Dodo Trilogy - Complete Edition: Dodo, Dodo's Daughter & Dodo Wonders. E. F. Benson
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irrevocably out of his reach. The only thing left to be done was to get over it; but his ordinary circle and its leisurely duties were quite impossible just at present, and he adopted the traditional English method of travelling, and shooting unoffending animals. Whether the absence of faith was responsible, is an open question; at any rate, the remedy did not result in a cure. He was intensely bored with foreign countries; they were quite as distasteful as England, and, on the whole, had less to offer. And he came back to London again as suddenly as he had left it. He only remembered one incident in his four months abroad which gave him any pleasure; that was when he received a letter from Dodo at Berlin, which said nothing particular, and wound up with a little mild chaff on the absurdity of his going abroad at all. "I hope you are really better," wrote Dodo, "though I didn't know that you were in any immediate danger of breaking down when you left us. Anyhow, come back. London is particularly wholesome, and, to tell you the truth, it's just a wee bit dull. Don't be conceited."
Of course he came back; it was no good remaining abroad, and yawning in front of the Sistine Madonna, who, in her impossible serene mildness, had no message whatever for him. He wanted to see Dodo; why on earth shouldn't he? She was the only thing he really cared about, and she was quite out of his reach. Where was the harm?
For two days after his arrival in London he was still undecided, and made no effort to see her, and on the third day her note came. London was as bad as Dresden, and again, where was the harm? He wrote a note saying he would come, then he tore that up and sent a refusal, offering no excuse; and after all, he had gone, and parted from her with the words that he would come again the next day. But ah, how sweet it was to see her again! Such were the facts upon which Jack wished to form a conclusion. All this indecision was really too annoying. What was the use of a conscience that took the sugar out of your tea, and yet could not prevent you from drinking it? It was not strong enough to prevent him going to see Dodo, and it took the malicious line of making the visit as little enjoyable as possible. Well, it must be settled one way or the other.
The problem obviously depended on one question. Did his desire for Dodo grow stronger with seeing her? He decided that it did not make much difference to the quality or degree of his longing, but, on the other hand, her society gave him an inestimable pleasure. When she had refused him a year ago, he had gone on seeing her day after day, without the horrible, unsatisfied emptiness he had felt abroad. That absorbing craving for her, he remembered, began when she was on her wedding tour. Then why not see her freely and frequently? No harm could possibly come out of it. Dodo, he thought, cared for him only as she cared for a dozen other friends, why should he, then, who cared so deeply for her, cut himself off from her? Again his deep-rooted affection and respect for her husband was an immense safeguard. Quixotism was a doubtful virtue at the best, and decidedly out of date, and besides, what would Dodo think if she suddenly found that one of her best friends invariably declined to meet her under any circumstances? She would certainly guess the reason, and if there was one possible solution of this stupid problem more undesirable than another, it was that. And Jack made up his mind.
Well, that was settled, and here was Bertie riding down upon him. He felt as if he wished to record a deliberate and sober conclusion. They joined forces and rode up together.
Then Jack said suddenly,—
"Bertie, I have been making a fool of myself, but I am better now."
"That's good," said Bertie placidly.
There was something indefinably soothing about Bertie's manner. Jack determined to be more explicit. It is often a relief to tell a friend one's own resolutions, especially if one does not expect unseasonable objections.
"It's about Dodo," he said. "You see I'm dreadfully in love with her. Awkward, isn't it?"
"Devilish," said Bertie, without a shade of emotion passing over his face.
"And the less I see of her," said Jack, "the worse I get, so I've determined that the more I see of her in the ordinary way, the better. It sounds an unusual treatment, I know, but you must acknowledge I gave the other method a fair chance. I went and killed pigs in Austria, and climbed the Matterhorn, but it wouldn't do."
They rode on a little time in silence. Then Bertie said,—
"Do you want my advice?"
"Well, yes," said Jack rather dubiously.
"Then I'm dashed if I like it, Jack," he said. "It's too dangerous. Just think——"
But Jack broke in,—
"Don't you see my friendship for Chesterford is an absolute safeguard. Dodo gives me more pleasure than anyone I know, and when I can't see her, life becomes unbearable. Chesterford is one of those men to whom one couldn't do a mean thing, and, furthermore, Dodo doesn't love me. If those two facts don't ensure safety, I don't know what would. Besides, Bertie, I'm not a rascal."
"I can't like it," said Bertie. "If one has a propensity for falling into the fire, it's as well to keep off the hearthrug. I know you're not a rascal, but this is a thing one can't argue about. It is a matter of feeling."
"I know," said Jack, "I've felt it too. But I think it's outweighed by other considerations. If I thought any mischief could come of it, I should deserve to be horse-whipped."
"I don't like it," repeated Bertie stolidly.
Jack went to see Dodo the next afternoon, and for many afternoons during the next fortnight he might have been seen on Chesterford's doorstep, either coming or going. Her husband seemed almost as glad as Dodo that Jack should come often. His visits were obviously very pleasant to her, and she had begun to talk nonsense again as fluently as ever. With Jack, however, she had some rather serious talks; his future appeared to be exercising her mind somewhat. Jack's life at this time was absolutely aimless. Before he had gone abroad he had been at the Bar, and had been called, but his chambers now knew him no more. He had no home duties, being, as Dodo expressed it, "a poor little orphan of six foot two," and he had enough money for an idle bachelor life. Dodo took a very real interest in the career of her friends. It was part of her completeness, as I have said before, to be the centre of a set of successful people. Jack could do very well, she felt, in the purely ornamental line, and she by no means wished to debar him from the ornamental profession, but yet she was vaguely dissatisfied. She induced him one day to state in full, exactly the ideas he had about his own future.
"You dangle very well indeed," she said to him, "and I'm far from wishing you not to dangle, but, if it's to be your profession, you must do it more systematically. Lady Wrayston was here yesterday, and she said no one ever saw you now. That's lazy; you're neglecting your work."
Jack was silent a few minutes. The truth of the matter was that he was becoming so preoccupied with Dodo, that he was acquiring a real distaste for other society. His days seemed to have dwindled down to an hour or two hours each, according to the time he passed with Dodo. The interval between his leaving the house one day and returning to it the next, had got to be merely a tedious period of waiting, which he would gladly have dispensed with. In such intervals society appeared to him not a distraction, but a laborious substitute for inaction, and labour at any time was not congenial to him. His life, in fact, was a series of conscious pulses with long-drawn pauses in between. He was dimly aware that this sort of thing could not go on for ever. The machine would stop, or get quicker or slower, and there were endless complications imminent in either case.
"I don't know that I really care for dangling," said Jack discontentedly. "At the same time it is the least objectionable form of amusement."
"Well, you can't dangle for ever in any case," said Dodo. "You ought to marry and settle down. Chesterford is a sort of apotheosis of a dangler. By performing, with scrupulous care, a quantity of little things that don't matter much, like being J.P., and handing the offertory plate, he is in a way quite a busy man, to himself at least, though nothing would happen if he ceased doing any or all of these things; and the dangler, who thinks himself busy, is the happiest of men, because he gets all the advantages of dangling, and none of the disadvantages, and his conscience—have you got a conscience, Jack?—so far from pricking him, tells him he's doing the whole duty of man. Then again he's married—to me, too. That's a profession in itself."
"Ah,