I
?There Are Heroisms All Round
Us?
Mr. Hungerton, her father, rea lly was the most tactless
person upon earth,?a fluffy, feathery, untidy cockatoo of
a man, perfectly good-natu red, but absolutely centered
upon his own silly self. If anything could have driven me
from Gladys, it w ould have been the thought of such a
father-in-law. I am convinced t hat he really believed in his
heart that I came round to the Chestnuts three days a
week for the pleasure of his co mpany, and very especially
to hear his v iews upon b imetallism, a subject upo n which
he was by way of being an authority.
For an hour or more that evening I listened to hi s
monotonous chirrup about bad money driving out good,
the token value of silver, the depreciation of the rupee,
and the true standards of exchange.
?Suppose,? he cried with feeble violence, ?that all the
debts in the world were calle d up simultaneously, and
immediate payment insisted upon,?what under our
present conditions would happen then??
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I gave the self-evident answer that I should be a ruined
man, upon which he jumped from his chair, reproved me
for my habitual levity, which made it impossible for him
to discuss any reasonab le subject i n my presence, and
bounced off out of the room to dress for a Masoni c
meeting.
At last I was alone with Gladys, and the moment of
Fate had come! All that evening I h ad felt like t he soldier
who awaits the signal which will send him on a forlorn
hope; hope of victory and fear of repulse alternating in hi s
mind.
She sat with that proud, delic ate profile of hers outlined
against the r ed curtain. How beauti ful she was! And yet
how aloof! We had been friends, quite good friends; but
never could I get beyond the same comradeshi p which I
might have established with one of my fellow-reporters
upon the Gazette,?perfectly frank, perfectly kindly, and
perfectly unsexual. My instin cts are all again st a woma n
being too frank and at her ease with me. It is no
compliment to a man. Where th e real sex feeling begins,
timidity and distrust are its companions, heritage from old
wicked days when love and violence went ofte n hand in
hand. The bent head, the averted ey e, the faltering voice,
the wincing figure? these, and not the unshrinking gaze
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and frank reply, are the true signals of passion. Even in my
short life I h ad learned as much as that?or had inherited it
in that race memory which we call instin ct.
Gladys was full of every womanly quality. Some judged
her to be cold and hard; but such a thought w as treason.
That delicately bronzed skin, almost oriental in its
coloring, that raven hair, the large liquid eyes, the full but
exquisite lips,?all the stigma ta of passion were there. But
I was sadly conscious that up to now I had never found
the secret of drawing it forth. However, c ome what
might, I sho uld have done with su spense and bring matters
to a head to-night. She could but refuse me, and better be
a repulsed lover than an accepted brother.
So far my thoughts had carried me, and I was about to
break the long and uneasy silence, when two critical, dark
eyes looked round at me , and the proud head was shaken
in smiling reproof. ?I have a presentiment that you are
going to pro pose, Ned. I do wish yo u wouldn?t; for thing s
are so much nicer as they are.?
I drew my chair a little nearer. ?Now, how did you
know that I was going to propose?? I asked in genuine
wonder.
?Don?t women always know ? Do you suppose any
woman in the world was ever taken unawares? But?oh,
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Ned, our friendship has been so good and so pleasant!
What a pity to spoil it! Don?t you feel how splendid it is
that a young man and a young woman should be able to
talk face to face as we have talked??
?I don?t know, Gladys. You see, I c an talk face to face
with? with the station-master.? I can?t imagine how that
official came into the matter; but in he trotted, and set us
both laughi ng. ?That d oes not satisfy me in the least. I
want my arms round y ou, and your head on my breast,
and?oh, Gladys, I want???
She had spr ung from her chair, as she saw signs that I
proposed to demonstrate so me of my wants. ?You?ve
spoiled everything, Ned,? she said. ?It?s all so beautiful and
natural until this kind of thing comes in! It is such a pity!
Why can?t you control yourself??
?I didn?t invent it,? I plea ded. ?It?s nature. It?s love.?
?Well, perhaps if both love, it may be different. I have
never felt it.?
?But you must?you, with your beauty, with your soul!
Oh, Gladys, you were made for love! You must love!?
?One must wait till it comes.?
?But why can?t you love me, Gladys? Is it my
appearance, or what??
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She did unbend a little. She put for ward a hand ?such
a gracious, stooping attitude it was?and she pressed back
my head. Then she loo ked into my upturned fa ce with a
very wistful smile.
?No it isn?t that,? she said at last. ?You?re not a
conceited b oy by nature, and so I can safely te ll you it is
not that. It?s deeper.?
?My character??
She nodded severel y.
?What can I do to mend it ? Do sit down and talk it
over. No, really, I won?t if you?ll only sit down!?
She looked at me wi th a wondering distrust which was
much mor e to my mind tha n her whole-hearted
confidence. How primitive and besti al it l ooks w hen you
put it down in black and white!?and perhaps after all it is
only a feelin g peculiar to myself. Anyhow, she sat down.
?Now tell m e what?s amiss with me??
?I?m in love with somebody else,? said she.
It was my turn to jump out of my cha ir.
?It?s nobody in particular,? she explained, laughing at
the expression of my fa ce: ? only an ideal. I?ve never met
the kind of man I mean.?
?Tell me about him. What does he look like??
?Oh, he might look very much like you.?
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?How dear of you to say that ! Well, what is it that he
does that I don?t do? Ju st say the word,?teetotal,
vegetarian, aeronaut, the osophist, superman. I?ll have a try
at it, Gladys, if you will onl y give me an idea what would
please you.?
She laughed at the elasticity of my character. ?Well, in
the first place, I don?t thin k my ideal would speak like
that,? said she. ?He would be a harder, sterner man, not so
ready to adapt himself to a silly girl?s whim. But, above all,
he must be a man who could d o, who could act, w ho
could look Death in the face and have no fear of him, a
man of great deeds and strange experiences. It is never a
man that I should love, but always the glories h e had won;
for they would be reflecte d upon me. Think of Richard
Burton! When I read h is wife?s life of him I could so
understand her love! An d Lady Stanley! Did you ever read
the wonderful last chapter of that book about her
husband? These are the sort of men that a woman coul d
worship with all her so ul, and yet be the g reater, not the
less, on account of her love, honored by all the world as
the inspirer of noble deeds.?
She looked so beauti ful in h er enthusiasm that I nearly
brought down the whole level of the interview. I gripped
myself hard, and went on with the argument.
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?We can?t all be Stanleys and Burtons,? said I; ?besides,
we don?t get the chance, ?at le ast, I never had the chance.
If I did, I should try to take it.?
?But chance s are all around you. It is the mark of the
kind of man I mean that he makes his own chances. You
can?t h old h im back. I?ve never met him, and y et I seem
to know him so well. There are h eroisms all round us
waiting to be done. It?s for men to do them, and for
women to r eserve their love as a reward for such men.
Look at that young Frenchman who went up last week in
a balloon. It was blowing a gale of wind; but b ecause he
was announced to go he insisted on starting. The wind
blew him fifteen hundred miles in twenty-four hours, and
he fell in the middle of Russi a. That was the kind of man I
mean. Think of the woman he loved, and how other
women must have envied her! That?s what I should like to
be,?envied for my man.?
?I?d have do ne it to please you.?
?But you shouldn?t do it merely to please me. You
should do i t because you can?t help yourself, because it? s
natural to y ou, because the m an in you is crying out for
heroic expression. Now, when you described the Wigan
coal explosion last month, c ould you not have gone down
and helped t hose people, in spite of the choke-damp??
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?I did.?
?You never s aid so.?
?There was nothing worth bucking about.?
?I didn?t know.? She looked at me with rather more
interest. ?That was brave of you.?
?I had to. If you want to write good copy, you must be
where the things are.?
?What a prosaic mo tive! It seems to take al l the
romance out of it. But, still, whatev er your motive, I am
glad that you went down t hat mi ne.? She gave me her
hand; but with such sweetness and dignity that I could
only stoop and kiss it. ?I da re say I am merely a foolish
woman wi th a young girl?s fanc ies. And yet it is so real
with me, so entirely part of my very self, that I cannot
help acting upon it. If I marry, I do want to marry a
famous man! ?
?Why should you not?? I cried. ?It is women like you
who brace men up. Give me a ch ance, and see if I will
take it! Besi des, as yo u say, men o ught to MAKE their
own chances, and not wait until they are given. Look a t
Clive?just a clerk, and he c onquered India! By George!
I?ll do something in the world yet!?
She laughed at my sudden Irish ef fervescence. ?Why
not?? she sai d. ?You have everything a man coul d have,?
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youth, heal th, strength, education, energy. I was sorry you
spoke. And now I am g lad?so glad?if it wake ns these
thoughts in you!?
?And if I do ???
Her dear ha nd rested like warm velvet upon my lips.
?Not anothe r word, Sir! You shoul d have been at the
office for evening duty half an hour ago; only I hadn?t the
heart to rem ind you. Some day, perhaps, when you have
won your place in the world, we shall talk it over again.?
And so it was that I found myself that foggy November
evening pursuing the Camberwell tram with my heart
glowing within me, and with the eager determination that
not another day should elapse before I should find some
deed which was worthy of my lady. But who?who in all
this wide world could e ver have imagined the incredible
shape which that deed was to take, or the strange steps by
which I was led to the do ing of it?
And, after all, this opening chapter will seem to the
reader to have nothing to do with my narrative; and yet
there would have been no narrati ve without it, for it is
only when a man goes out into the world with the
thought that there are h eroi sms all round him, and with
the desire all alive in his heart to follow any which may
come withi n sight of him, that he breaks away as I did
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from the life he knows, and ventures forth into the
wonderful mystic twilight land where li e the great
adventures and the great rewards. Behold me, then, at the
office of the Daily Gaze tte, on the staff of w hich I was a
most insignif icant unit, with th e settled determination that
very night, if possible, to find the q uest whi ch should be
worthy of my Gladys! Was it hard ness, was it selfishness,
that she should ask me to risk my life for her own
glorification? Such thoughts may come to middle age; but
never to ardent three-and-twent y in the fever of his first
love.
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