stopped short because of her husband's voice at the door.

'May any one enter?'

'No, any one mayn't,' she said, stretching herself out lazily on her couch. 'You may, being a privileged individual whom one has to humour.'

'Well, I had better go away, then, Harry,' said a strange voice, and both ladies sprang up at once in confusion.

The room was all in dusky shadow by this time, but the red glow from the fire shone full upon him who had spoken. A tall, broad man, with dark swart face, heavy moustache, and intense eyes.

'Too late to go now.' said Mr. Retlaw. 'Emma, this is Edgar Paget.'

'Good gracious! After all these years!' exclaimed Mrs. Retlaw. Then she approached him quickly, with both hands extended. 'I have never seen you before, Edgar Paget, but I know you very well.'

'I suppose Retlaw has spoken about me sometimes,' he returned.

'Spoken about you sometimes! Why, to this day you are his favourite topic of conversation. He will talk for hours about you and the time you roughed it together.'

Both men laughed.

'How was it you dropped the correspondence, Harry?'

'I? It was you, Teddy. I kept it up steadily for months after you stopped.'

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'Yes, I can bear witness to that,' said Mrs. Retlaw.

'Then the fault lies with the post offices,' said Paget, 'for I wrote at least half a dozen times to you without getting any reply. That sort of thing becomes disheartening, you know. Where did you go after Inglewood, Harry?'

'Came straight here, old man. That is, I got married first, then I came, and here I have been ever since. And you, Teddy?'

'Went up into the Loddon district, and took up fifteen thousand acres of sheep-run, Harry.'

'I see. Turned squatter.'

Yes.'

'And has it gone well?'

'Middling. It went famously until within the last four or five years. Since then things have gone against me, somehow; and I've been a little neglectful beside.'

'That's bad.'

'Yes, but it's all in one's lifetime, as the saying is. You haven't introduced me to your sister, Mrs. Retlaw.'

'My sister! Oh, I beg your pardon. And yours, too, Berta, most humbly There's no excuse for me, but really I was for the moment oblivious of all save the new element. Mr. Paget—Miss Campbell. Berta, my husband's old schoolfellow, shipmate, and chum.'

Philiberta half rose from her seat; Paget took her hand and held it in his for a second.

'How warm and comfortable you both are in here,' he said, stretching his own cold fingers before the fire. 'It makes a poor outside dog like me envious.'

'But you are not a poor outside dog now,' said Mrs. Retlaw, 'though you do look wet and muddy too. Harry, take him upstairs and order hot water. You will stay with us, of course, Mr. Paget.'

'Well, really that would be rather like presuming, you know.'

'Oh, stuff!' said Mr. Retlaw. 'Why, of course you will stay here. Where are your traps?'

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'At the Prince of Wales. I only got in this morning, you know.'

'I'll send round for them at once. It is too near dinner-time to kill the fatted calf, so you will have to take pot luck with us. But my wife generally sees that we have something good to eat; and by Jove, old fellow, you can't guess how glad we are to see you.'

After dinner some ladies came in visiting, and there was music; and Paget played and sang a plaintive little negro ditty. A very simple song, with a few simple chords by way of accompaniment, but the melody touched Philiberta strangely, and she never forgot it. Indeed, every incident, however trivial, of that evening seemed to her fraught with novel importance; and remained in her memory for ever. Something new and strange had come into her life. That was a singularly apt expression of Mrs. Retlaw's, 'the new element.' Philiberta did not know anything, did not feel anything definitely yet; how should she? But, all the same, her mind was working with a vague consciousness that this 'new element' was one that must alter her life; must change her very being either for better or worse; and her heart wondered blindly which it would be.