Page:Emily Climbs.pdf/220

 “‘Do you call a sense of humour a drawback?’ I asked.

“‘To be sure it is. A woman who has a sense of humour possesses no refuge from the merciless truth about herself. She cannot think herself misunderstood. She cannot revel in self-pity. She cannot comfortably damn any one who differs from her. No, Emily, the woman with a sense of humour isn’t to be envied.’

“This view of it hadn’t occurred to me. We sat down on the stone bench and thrashed it out. Dean is not going away this winter. I am glad—I would miss him horribly. If I can’t have a good spiel with Dean at least once a fortnight, life seems faded. There’s so much colour in our talks; and then at times he can be so eloquently quiet. Part of the time tonight he was like that: we just sat there in the dream and dusk and quiet of the old garden and each other’s thoughts. Part of the time he told me tales of old lands and the gorgeous bazaars of the East. Part of the time he asked me about myself, and my studies and my doings. I like a man who gives me a chance now and then to talk about myself.

“‘What have you been reading lately?’ he asked.

“‘This afternoon, after I finished the pickles, I read several of Mrs. Browning’s poems. We have her in our English work this year, you know. My favourite poem is —and I am much more in sympathy with Onora than Mrs. Browning was.’

“‘You would be,’ said Dean. “That is because you are a creature of emotion yourself. would barter heaven for love, just as Onora did.’

“‘I will not love—to love is to be a slave,’ I said.

“And the minute I said it I was ashamed of saying it—because I knew I had just said it to sound clever. I don’t really believe that to love is to be a slave—not with Murrays, anyhow. But Dean took me quite seriously.

“‘Well, one must be a slave to in this kind of a world,’ he said. ‘No one is free. Perhaps, after all, O daughter of the Stars, love is the easiest master—easier than hate—or fear—or necessity—or ambition—or pride.