The Garden of the god

She found Michael Moon standing under the garden tree, looking over
the hedge; hunched like a bird of prey, with his large pipe hanging down
his long blue chin. The very hardness of his expression pleased her,
after the nonsense of the new engagement and the shilly-shallying
of her other friends.

"I am sorry I was cross, Mr. Moon," she said frankly. "I hated you
for being a cynic; but I've been well punished, for I want a cynic
just now. I've had my fill of sentiment--I'm fed up with it.
The world's gone mad, Mr. Moon--all except the cynics, I think.
That maniac Smith wants to marry my old friend Mary, and she--
and she--doesn't seem to mind."

Seeing his attentive face still undisturbedly smoking, she added smartly,
"I'm not joking; that's Mr. Smith's cab outside. He swears he'll
take her off now to his aunt's, and go for a special licence.
Do give me some practical advice, Mr. Moon."

Mr. Moon took his pipe out of his mouth, held it in his hand
for an instant reflectively, and then tossed it to the other side
of the garden. "My practical advice to you is this," he said:
"Let him go for his special licence, and ask him to get another
one for you and me."

"Is that one of your jokes?" asked the young lady.
"Do say what you really mean."

"I mean that Innocent Smith is a man of business,"
said Moon with ponderous precision--"a plain, practical man:
a man of affairs; a man of facts and the daylight.
He has let down twenty ton of good building bricks suddenly
on my head, and I am glad to say they have woken me up.
We went to sleep a little while ago on this very lawn, in this
very sunlight. We have had a little nap for five years or so,
but now we're going to be married, Rosamund, and I can't see
why that cab..."

"Really," said Rosamund stoutly, "I don't know what you mean."

"What a lie!" cried Michael, advancing on her with brightening eyes.
"I'm all for lies in an ordinary way; but don't you see that to-night
they won't do? We've wandered into a world of facts, old girl.
That grass growing, and that sun going down, and that cab at the door,
are facts. You used to torment and excuse yourself by saying I
was after your money, and didn't really love you. But if I stood
here now and told you I didn't love you--you wouldn't believe me:
for truth is in this garden to-night."

"Really, Mr. Moon..." said Rosamund, rather more faintly.

He kept two big blue magnetic eyes fixed on her face.
"Is my name Moon?" he asked. "Is your name Hunt? On my honour,
they sound to me as quaint and as distant as Red Indian names.
It's as if your name was `Swim' and my name was `Sunrise.' But our
real names are Husband and Wife, as they were when we fell asleep."

"It is no good," said Rosamund, with real tears in her eyes;
"one can never go back."

"I can go where I damn please," said Michael, "and I can carry
you on my shoulder."

"But really, Michael, really, you must stop and think!"
cried the girl earnestly. "You could carry me off my feet, I dare say,
soul and body, but it may be bitter bad business for all that.
These things done in that romantic rush, like Mr. Smith's, they--
they do attract women, I don't deny it. As you say, we're all
telling the truth to-night. They've attracted poor Mary, for one.
They attract me, Michael. But the cold fact remains:
imprudent marriages do lead to long unhappiness and disappointment--
you've got used to your drinks and things--I shan't be
pretty much longer--"

"Imprudent marriages!" roared Michael. "And pray where in earth
or heaven are there any prudent marriages? Might as well talk
about prudent suicides. You and I have dawdled round each other
long enough, and are we any safer than Smith and Mary Gray,
who met last night? You never know a husband till you marry him.
Unhappy! of course you'll be unhappy. Who the devil are you
that you shouldn't be unhappy, like the mother that bore you?
Disappointed! of course we'll be disappointed. I, for one,
don't expect till I die to be so good a man as I am at this minute--
a tower with all the trumpets shouting."

"You see all this," said Rosamund, with a grand sincerity in her solid face,
"and do you really want to marry me?"

"My darling, what else is there to do?" reasoned the Irishman. "What other
occupation is there for an active man on this earth, except to
marry you? What's the alternative to marriage, barring sleep?
It's not liberty, Rosamund. Unless you marry God, as our nuns do in Ireland,
you must marry Man--that is Me. The only third thing is to marry yourself--
yourself, yourself, yourself--the only companion that is never satisfied--
and never satisfactory."

"Michael," said Miss Hunt, in a very soft voice, "if you won't talk so much,
I'll marry you."