The Little Warrior

"You think I'm altruistic? I'm not. I'm just as selfish and self-centered as any other man who wants a thing very badly. I'm as altruistic as a child crying for the moon. I want you to marry me because I love you, because there never was anybody like you, because you're the whole world, because I always have loved you. I've been dreaming about you for a dozen years, thinking about you, wondering about you—wondering where you were, what you were doing, how you looked. I used to think that it was just sentimentality, that you merely stood for a time of my life when I was happier than I have ever been since. I used to think that you were just a sort of peg on which I was hanging a pleasant sentimental regret for days which could never come back. You were a memory that seemed to personify all the other memories of the best time of my life. You were the goddess of old associations. Then I met you in London, and it was different. I wanted you—you! I didn't want you because you recalled old times and were associated with dead happiness, I wanted you! I knew I loved you directly you spoke to me at the theatre that night of the fire. I loved your voice and your eyes and your smile and your courage. And then you told me you were engaged. I might have expected it, but I couldn't keep my jealousy from showing itself, and you snubbed me as I deserved. But now … things are different now. Everything's different, except my love."

Jill turned her face to the wall beside her. A man at the next table, a corpulent red-faced man, had begun to stare. He could have heard nothing, for Wally had spoken in a low voice; but plainly he was aware that something more interesting was happening at their table than at any of the other tables, and he was watching with a bovine inquisitiveness which affected Jill with a sense of outrage. A moment before, she had resented the indifference of the outer world. Now, this one staring man seemed like a watching multitude. There were tears in her eyes, and she felt that the red-faced man suspected it.

"Wally …" Her voice broke. "It's impossible."

"Why? Why, Jill?"

"Because … Oh, it's impossible!"

There was a silence.

"Because …" He seemed to find a difficulty in speaking, "Because of Underhill?"

Jill nodded. She felt wretched. The monstrous incongruity of her surroundings oppressed her. The orchestra dashed into a rollicking melody, which set her foot tapping in spite of herself. At a near-by table somebody was shouting with laughter. Two waiters at a service-stand were close enough for her to catch snatches of their talk. They were arguing about an order of fried potatoes. Once again her feelings veered round, and she loathed the detachment of the world. Her heart ached for Wally. She could not look at him, but she knew exactly what she would see if she did,—honest, pleading eyes searching her face for something which she could not give.

"Yes," she said.

The table creaked. Wally was leaning further forward. He seemed like something large and pathetic,—a big dog in trouble. She hated to be hurting him. And all the time her foot tapped accompaniment to the rag-time tune.

"But you can't live all your life with a memory," said Wally.

Jill turned and faced him. His eyes seemed to leap at her, and they were just as she had pictured them.

"You don't understand," she said gently. "You don't understand."

"It's ended. It's over."

Jill shook her head.

"You can't still love him, after what has happened!"

"I don't know," said Jill unhappily.

The words seemed to bewilder Wally as much as they had bewildered Freddie.

"You don't know!"

Jill shut her eyes tight. Wally quivered. It was a trick she had had as a child. In perplexity, she had always screwed up her eyes just like that, as if to shut herself up in herself.

"Don't talk for a minute, Wally," she said. "I want to think."

Her eyes opened.

"It's like this," she said. He had seen her look at him exactly the same way a hundred times. "I don't suppose I can make you understand, but this is how it is. Suppose you had a room, and it was full of things. Furniture. And there wasn't any space left. You—you couldn't put anything else in till you had taken all that out, could you? It might not be worth anything, but it would still be there taking up all the room."

Wally nodded.

"Yes," he said. "I see."

"My heart's full, Wally dear. I know it's just lumber that's choking it up, but it's difficult to get it out. It takes time getting it out. I put it in, thinking it was wonderful furniture, the most wonderful in the world, and—I was cheated. It was just lumber. But it's there. It's still there. It's there all the time. And what am I to do?"