Stormy weather does not vex the calm of the Park
Lover, for 'the rains of Marly do not wet' when one is in love. By
a clever manipulation of four arms and four hands they can manage an
umbrella and enfold each other at the same time, though a feminine
macintosh is well known to be ill adapted to the purpose, and a
continuous drizzle would dampen almost any other lover in the
universe.
The park embrace, as nearly as I can analyse it, seems to be one
part instinct, one part duty, one part custom, and one part reflex
action. I have purposely omitted pleasure (which, in the analysis
of the ordinary embrace, reduces all the other ingredients to an
almost invisible faction), because I fail to find it; but I am
willing to believe that in some rudimentary form it does exist,
because man attends to no purely unpleasant matter with such
praiseworthy assiduity. Anything more fixedly stolid than the Park
Lover when he passes his arm round his chosen one and takes her
crimson hand in his, I have never seen; unless, indeed, it be the
fixed stolidity of the chosen one herself. I had not at first the
assurance even to glance at them as I passed by, blushing myself to
the roots of my hair, though the offenders themselves never changed
colour. Many a time have I walked out of my way or lowered my
parasol, for fear of invading their Sunday Eden; but a spirit of
inquiry awoke in me at last, and I began to make psychological
investigations, with a view to finding out at what point
embarrassment would appear in the Park Lover.
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