“You know,” said Grimes, “look at it how you will, marriage is rather a grim thought.”
“The three reasons for it given in the Prayerbook have always seemed to me quite inadequate,” agreed Mr. Prendergast. “I have never had the smallest difficulty about the avoidance of fornication, and the other two advantages seem to me nothing short of disastrous.”
“My first marriage,” said Grimes, “didn’t make much odds either way. It was in Ireland. I was tight at the time, and so was everyone else. God knows what became of Mrs. Grimes. It seems to me, though, that with Flossie I’m in for a pretty solemn solemnization. It’s not what I should have chosen for myself, not by a long chalk. Still, as things are, I suppose it’s the best thing that could have happened. I think I’ve about run through the schoolmastering profession. I don’t mind telling you I might have found it pretty hard to get another job. There are limits. Now I’m set up for life, and no more worry about testimonials. That’s something. In fact, that’s all there is to be said. But there have been moments in the last twenty-four hours, I don’t mind telling you, when I’ve gone cold all over at the thought of what I was in for.”
“I don’t want to say anything discouraging,” said Mr. Prendergast, “but I’ve known Flossie for nearly ten years now, and—”
“There isn’t anything you can tell me about Flossie that I don’t know already. I almost wish it was Dingy. I suppose it’s too late now to change. Oh, dear!” said Grimes despondently, gazing into his glass. “Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! That I should come to this!”
“Cheer up, Grimes. It isn’t like you to be as depressed as this,” said Paul.
“Old friends,” said Grimes—and his voice was charged with emotion—“you see a man standing face to face with retribution. Respect him even if you cannot understand. Those that live by the flesh shall perish by the flesh. I am a very sinful man, and I am past my first youth. Who shall pity me in that dark declivity to which my steps inevitably seem to tend? I have boasted in my youth and held my head high and gone on my way careless of consequence, but ever behind me, unseen, stood stark Justice with his two-edged sword.”
More food was brought them. Mr. Prendergast ate with a hearty appetite.
“Oh, why did nobody warn me?” cried Grimes in his agony. “I should have been told. They should have told me in so many words. They should have warned me about Flossie, not about the fires of hell. I’ve risked them, and I don’t mind risking them again, but they should have told me about marriage. They should have told me that at the end of that gay journey and flower-strewn path were the hideous lights of home and the voices of children. I should have been warned of the great lavender-scented bed that was laid out for me, of the wistaria at the windows, of all the intimacy and confidence of family life. But I daresay I shouldn’t have listened. Our life is lived between two homes. We emerge for a little into the light, and then the front door closes. The chintz curtains shut out the sun, and the hearth glows with the fire of home, while upstairs, above our heads, are enacted again the awful accidents of adolescence. There’s a home and family waiting for every one of us. We can’t escape, try how we may. It’s the seed of life we carry about with us like our skeletons, each one of us unconsciously pregnant with desirable villa residences. There’s no escape. As individuals we simply do not exist. We are just potential home-builders, beavers and ants. How do we come into being? What is birth?”
“I’ve often wondered,” said Mr. Prendergast.
“What is this impulse of two people to build their beastly home? It’s you and me, unborn, asserting our presence. All we are is a manifestation of the impulse to family life, and if by chance we have escaped the itch ourselves, Nature forces it upon us another way. Flossie’s got that itch enough for two. I just haven’t. I’m one of the blind alleys off the main road of procreation, but it doesn’t matter. Nature always wins. Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! Why didn’t I die in that first awful home? Why did I ever hope I could escape?”
Captain Grimes continued his lament for some time in deep bitterness of heart. Presently he became silent and stared at his glass.
“I wonder,” said Mr. Prendergast, “I wonder whether I could have just a little more of this very excellent pheasant?”
“Anyway,” said Grimes, “there shan’t be any children; I’ll see to that.”
“It has always been a mystery to me why people marry,” said Mr. Prendergast. “I can’t see the smallest reason for it. Quite happy, normal people. Now I can understand it in Grimes’ case. He has everything to gain by the arrangement, but what does Flossie expect to gain? And yet she seems more enthusiastic about it than Grimes. It has been the tragedy of my life that whenever I start thinking about any quite simple subject I invariably feel myself confronted by some flat contradiction of this sort. Have you ever thought about marriage—in the abstract, I mean, of course?”
“Not very much, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t believe,” said Mr. Prendergast, “that people would ever fall in love or want to be married if they hadn’t been told about it. It’s like abroad: no one would want to go there if they hadn’t been told it existed. Don’t you agree?”
“I don’t think you can be quite right,” said Paul; “you see, animals fall in love quite a lot, don’t they?”
“Do they?” said Prendergast. “I didn’t know that. What an extraordinary thing! But then I had an aunt whose cat used to put its paw
