“You hadn’t mentioned any verses before,” said Rosalind.
“I told you he was a fool,” said I. “And, after all, that is the entire story.”
Then I spent several minutes in wondering what would happen next. During this time I lost none of my interest in the sky. I believed everything I had said: my emotions would have done credit to a Romeo or an Amadis.
“The first time that the girl was not at home,” Rosalind observed, impersonally, “the man had on a tan coat and a brown derby. He put on his gloves as he walked down the street. His shoulders were the most indignant—and hurt things she had ever seen. Then the girl wrote to him—a strangely sincere letter—and tore it up.”
“Historical research,” I murmured, “surely affords no warrant for such attire among the rural denizens of tranquil Arden.”
“You see,” continued Rosalind, oblivious to interruption, “I know all about the girl—which is more than you do.”
“That,” I conceded, “is disastrously probable.”
“When she realised that she was to see the man again—Did you ever feel as if something had lifted you suddenly hundreds of feet above rainy days and cold mutton for luncheon, and the possibility of other girls’ wearing black evening dresses, when you wanted yours to be the only one in the room? Well, that is the way she felt at first, when she read his note. At first, she realised nothing beyond the fact that he was nearing her, and that she would presently see him. She didn’t even plan what she would wear, or what she would say to him. In an indefinite way, she was happier than she had ever been before—or has been since—until the doubts and fears and knowledge that give children and fools a wide berth came to her—and then she saw it all against her will, and thought it all out, and came to a conclusion.”
I sat up. There was really nothing of interest occurring overhead.
“They had played at loving—lightly, it is true, but they had gone so far in their letter writing that they could not go backward—only forward, or not at all. She had known all along that the man was but half in earnest—believe me, a girl always knows that, even though she may not admit it to herself—and she had known that a love affair meant to him material for a sonnet or so, and a well-turned letter or two, and nothing more. For he was the kind of man that never quite grows up. He was coming to her, pleased, interested, and a little eager—in love with the idea of loving her—willing to meet her halfway, and very willing to follow her the rest of the way—if she could draw him. And what was she to do? Could she accept his gracefully insulting semblance of a love she knew he did not feel? Could they see each other a dozen times, swearing not to mention the possibility of loving—so that she might have a chance to reimpress him with her blondined hair—it is touched up, you know—and small talk? And—and besides—”
“It is the duty of every young woman to consider what she owes to her family,” said I, absentmindedly. Rosalind Jemmett’s family consists of three aunts, and the chief of these is Aunt Marcia, who lives in Lichfield. Aunt Marcia is a portly, acidulous and discomposing person, with eyes like shoe-buttons and a Savonarolan nose. She is also a well-advertised philanthropist, speaks neatly from the platform, and has wide experience as a patroness, and extreme views as to ineligibles.
Rosalind flushed somewhat. “And so,” said she, “the girl exercised her common sense, and was nervous, and said foolish things about new plays, and the probability of rain—to keep from saying still more foolish things about herself; and refused to talk personalities; and let him go, with the knowledge that he would not come back. Then she went to her room, and had a good cry. Now,” she added, after a pause, “you understand.”
“I do not,” I said, very firmly, “understand a lot of things.”
“Yet a woman would,” she murmured.
This being a statement I was not prepared to contest, I waved it aside. “And so,” said I, “they laughed; and agreed it was a boy-and-girl affair; and were friends.”
“It was the best thing—” said she.
“Yes,” I assented—“for Orlando.”
“—and it was the most sensible thing.”
“Oh, eminently!”
This seemed to exhaust the subject, and I lay down once more among the pine-needles.
“And that,” said Rosalind, “was the reason Jaques came to Arden?”
“Yes,” said I.
“And found it—?”
“Shall we say—Hades?”
“Oh!” she murmured, scandalised.
“It happened,” I continued, “that he was cursed with a good memory. And the zest was gone from his little successes and failures, now there was no one to share them; and nothing seemed to matter very much. Oh, he really was the sort of man that never grows up! And it was dreary to live among memories of the past, and his life was now somewhat perturbed by disapproval of his own folly and by hunger for a woman who was out of his reach.”
“And Rosalind—I mean the girl—?”
“She married Orlando—or Gamelyn, or Alfred, or Athelstane, or Ethelred, or somebody—and, whoever it was, they lived happily ever afterward,” I said, morosely.
Rosalind pondered over this denouement for a moment.
“Do you know,” said she, “I think—”
“It’s a rather dangerous practice,” I warned her.
Rosalind sighed, wearily; but in her cheek at about this time occurred a dimple.
“—I think that Rosalind must have thought the play very badly named.”
“As You Like It?” I queried, obtusely.
“Yes—since it wasn’t, for her.”
It is unwholesome to lie on the ground after sunset.
IV
“I had rather a scene with Alfred yesterday morning. He said you drank,
