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THE intoxication of that wedding held on long enough and strongly enough to soften and blunt the disillusionments of the first few days of the honeymoon. In the prospect that period had seemed, even to Mildred's rather unsophisticated imagination, appalling beyond her power to endure. In the fact thanks in large part to that intoxication it was certainly not unendurable.
What right had she to put her finger into any man's destiny unless she were willing to take the consequences and share that destiny if invited? But that no woman could be expected to do. Why could he not have realised her mental picture of him: that glorified being with whom she had dwelt so long? She sighed as she recalled her many disillusionments of the past few weeks.
"I fear that you are pained," said Montalvo sympathetically, "and no wonder, for myself I have gone through such disillusionments, and know how they wound a generous nature. That's why I showed you this document, because I also am generous and wish to warn you against this young gentleman, who, I understand, you allege is my son.
He believed that all the difficulties of life and most of its miseries would melt away if only people would live more in the light of simple instinct and impulse. He never had any real knowledge of human beings. The history of his life is the history of a series of extravagant admirations for people, followed by no less extravagant disillusionments.
But, though the path was pleasant, nay, exhilarating and stimulating, I must confess to the fact that I have had no psychological experiences, regrets, or disillusionments. I have had no temptation to write as to the shortness and precariousness of human existence, or to reflect how base I had found mankind, or, again, to deplore the past, curse the present, and dread the future.
"As I look back upon it all, I believe my reputation for coldness saved me, yet it was that very reputation which increased the pressure, and sometimes I was fairly driven into a corner. It seemed to madden some men and the disillusionments began to come. Of course it was my fault I don't pretend to say it wasn't.
This confidence in big, very expensive battleships is, I believe and hope, shared by the German Government and by Europe generally, but it is, nevertheless, a very unreasonable confidence, and it may easily lead us into the most tragic of national disillusionments.
Again, momentarily thrust back into himself, he wondered jealously once more what the disillusionments had been of that experience from before which she seemed, at times, ready to draw back a little the veil. "A sense of futility is a sense of incompleteness," he said, "and generally precedes a sense of power." "Ah, you have gained that!
"As I look back upon it all, I believe my reputation for coldness saved me, yet it was that very reputation which increased the pressure, and sometimes I was fairly driven into a corner. It seemed to madden some men and the disillusionments began to come. Of course it was my fault I don't pretend to say it wasn't.
Was he thinking of their white souls darkening with the sins of the world, or of the troubles, the disillusionments of life, and the decrepitude? Or was it of himself did he think of his own youth, so long past, so hopelessly gone, or did he think that he was old and worn, and of the dark journey before him, and of the light that seemed so distant?
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