“She is just a little frightened,” he said to himself. “Quite natural--quite proper! It’s much better that a woman should be timid about a proposal of marriage than that she should hurl herself at it like a bull in a china shop! I can’t say she is encouraging--she doesn’t lead me on--in fact she rather puts me off! But that’s so like a woman!--always doing the very reverse of what she wishes to do!”
So he argued, in the spirit of that profound masculine egotism which is the heritage of every “lord of creation,” whether it be the rowdy of a motor char-à-bancs, or the self-contained intellectual of University honours and degrees. Every man grown to manhood is confident that he understands women,--absolutely confident even when, among his peers, he declares them to be incomprehensible. Of his power to please and subdue them he never has a doubt. The fallacy is inherited from the days of pre-historic savagery, and savagery is not by any means yet overcome by civilisation.
One rather chilly evening, when despite the melodious assurances of a thrush singing outside the window, one felt that a nip of winter had returned to provoke the sweet temper of the spring, the Philosopher found the Sentimentalist nestled in a chair by a sparkling fire in the cosy drawing-room, peacefully working at a dainty strip of floral embroidery. A branch of wild roses was visibly blossoming under the swift manipulation of her little white fingers, and the glitter of her tiny gold thimble flashed like the gleam of the sun on the growing flowers. She made a pretty picture as she sat, the flames of the fire now and again touching into more vivid colour the warm amber of her hair and the pale blue of her dress,--she was always a pretty picture, but somehow on this particular evening the Philosopher thought she made a prettier one than usual. As he approached she looked up and smiled,--she did not rise and go away as had been rather her habit of late. This was an encouraging sign,--and yet, strange to say, the distinguished man of letters became suddenly and uncomfortably conscious of “nerves.” With an effort he mastered them, and selecting an easy chair which he had frequently tried before and found satisfactory, he drew it and himself up to the fire and stretched out his legs with a sigh of deep content.