No More Learning

Strickland wants to know is:--"How DID my husband bring such
a lovely, lovely Waler from your Station? I know ALL his money-affairs;
and I'm CERTAIN he didn't BUY it. "

"What I want to know is:--How do women like Mrs. Bronckhorst come to
marry men like Bronckhorst? "

And my conundrum is the most unanswerable of the three.




VENUS ANNODOMINI.

And the years went on as the years must do;
But our great Diana was always new--
Fresh, and blooming, and blonde, and fair,
With azure eyes and with aureate hair;
And all the folk, as they came or went,
Offered her praise to her heart's content.
--Diana of Ephesus.

She had nothing to do with Number Eighteen in the Braccio Nuovo of
the Vatican, between Visconti's Ceres and the God of the Nile. She was
purely an Indian deity--an Anglo-Indian deity, that is to say--and
we called her THE Venus Annodomini, to distinguish her from other
Annodominis of the same everlasting order. There was a legend among the
Hills that she had once been young; but no living man was prepared to
come forward and say boldly that the legend was true.

Men rode up to Simla, and stayed, and went away and made their name and
did their life's work, and returned again to find the Venus Annodomini
exactly as they had left her. She was as immutable as the Hills. But
not quite so green. All that a girl of eighteen could do in the way of
riding, walking, dancing, picnicking and over-exertion generally,
the Venus Annodomini did, and showed no sign of fatigue or trace of
weariness.
Besides perpetual youth, she had discovered, men said, the
secret of perpetual health; and her fame spread about the land. From a
mere woman, she grew to be an Institution, insomuch that no young
man could be said to be properly formed, who had not, at some time or
another, worshipped at the shrine of the Venus Annodomini. There was no
one like her, though there were many imitations. Six years in her
eyes were no more than six months to ordinary women; and ten made less
visible impression on her than does a week's fever on an ordinary woman.
Every one adored her, and in return she was pleasant and courteous to
nearly every one. Youth had been a habit of hers for so long, that
she could not part with it--never realized, in fact, the necessity of
parting with it--and took for her more chosen associates young people.

Among the worshippers of the Venus Annodomini was young Gayerson.

"Very Young" Gayerson, he was called to distinguish him from his father
"Young" Gayerson, a Bengal Civilian, who affected the customs--as he had
the heart--of youth. "Very Young" Gayerson was not content to worship
placidly and for form's sake, as the other young men did, or to accept
a ride or a dance, or a talk from the Venus Annodomini in a properly
humble and thankful spirit. He was exacting, and, therefore, the Venus
Annodomini repressed him. He worried himself nearly sick in a futile
sort of way over her; and his devotion and earnestness made him appear
either shy or boisterous or rude, as his mood might vary, by the side of
the older men who, with him, bowed before the Venus Annodomini. She was
sorry for him. He reminded her of a lad who, three-and-twenty years ago,
had professed a boundless devotion for her, and for whom in return she
had felt something more than a week's weakness. But that lad had fallen
away and married another woman less than a year after he had worshipped
her; and the Venus Annodomini had almost--not quite--forgotten his name.
"Very Young" Gayerson had the same big blue eyes and the same way of
pouting his underlip when he was excited or troubled. But the Venus
Annodomini checked him sternly none the less.