'I remember I nearly stood on my head one day. The conservatory opened
off the smoking-room, so when I came in the room, I heard my two sisters
and Beatrice talking about good-looking men.
'"I consider Bertram will make a handsome man," said my younger sister.
'"He's got beautiful eyes," said my other sister.
'"And a real darling nose and chin!" cried Beatrice. "If only he was
more _solide_! He is like a windmill, all limbs."
'"He will fill out. Remember, he's not quite seventeen," said my elder
sister.
'"Ah, he is _doux_--he is _câlin_," said Beatrice.
'"I think he is rather _too_ spoony for his age," said my elder sister.
'"But he's a fine boy for all that. See how thick his knees are," my
younger sister chimed in.
'"Ah, _si, si_!" cried Beatrice.
'I made a row against the door, then walked across.
'"Hello, is somebody in here?" I said, as I pushed into the little
conservatory.
'I looked straight at Beatrice, and she at me. We seemed to have formed
an alliance in that look: she was the other half of my consciousness, I
of hers. Ha! Ha! there were a lot of white narcissus, and little white
hyacinths, Roman hyacinths, in the conservatory. I can see them now,
great white stars, and tangles of little ones, among a bank of green;
and I can recall the keen, fresh scent on the warm air; and the look of
Beatrice ... her great dark eyes.
'It's funny, but Beatrice is as dead--ay, far more dead--than Dante's.
And I am not that young fool, not a bit.
'I was very romantic, fearfully emotional, and the soul of honour.
Beatrice said nobody cared a thing about her. FitzHerbert was always
jaunting off, the mother was a fretful invalid. So I was seventeen,
earning half a guinea a week, and she was eighteen, with no money, when
we ran away to Brighton and got married. Poor old Pater, he took it
awfully well, I have been a frightful drag on him, you know.
'There's the romance. I wonder how it will all end.' Helena laughed, and he did not detect her extreme bitterness of spirit.
They walked on in silence for some time. He was thinking back, before
Helena's day. This left her very much alone, and forced on her the idea
that, after all, love, which she chose to consider as single and
wonderful a thing in a man's life as birth, or adolescence, or death,
was temporary, and formed only an episode. It was her hour of
disillusion.