The Happy Garden 



R. L. S., and Mrs. Tanqueray vowing that she 

 never did and never could have said : 



" Where's the pride in being a married woman 

 among women who are married ! " 



Living down here in a room which is almost 

 all windows, looking on to green lawns and climb- 

 ing roses, has made them realise how and where 

 they are wrong, and it is only very, very few who 

 have vitality enough to escape through the window 

 in the twilight and parade themselves in the garden. 

 Don Quixote leads the way and wages war on all 

 the villains of romance. He has a splendid time 

 of it. 



And as with the creatures of imagination, so 

 with actual people. They come into the garden, 

 and all the parts of themselves which they have 

 borrowed from other people and books and plays 

 fall away from them like the skin of a sloughing 

 snake. They are surprised to find themselves 

 genuine, and, if by chance borrowed words of 

 admiration come to their lips, they swallow them 

 down, or, if they are out, they apologise at once, 

 not so much to me as to the nearest flower, who is 

 naturally gracious. 



And I have not escaped the test of the garden. 

 It keeps me real, insists on it, and relations between 

 us are strained directly I begin to pat myself on 



22 



