Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/293

 “Oh, nothing, of course. But do you think you're the sort of people likely to get on?”

“Really, Bobby, I don't—”

“I know—none of my business—quite true. But you see I've known Clare pretty well all my life and you're the best friend I've got, so you might allow me to take an interest.”

“Well, say what you like.”

“Nothing to say except that Clare isn't altogether an easy problem. You're like all the other fellows I know— think because Clare's got red hair and laughs easily she's a goddess—she isn't, not a bit! She's got magnificent qualities and one day perhaps, when she's had a thoroughly bad time, she'll show one the kind of things she's made of. But she's an only child, she's been spoilt all her life and the moment she begins to be unhappy she's impossible.”

“She shan't ever be unhappy if I can help it!” muttered Peter fiercely.

Bobby laughed. “You'll do your best of course, but are you the sort of man for her? She wants some one who'll give her every kind of comfort, moral, physical and intellectual. She wants somebody who'll accept her enthusiasms as genuine intelligence. You'll find her out intellectually in a week. Then she wants some one who'll give her his whole attention. You think now that you will but you won't—you can't—you're not made that way. By temperament and trade you're an artist. She thinks, at the moment, that an artist would suit her very well; but, in reality, my boy, he's the very last sort of person she ought to marry.”

Peter caught at Bobby's words. “Do you really think she cares about me?”

“She's interested. Clare spends her days in successive enthusiasms. She's always being enthusiastic—dreadful disillusions in between the heights. Mind you, there's another side of Clare—a splendid side, but it wants very careful management and I don't know, Peter, that you're exactly the sort of person—”

“Thanks very much,” said Peter grimly.

“No, but you're not—you don't, in the least, see her as she is, and she doesn't see you as you are—hence these