“Like a teddy-bear for a baby!” he mused, grimly. “And how soon the baby tires of the teddy-bear!”
Comfort,--physical and material comfort in life--that was, in his opinion, the chief thing to aim at.
“And I doubt--I very much doubt,” he thought, “whether she”--here he alluded to the Sentimentalist--“would be a comfort. She would more likely be a worry and an embarrassment. She is charming, but erratic. She has ideals--and they are absurd. She has feelings--equally absurd. She would shed tears if her husband forgot to kiss her. More absurd than absurdity itself! She would resent neglect. And I believe she has a temper. Now a wife, to be satisfactory, should be docile and submissive--she should keep her ‘feelings’ in the background, attend to her household and be--well, yes!--a well-trained automaton. Then there would be peace, and a well-ordered establishment, which I should not object to. But a woman such as She is, with eyes that smile one moment and weep the next, and emotions as changeful as the wind--she would be a handful to manage!--if she _could_ be managed, which is open to serious question! If that young ass Jack comes home and marries her I shall be sorry for him!--yes, I shall be very sorry for him! But”--here he settled himself more comfortably in his chair--“in all probability he will not survive! He is just the kind of headstrong fool to make himself a target for the German guns!”
And with this reflection, which moved him to smile quite pleasantly, he composed himself for a quiet nap before luncheon.
Up to the present moment it has seemed hardly necessary to mention the name of the Sentimentalist. She was so distinctly a Sentimentalist that the appellation bestowed upon her by her godfathers and godmothers at the baptismal font always seemed superfluous. Yet it was quite a pretty name,--and in a subtle way suggested her nature and surroundings. It was Sylvia. It was a name the Philosopher found objectionable as soon as he knew her well enough to display his contentious and “criss-cross” humours.
“Sylvia is a name that belongs to the age of decadent romantic fiction,” he told her, with a kind of derisive sternness. “You might as well be called Amanda!”
“True!” she laughed. “I wonder why I wasn’t!”