Chapter 22

EPITHALAMY.

For three indelible days Lewisham's existence was a fabric of fine
emotions, life was too wonderful and beautiful for any doubts or
forethought. To be with Ethel was perpetual delight--she astonished
this sisterless youngster with a thousand feminine niceties and
refinements. She shamed him for his strength and clumsiness. And the
light in her eyes and the warmth in her heart that lit them!

Even to be away from her was a wonder and in its way delightful. He
was no common Student, he was a man with a Secret Life. To part from
her on Monday near South Kensington station and go up Exhibition Road
among all the fellows who lived in sordid, lonely lodgings and were
boys to his day-old experience! To neglect one's work and sit back and
dream of meeting again! To slip off to the shady churchyard behind the
Oratory when, or even a little before, the midday bell woke the great
staircase to activity, and to meet a smiling face and hear a soft,
voice saying sweet foolish things! And after four another meeting and
the walk home--their own home.

No little form now went from him and flitted past a gas lamp down a
foggy vista, taking his desire with her. Never more was that to
be. Lewisham's long hours in the laboratory were spent largely in a
dreamy meditation, in--to tell the truth--the invention of foolish
terms of endearment: "Dear Wife," "Dear Little Wife Thing," "Sweetest
Dearest Little Wife," "Dillywings." A pretty employment! And these
are quite a fair specimen of his originality during those wonderful
days. A moment of heart-searching in that particular matter led to
the discovery of hitherto undreamt-of kindred with Swift. For
Lewisham, like Swift and most other people, had hit upon, the Little
Language. Indeed it was a very foolish time.

Such section cutting as he did that third day of his married life--and
he did very little--was a thing to marvel at. Bindon, the botany
professor, under the fresh shock of his performance, protested to a
colleague in the grill room that never had a student been so foolishly
overrated.

And Ethel too had a fine emotional time. She was mistress of a
home--_their_ home together. She shopped and was called "Ma'am" by
respectful, good-looking shopmen; she designed meals and copied out
papers of notes with a rich sense of helpfulness. And ever and again
she would stop writing and sit dreaming. And for four bright week-days
she went to and fro to accompany and meet Lewisham and listen greedily
to the latest fruits of his imagination.

The landlady was very polite and conversed entertainingly about the
very extraordinary and dissolute servants that had fallen to her
lot. And Ethel