No More Learning

When he sailed, he was very full of a great plan to prove himself
several hundred times better than any one had given him credit for--to
work like a horse, and triumphantly marry Agnes Laiter. He had many good
points besides his good looks; his only fault being that he was weak,
the least little bit in the world weak. He had as much notion of economy
as the Morning Sun; and yet you could not lay your hand on any one item,
and say: "Herein Phil Garron is extravagant or reckless. " Nor could
you point out any particular vice in his character; but he was
"unsatisfactory" and as workable as putty.

Agnes Laiter went about her duties at home--her family objected to the
engagement--with red eyes, while Phil was sailing to Darjiling--"a port
on the Bengal Ocean," as his mother used to tell her friends. He was
popular enough on board ship, made many acquaintances and a moderately
large liquor bill, and sent off huge letters to Agnes Laiter at each
port. Then he fell to work on this plantation, somewhere between
Darjiling and Kangra, and, though the salary and the horse and the work
were not quite all he had fancied, he succeeded fairly well, and gave
himself much unnecessary credit for his perseverance.

In the course of time, as he settled more into collar, and his work grew
fixed before him, the face of Agnes Laiter went out of his mind and only
came when he was at leisure, which was not often. He would forget
all about her for a fortnight, and remember her with a start, like a
school-boy who has forgotten to learn his lesson.

She did not forget Phil, because she was of the kind that never forgets.
Only, another man--a really desirable young man--presented himself
before Mrs. Laiter; and the chance of a marriage with Phil was as far
off as ever; and his letters were so unsatisfactory; and there was a
certain amount of domestic pressure brought to bear on the girl; and the
young man really was an eligible person as incomes go; and the end of
all things was that Agnes married him, and wrote a tempestuous whirlwind
of a letter to Phil in the wilds of Darjiling, and said she should never
know a happy moment all the rest of her life. Which was a true prophecy.

Phil got that letter, and held himself ill-treated. This was two years
after he had come out; but by dint of thinking fixedly of Agnes Laiter,
and looking at her photograph, and patting himself on the back for being
one of the most constant lovers in history, and warming to the work as
he went on, he really fancied that he had been very hardly used.
He sat
down and wrote one final letter--a really pathetic "world without end,
amen," epistle; explaining how he would be true to Eternity, and that
all women were very much alike, and he would hide his broken heart,
etc. , etc. ; but if, at any future time, etc. , etc. , he could afford to
wait, etc. , etc. , unchanged affections, etc. , etc. , return to her old
love, etc. , etc. , for eight closely-written pages. From an artistic
point of view, it was very neat work, but an ordinary Philistine, who
knew the state of Phil's real feelings--not the ones he rose to as he
went on writing--would have called it the thoroughly mean and selfish
work of a thoroughly mean and selfish, weak man. But this verdict would
have been incorrect. Phil paid for the postage, and felt every word he
had written for at least two days and a half.

It was the last flicker before the light went out.

That letter made Agnes Laiter very unhappy, and she cried and put it
away in her desk, and became Mrs.