Sparrows Part 56

"If you won't let me thank you, perhaps you'll let Jill."

Mavis held Jill in Perigal's face, when, to the girl's surprise, Jill growled angrily.

"What wicked ingrat.i.tude!" cried Mavis. "Oh, you naughty Jill!"

"Perhaps she's sorry I didn't let her drown," remarked Perigal.

"What!" cried Mavis.

"She may have wanted to commit suicide."

"Jill want to leave me?"

"She felt unworthy of you. I suppose she growls because she sees right through me."

"Don't be so fond of disparaging yourself. It was very brave of you to dive in as you did."

"I'm going to ask you to do something really brave."

"What's that?"

"Tackle eggs and bacon for lunch. It's all they've got."

"I'll be very brave. I'm hungry."

A red-cheeked, bright-eyed young woman laid a coa.r.s.e cloth, and, upon this, black-handled knives and forks.

"What will you have to drink?" asked Perigal.

"Milk."

"Have some wine."

"I always drink milk."

"Not in honour of our meeting?"

"You seem to forget I've got to walk home."

"Perhaps you're right. Goodness knows what they'd give you here. Not like the Carlton or the Savoy."

"I've never been to such places."

"Not?" he asked, in some surprise, to remain silent till the fried eggs and bacon were brought in.

"You ought to drink something warm," said Mavis, as he piled food on her plate.

"I've ordered ginger brandy. It's the safest thing they've got."

The food enabled Mavis to recover her spirits. It appeared to have a contrary effect on Perigal; the little he ate seemed to incline him to gloomy thoughts.

"I'm afraid you're going to be ill," she remarked.

"I'm all right. Don't worry about me."

"I won't. I'll worry the eggs and bacon instead."

Presently, he raised the gla.s.s of ginger brandy in his hands.

"Here's to the unattainable!" he said.

"And that?"

"Happiness."

"Nonsense! Everyone can be happy if they like."

"Little Mavis, let me tell you something."

"Something dismal?"

"No one ever was, is, or can be really happy: it's a law of nature."

"I've come across people who're absolutely happy."

"Listen. Nature, for her own ends, the survival of the fittest, has arranged matters so that we're always, always striving. We think that a certain end will bring happiness, and struggle like blazes to get it, to find that satisfaction is a myth; to discover that, no sooner do we possess a thing than we weary of what was once so ardently desired, and immediately crave for something else which, if obtained, gives no more satisfaction than the last thing hungered for."

"I don't believe it for a moment. Besides, why should it be?"

"Because it's necessary to keep the species going. By constantly fighting with others for some goal, it sharpens our faculties and makes us more fitted to hold our own; if it weren't for this struggle, we should stagnate and very soon go under."

"Even if some of what you say is true, there's the pleasure of getting."

"At first. But if one 'spots' this clever trick of nature and one is convinced that nothing, nothing on earth is worth struggling for--what then?"

"That it's a very foolish state of mind to get into, and the sooner you get out of it the better."

"You said just now there was the pleasure of getting. I know something better."

"And that?"

"The pleasure of forgetting."

He glanced meaningly at her.

"Are you forgetting now?" she asked.

"Can you ask?"