San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1896-01-13
CHAPTER V

At Bombay meanwhile Phil Gilman
was-eating out his heart with suspense?
Oh, dear, mol He was having an exceed
ingly pleasant time with Freda Trevel-
yam. The one drawback to his pleasure
oh, faithlessness of man WAS the
thought that his Aggie would SO soon
come out and spoil it all for him.
Freda and he got ON admirably to-
gether. To say the truth, she was far
better fitted for him by nature than Ag
gle Oswald He saw it clearly himself
now. There was no good denying it.
Aggie and he had been thrown together
before they knew their own minds, and,
what was more important still, before
their characters had fully developed.
They were not fitted by real tastes and
instincts for one another. Aggie was
dear little girl, Of course, very pretty
and dainty and with lovely fluffy hair,
but was she quite the sort of woman
with whom a man of his type would
care to pass whole long lifetime?
Wasn't she better adapted, after all, by
tastes and habits, for cavalry officer?
Whereas Freda Trevelyan now had a
mind and soul She was clever, we'll
read, sympathetic, quickly perceptive.
Her mind went out to his at once by in
stinct. She seemed to jump half way to
meet every idea he advanced to her. he
could almost have fallen in love with
that beautiful woman if it were not for
Aggie But Phil Gilman was an honest
man and had plighted his troth to Aggie
Oswald. He wouldn't turn aside now
no, not for hundred Fredas!
And yet.
And yet, isn't it better, he asked him
self in his calmer moments, to change
your mind before marriage than after
it? Isn't it better to cry off, even at some
present cost of pain and humiliation to
the girl, than to tie her for life to a
man who can give only part Of his heart
to her? Isn't it better to be miserable
once for all in ones life than to be mis-
cradle always? These questions some
times obtruded themselves painfully
upon Pills mind, but being an honest
man, why, he waved them aside as
transparent sophisms. Having once
asked Aggie to come out and marry him,
it would be cruel and wicked and selfish
and unworthy to send her home again
unwed. Come what might, as things
now stood, he must do his best to avoid
falling in love with Freda.
But the human heart is a wayward
organ. 1t refuses to be disciplined by
the brain or the conscience.
There was some excuse, you know,
after all, for the apparent fickleness OF
these two young people. Their minds
were in both cases filled full beforehand
with the idea of marriage. They had
nourished their souls for five long years
with what the Scotch philosopher called
Glove in the abstract" and now, when
love in the concrete seemed so near, sc
very near, neither had at hand the prop
er person upon whom to expend his OF
her affection. Besides, it may be unro
mantle and unconventional to confess
the truth, but 1 believe it is fact OF
human nature that when the feelings
are very much reused, aId the proper
person isn't by TO make love to, there's
a considerable temptation to transfer the
love to the first eligible recipient one
happens to fall in with. I've found it so
myself and / throw myself upon the
mercy of jury of matrons. And in both
these cases, as it happened. the first
eligible person Phil or Aggie met was
also one more fitted by nature for the
vacant post than the old love could ever
possibly have been. Phil felt uncomfort-
ably aware that, though nothing on
earth would induce him to make love to
Freda Trevelyan, still, if he did yield
to that dreadful temptation, he could
have loved her thousand times better
by far than ever he could have loved
poor fluffy haired Aggie. And Aggie in
turn felt that, though it would be treason
to think of Angus Stuart when she was
actually on her way out to India to
marry Phil Gilman, still, if things had
gone otherwise, she coGid have loved
that handsome soldie, thousand times
better than ever she could love poor
philosopher Phil, with his cut and dried
deputy collectorship away somewhere
up country!
They had both one consolation. Per-
haps when Aggie turned up, after five
years development, she would no longer
be the pretty little fluffy haired fairy he
once admired, but real live woman
something, don't you know, like Freda
Trevelyan! Or perhaps when Phil turn
ed up he would no longer be quite SO
sober and grave as Of old. Five years OF
Indian life might have frightened and
sharpened him up into something re-
sembling Angus Stuart!
Not very cheering frame of mind