And yet there had been something finer and purer in this later love
than in the first infatuation of his youth. On that day, seven days
ago, the last day it had to live, he had been touched by something
more sacred, more immortal than desire. There had been no illusion in
the poetry that clothed the figure of a woman standing in an empty
room, dearer to her than the bridal chamber; a woman whose face grew
soft as her instinct outran the bridal terror and the bridal joy,
divining beyond love the end that sanctifies it.
But beyond all that again he could see that, whereas the love of all
other women had torn him asunder, the love of Lucia made him whole.
Poppy had drawn him by his senses; Flossie by his senses and his
heart; Lucia held him by his senses, his heart, his intellect, his
will, by his spirit, by his genius, by the whole man. Long after his
senses had renounced their part in her, the rest of him would cling to
her, satisfied and appeased. And but for Flossie it would have been so
even now. Though his senses had rest in Lucia's presence, their
longing for her was reawakened, not only by the thought of his
approaching marriage, but by the memory of that one moment when he had
realized the mystery of it, the moment of poor Flossie's
transfiguration, when he had seen through the thick material veil,
deep into the spiritual heart of love. With Lucia the veil had been
transparent from the first. It was not with her as it was with those
women who must wait for the hour of motherhood to glorify them. Of
those two years of his betrothal what was there that he would care to
keep? Only one immortal moment, that yet knew of the mortality before
and after it. While of the last seven days Lucia had made a whole
heavenly procession of ascending hours, every moment winged with the
immortal fire. Flying moments; but flame touched flame in flying, and
they became one life.
But he was going to marry Flossie.
And she, the child that was to have borne the burden of his genius and
his passion, poor little blameless victim of the imagination that
glorifies desire, how would it be with her in this empty house, empty
of the love she had looked for and would never find? How would it be
with him? Had he pledged himself to a life of falsehood, and had he
yet to know what torment awaited him at the hands of the avenging
truth? Truth, as he had once defined it, was the soul of the fact. It
was the fact that he was going to marry Flossie; but it was not the
truth. Only love could have given it a soul and made it true. If he
was bound to maintain that it had a soul when it hadn't, that was
where the falseness would come in.
Yet no. He might go mad by thinking about it, but life after all was
simpler than thought. Things righted themselves when you left off
thinking about them. He would be unhappy; but that could only make
Flossie unhappy if she cared for him. And in a year's time, when he
had left off thinking, she would have left off caring. He had shrewdly
divined that what Flossie chiefly wanted was to have children; or if
she did not want it, Nature wanted it for her, which came to the same
thing. As for mating her to a man of genius, that was just Nature's
wanton extravagance. Maddox had once said that any man would have done
as well, perhaps better; Flossie wouldn't care. Well, he would give
her children, and she would care for them. Indeed, he sincerely hoped
that for him she would not care. It would make things simpler.
Maddox, he remembered, had also said that she was the sort of woman
who would immolate her husband for her children; whereas Poppy--but
then, Maddox was a beast.
It never occurred for a moment to him to throw Flossie over. That, he
had settled once for all, could not now be done. Circumstances
conspired to make the thing irrevocable. Her utter dependence on him,
the fact that she had no home but the one he offered her, no choice
between marriage and earning her own living in a way she hated, the
flagrant half-domestic intimacy in which they had been living, more
than all, the baseness of his past love, and the inadequacy of his
present feeling for her, both calling on him to atone, all these
things made a promise of marriage as binding as the actual tie. Their
engagement might possibly have been broken off at any of its earlier
stages without profound dishonour. It was one thing to jilt a girl
within a decent interval of the first congratulations; another thing
altogether to abandon her with her trousseau on her hands. It had gone
so far that his failure at the last moment would be the grossest
insult he could offer her.
Gross indeed; yet not so gross but that he could think of one still
grosser--to let her marry him when he had no feeling to offer her but
such indifference as marriage deepens to disgust, or such disgust as
it tones down into indifference. Would he go on shuddering and wincing
as he had shuddered and winced to-day? Passion that might have
condoned her failings was out of the question; but would it be
possible to keep up the decent appearance of respect?
And yet he was going to marry her.
That was impressed on him by Flossie's voice saying that if he
wouldn't decide which of those two rooms was to be _their_ room, she
must. Because the men wanted to put up the bedstead.
It was an intimation that he was bound to her, not by any fine ties of
feeling or of honour, but by a stout unbreakable chain of material
facts. He looked out of the window. The vans were unloading in the
street. It seemed to him that there was something almost grossly
compromising in the wash-stand, dumped down there in the garden; and
as the bedstead was being borne into the house in portions,
reverentially, processionally, he surrendered before that supreme
symbol of finality. As he had made his bed, he must lie; even if it
was a brass bed with mother-o'-pearl ornaments; and he refused to
listen to the inner voice which suggested that the bed was not made
yet, it was not even paid for, and that he would be a fool to lie on
it. He turned sad eyes on the little woman so flushed and eager over
her packages. He had committed himself more deeply with every purchase
they had made that day. How carefully he had laboured at his own
destruction.
He had gone so far with these absurd reflections, that when Flossie
exclaimed, "There, after all I've forgotten the kitchen hammer," his
nerves relaxed their tension, and he experienced a sense of momentary
but divine release. And when she insisted on repairing her oversight
as they went back, he felt that the kitchen hammer had clinched the
matter; and that if only they had not bought it he might yet be free.
There was something in the Beaver's building, after all.
CHAPTER LIX
He did not appear that evening, not even to listen to Lucia's music,
for his misery was heavy upon him. Mercifully, he was able to forget
it for a while in attending to the work that waited for him; an
article for _The Planet_ to be written; proofs to correct and
manuscripts to look through for _Metropolis_; all neglected till the
last possible moment, which moment had now come. For once he reaped
the benefit of his reckless habits of postponement.
But four hours saw him through it; and midnight recalled him to his
care. Instead of undressing he refilled his lamp, made up his fire,
and drew his chair to the hearth. There was a question, put off, too,
like his work, from hour to hour, and silenced by the scuffling,
meaningless movements of the day. It related to the promise he had
made to Lucia Harden at the end of their last interview. He had then
said to her that, since she desired it, she should know what it was
that she had done for him. Hitherto he had determined that she should
not know it yet; not know it till death had removed from her his
embarrassing, preposterous personality. The gift of knowledge that she
might have refused from the man, she could then accept from the poet.
The only condition that honour, that chivalry insisted on was the
removal of the man. But there were other ways of getting rid of a man
besides the clumsy device of death. Might he not be considered to have
effaced himself sufficiently by marriage? As far as Lucia was
concerned he could see very little difference between the two
processes; in fact, marriage was, if anything, the safer. For the
important thing was that she should know somehow; that he should hand
over his gift to her before it was too late. And suppose--suppose he
should fail to remove himself in time? Beholding the years as they
now stretched before him, it seemed to him that he would never die.
There was another consideration which concerned his honour, not as a
man but as a poet. He knew what it was in him to do. The nature of the
gift was such that if he brought it to her to-day she would know that
he had given her his best; if he kept it till to-morrow it would be
his best no longer. Besides, it was only a gift when you looked at it
one way. He was giving her (as he believed) an immortal thing; but its
very immortality gave it a certain material value. The thing might be
sold for much, and its price might go far towards covering that debt
he owed her, or it might be held by her as a sort of security. He
could see that his marriage would be a hindrance to speedy payment on
any other system.
He rose, unlocked a drawer, and took from it the manuscript of the
nine and twenty sonnets and the sealed envelope that contained his
testament concerning them. He had looked at them but once since he had
put them away three years ago, and that was on the night of his
engagement. Looking at them again he knew he was not mistaken in his
judgement, when calmly, surely, and persistently he had thought of the
thing as immortal. But according to another condition that his honour
had laid down, its immortality depended upon her. At this point honour
itself raised the question whether it was fair to throw on her the
burden of so great a decision? She might hesitate to deny him so large
a part of his immortality, and yet object to being so intimately, so
personally bound up with it. He could see her delicate conscience
straining under the choice.
But surely she knew him well enough to know that he had left her free?
She would know that he could accept nothing from her pity, not even a
portion of his immortality. She would trust his sincerity; for that at
any rate had never failed her. And since what he had written he had
written, she would see that unless he destroyed it with his own hands
the decision as to publication must rest with her. It concerned her so
intimately, so personally, that it could not be given to the world
without her consent. Whether what he had written should have been
written was another matter. If she thought not, if her refinement
accused him of a sin against good taste, that would only make his
problem simpler. Even if her accusation remained unspoken, he would
know it, he would see it, through whatever web her tenderness wrapped
round it. His genius would contend against her judgement, would not
yield a point to her opinion, but his honour would take it as settling
the question of publication. In no case should she be able to say or
think that he had used his genius as a cover for a cowardly passion,
or that by compelling her admiration he had taken advantage of her
pride.
But would she say it or think it? Not she. He knew her. And if his
knowledge had brought much misery, it brought consolation too. Where
Lucia was concerned he had never been sustained by any personal
conceit; he had never walked vainly in the illusion of her love. At
that supreme point his imagination had utterly broken down; he had
never won from it a moment's respite from his intolerable lucidity.
There was a certain dignity about his despair, in that of all the
wonderful web of his dreams he had made no fine cloak to cover it. It
shivered and suffered in a noble nakedness, absolutely unashamed. But
one thing he knew also, that if Lucia did not love him, she loved his
genius. Even when lucidity made suffering unendurable, he had still
the assurance that his genius would never suffer at her hands. For did
she not know that God gives the heart of a poet to be as fuel to his
genius, for ever consumed and inconsumable? That of all his passions
his love is the nearest akin to the divine fire? She of all women
would never deny him the eternal right to utterance.
Neither could she well find fault with the manner of it. He went
through the sonnets again, trying to read them with her woman's eyes.
There was nothing, nothing, not an image, not a word that could
offend. Here was no "flaming orgy of individuality." He had chosen
purposely the consecrated form that pledged him to perfection, bound
him to a magnificent restraint.
There still remained the scruple as to the propriety of choosing this
precise moment for his gift. It was over-ridden by the invincible
desire to give, the torturing curiosity to know how she would take it.
One more last scruple, easily disposed of. In all this there was no
disloyalty to the woman he was going to make his wife. For the Sonnets
belonged to the past in which she had no part, and to the future which
concerned her even less.
The next day, then, at about five o'clock, the time at which Lucia had
told him she would be free, he came to her, bringing his gift with
him.
Lucia's face gladdened when she saw the manuscript in his hand; for
though they had discussed very freely what he had done once, he had
been rather sadly silent, she thought, as to what he was doing now. He
had seemed to her anxious to avoid any question on the subject. She
had wondered whether his genius had been much affected by his other
work; and had been half afraid to ask lest she should learn that it
was dead, destroyed by journalism. She had heard so much of the perils
of that career, that she had begun to regret her part in helping him
to it. So that her glance as it lighted on the gift was, he thought,
propitious.
He drew up his chair near her (he had not to wait for any invitation
to do that now), and she noticed the trembling of his hands as he
spread the manuscript on his knees. He had always been nervous in
approaching the subject of his poems, and she said to herself, "Has he
not got over that?"
Apparently he had not got over it; for he sat there for several
perceptible moments sunk in the low chair beside her, saying nothing,
only curling and uncurling the sheets with the same nervous movement
of his hand. She came to his help smiling.
"What is it? New poems?"
"No, I don't think I can call them new. I wrote them four or five
years ago."
He saw that some of the gladness died out of her face, and he wondered
why.
"Were you going to read them to me?"
"Good Heavens, no." He laughed the short laugh she had heard once or
twice before that always sounded like a sob.
"I don't want to read them to you. I want to give them to you--"
"To read?" She held out her hand.
"Yes, to read, of course, but not now."
The hand was withdrawn, evidently with some distressing consciousness
of its precipitancy.
"You said the other night that you would have been glad to know that
you had done something for me; and somehow I believe you meant it."
"I did, indeed."
"If you read these things you will know. There's no other way in which
I could tell you; for you will see that they are part of what you did
for me."
"I don't understand."
"You will, though, when you've read them. That," he said meditatively,
"is why I don't want you to read them now." But then it struck him
that he had blundered, introducing a passionate personal revelation
under the dangerous veil of mystery. He had not meant to say, "What
you have done for me was to make me love you," but, "I have done a
great thing, and what you did for me was to make me do it." For all
that she should know, or he acknowledge, the passion was the means,
not the end.
"I don't want to be cryptic, and perhaps I ought to explain a little.
I meant that you'll see that they're the best things I've written, and
that I should not have written them if it had not been for you. I
don't know whether you'll forgive me for writing them, but I think you
will. Because you'll understand that I had to."
"Have you published any of them?"
It seemed to him that the question was dictated by a sudden fear.
"Rather not. I want to talk to you about that later on, when you've
read them."
"When will you want them back?"
"I don't want them back at all. I brought them for you to keep."
"To keep?"
"Yes, if you care for them."
"But this is the original manuscript?" She was most painfully aware of
the value of the thing.
He smiled. "Yes, I couldn't give you a copy, because there isn't
one."
"What a reckless person you are. I must make a copy, then, and keep
that."
"That would spoil my pleasure and my gift, too. It's only valuable
because it's unique."
"Whatever it is it's sure to be that."
"I don't mean in that way altogether--" he hesitated, for he had
touched a part of his subject which had to be handled gently; and he
was aware that in handling it at all he was courting rejection of the
gift.
"And you are going to leave it with me now?"
"Yes."
She did not look up, but kept her eyes fixed on the sheets that lay in
her lap, her hands lightly covering them. Was it possible that her
finger-tips had caught the secret of the page beneath them and that
their delicate nerves had already carried it to her brain? Was she
considering what she was to do?
"You will see that one page is left blank; I couldn't fill it up till
I knew whether you would accept the dedication."
"I?" She looked up. She was no doubt surprised; but he thought he
could read something in her look that was deeper and sweeter than
surprise.
"If you could, it would give me great pleasure. It's the only
acknowledgement I can make for all your kindness."
"Please, please don't talk of my kindness."
"I won't. If it were any other book, it might be merely a question of
acknowledgement, but this book belongs to you."
"Are you quite sure--" She was about to question his right to offer
it, which was as good as questioning his honour, as good as assuming
that--She paused, horrified as she realized what it was that she had
almost assumed. Kitty had often told her that she erred through excess
of subtlety. It wouldn't have mattered with anybody less subtle than
Keith Rickman; but he would see it all. He did.
"Quite sure that I oughtn't to offer it to anybody else? I am quite
sure. It was written four years ago, before--before I knew anybody
else. It has nothing to do with anybody else, it couldn't have been
dedicated to anybody else. If you don't accept it--"
"But I do." Her eagerness was the natural recoil from her hesitation.
She was so anxious to atone for that shocking blunder she had made.
"I say, how you do take things on trust."
"Some things."
"But you mustn't. You can't accept the dedication of a book you
haven't read. Do you know, now I come to think of it, you've always
taken me on trust? Do you remember when first I came to you--it's more
than five years ago--you took me on trust then?" (Their talk had a way
of running to this refrain of 'Do you remember?') "Do you remember how
you said,' I must risk it'?"
"Yes, I remember how I insisted on keeping you, and how very unwilling
you were to be kept."
"Do you mind telling me what made you want to keep me? You didn't know
me in the least, you know."
"I wanted to keep you _because_ you didn't want to stay. I knew then
that I could trust you. But I confess that most people might not have
seen it in that way."
"Well, I can't let you take these sonnets on trust. For this time,
your principle doesn't apply, you see. You can't say you're accepting
this dedication because I don't want to give it to you." Though he
laughed he rose and backed towards the door, suddenly anxious to be
gone.
"Isn't it enough that I want to accept it?"
He shook his head, still backing, and at the door he paused to speak.
"You've accepted nothing--as yet."
"Of course," she said to herself, "it would have been wiser to have
read them first. But I can trust him."
But as she was about to read them a knock, a familiar knock at the
door interrupted her. "Kitty!"
She laid the manuscript hastily aside, well out of Kitty's roving
sight. She had noticed how his hands had trembled as he brought it;
she did not notice that her own shook a little in thus putting it away
from her.
Kitty Palliser, up in town for a week, had come less on her own
account than as an impetuous ambassador from the now frantic Edith.
She too was prepared to move heaven and earth, if only she could
snatch her Lucy from Tavistock Place. But her anxiety was not wholly
on Lucia's account, as presently appeared.
"How can you stand it for a minute?" said she.
"I'm standing it very well indeed."
"But what on earth do you find to do all day long, when," said Kitty
severely, "you're _not_ talking to young Rickman?"
"All day long I go out, or lie down and read, or talk to Sophie."
"And in the evenings?"
"In the evenings sometimes I make an old man happy by playing."
"And I expect you're making a young man unhappy by playing, too--a
very dangerous game."
"Kitty, that young man is perfectly happy. He's going to be married."
"All the worse. Then you'll make a young woman unhappy as well. This
little game would be dangerous enough with a man of your own set. It
isn't fair to play it with him, Lucy, when you know the rules and he
doesn't."
"I assure you, Kitty, he knows them as well as you or I do; better."
"I doubt it." Kitty's eyes roamed round the room (they had not lost
their alert and hungry look) and they took in the situation at a
glance. That move in the game would never have been made if he had
known the rules. How could she let him make it?
"Really, Lucy, for a nice woman you do the queerest things."
"And, really, Kitty, for a clever woman, you say the stupidest. You're
getting like Edith."
"I am not like Edith. I only say stupid things. She thinks them.
What's more, in thinking them she only thinks of herself and her
precious family. I'm thinking of you, dear, and"--Kitty's voice grew
soft--"and of him. You ought to think of him a little too."
"I _do_ think of him. I've been thinking of him all the time."
"I know you have. But don't let him suffer because of the insanely
beautiful way you have of thinking."
There was a pause, in which it was evident to Kitty that Lucia was
thinking deeply, and beautifully too.
"Have I made him suffer? I'm afraid I did once. He was valuable, and
I damaged him."
"Yes; and ever since you've been trying to put him together again; in
your own way, not his. That's fatal."
Lucia shook her head and followed her own train of thought. "Kitty, to
be perfectly honest, I think--I'm not sure, but I think--from
something he said to-day that you were right about him once. I mean
about his beginning to care too much. I'm afraid it was so, at
Harmouth, towards the end. But it isn't so any more. He tried to tell
me just now. He did it beautifully; as if he knew that that would make
me happier. At least I think that's what he meant. He didn't say much,
but I'm sure he was thinking about his marriage."
"Heaven help his wife then--if he got as far as that. I suppose you
take a beautiful view of her, too? Drop it, for goodness' sake, drop
it."
"Not I. It would mean dropping him. It's all right, Kitty. You don't
know the ways of poets."
"Perhaps not. But I know the ways of men."
Though Kitty had not accomplished her mission she so far prevailed
that she carried her Lucy off to dinner.
It was somewhere towards midnight, when all the house was quiet, that
Lucia first looked into Keith Rickman's sonnets. She had been led to
expect something in the nature of a personal revelation, and the first
sonnet struck the key-note, gave her the clue.
I asked the minist'ring priests who never tire
In love's high service, who behold their bliss
Through golden gloom of Love's dread mysteries,
What heaven there be for earth's foregone desire?
And they kept silence. But the gentle choir
Who sing Love's praises answered me, "There is
No voice to speak of these deep sanctities,
For Love hath sealed his servants' lips with fire."
Yet in his faithfulness put thou thy faith,
Though he hath bound thee in the house of pain,
And given thy body to the scourging years,
And brought thee for thy thirst the drink of tears,
That sorrowing thou shouldst serve him unto death;
For when Love reigneth, all his saints shall reign.
She kindled and flamed, her whole being one inspired and burning
sympathy. She knew what it was all about. She was on the track of a
Poet's Progress in quest of the beloved Perfection, Beauty and Truth
in one. Of those nine and twenty sonnets she looked for a score that
should make immortal the moments of triumph and of vision, the moments
of rapture and fulfilment of the heart's desire. Her glance fell now
on two lines that clearly pointed to the goal of those who travel on
the divine way--
--Elysian calm and passion with no stain
Of mortal tears, no touch of mortal pain--
She hoped he had reached it. And more than that she hoped. She was
ignorant of what his life had been before he knew her; but the _Song
of Confession_ had made her realize that besides this way where the
poet went invincibly there was another where the man desired to go,
where, as they were so ready to tell her, he had not always gone. But
that was before she knew him. She hoped (taking her beautiful view)
that in this gift of his he had meant to give to her who understood
him some hint or sign that he had come near it also, the way of
Righteousness. She looked to find many sonnets dealing with these
secret matters of the soul. Therefore she approached them fearlessly,
since she knew what they were all about. And since, in that curious
humility of the man that went so oddly with the poet's pride, he had
so exaggerated his obligation, taking, as he said, the will for the
deed and making of her desire to serve him a service actually done;
since his imagination had played round her for a moment as it played
round all things, transforming, magnifying, glorifying, she might
perhaps find one sonnet of dedication to her who had understood him.
But when she had read them all, she saw, and could not help seeing,
that the whole nine and twenty were one continuous dedication--and to
her. If she had found what she looked for, she found also that a
revelation had been made to her of things even more sacred, more
personal; a revelation that was in its way unique. He had hidden
nothing, kept back nothing, not one moment of that three-weeks'
passion (for so she dated it). It was all laid before her as it had
been; all its immortal splendour, and all its mortal suffering and its
shame. Not a line (if she could have stayed to think of that), not a
word that could offend her taste or hurt her pride. The thing was
perfect. She understood why it had been shown to her. She understood
that he wanted to tell her that he had loved her. She understood that
he never would have told her if it had not been all over. It was
because it was all over that he had brought her this, to show her how
great a thing she had done for him, she who thought she had done
nothing. As she locked the sonnets away in a safe place for the night,
in her heart there was a great pride and a still greater thankfulness
and joy. Joy because it was all over, pride because it had once been,
and thankfulness because it had been given her to know.
And in his room behind the wall that separated them the poet walked up
and down, tortured by suspense; and said to himself over and over
again, "I wonder how she'll take it."
CHAPTER LX
That was on a Thursday. It had been arranged earlier in the week that
Flossie and he were to dine with Lucia on Friday evening. On Saturday
and Sunday the Beaver would be let loose, and would claim him for her
own. He could not hope to see Lucia alone before Monday evening; his
suspense, then, would have to endure for the better part of four days.
He had nothing to hope for from Friday evening. Lucia's manner was too
perfect to afford any clue as to how she had taken it. If she were
offended she would hardly let him see it before Flossie and Miss
Roots. If she accepted, there again the occasion forbade her to give
any sign to one of her guests that should exclude the other two.
Still, it was just possible that he might gather something from her
silence.
But as it happened, he had not even that to go upon. Never had Lucia
been less silent than on Friday night. Not that she talked more than
usual, but that all her looks, all her gestures spoke. They spoke of
her pleasure in the happiness of her friend; of tenderness to the
little woman whom he loved (so little and he so great); of love that
embraced them both, the great and the little, a large, understanding
love that was light and warmth in one. For Lucia believed firmly that
she understood. She had always desired him to be happy, to be
reconciled to the beautiful and glorious world; she had tried to bring
about that reconciliation; and she conceived herself to have failed.
And now because the thing had been done so beautifully, so perfectly
(if a little unexpectedly), by somebody else, because she was relieved
of all anxiety and responsibility, Lucia was rejoicing with all her
heart.
He had not been five minutes in the room before he saw it all. Lucia
believed that it was all over, and was letting herself go, carried
away by the spectacle of a supreme and triumphal happiness. She
triumphed too. Her eyes when they looked at him seemed to be saying,
"Didn't I tell you so?"
He saw why they had been asked to dinner. The spirit of the bridal
hour was upon her, and she had made a little feast to celebrate it.
Like everything she did, it was simple and beautiful and exquisite of
its kind. And yet it was not with that immaculate white linen cloth,
spread on Keith's writing-table, strewn with slender green foliage and
set out with delicate food and fruit and wine, nor with those white
flowers, nor with those six shaded candles, that she had worked the
joyous tender charm. These things, in her hands and in his eyes,
became sacramental, symbolic of Lucia's soul with its pure thoughts
and beautiful beliefs, its inspired and burning charities.
And the hero of this feast of happiness sat at her right hand, facing
his little bride-elect, a miserable man consumed with anguish and
remorse. He had never had so painful a sense of the pathos of his
Beaver. For if anybody was happy it was she. Flossie was aware that it
was her hour, and that high honour was being paid to her. Moreover, he
could see for the moment that the worm had ceased to gnaw, and that
she had become the almost affectionate thrall of the lady whose motto
was _Invictus_. She had been forced (poor little girl) to anticipate
her trousseau in order to attire herself fitly for the occasion, and
was looking remarkably pretty in her way. She sat very upright, and
all her demeanour was irreproachably modest, quiet and demure. Nothing
could have been more correct than her smile, frequent, but so
diminutive that it just lifted her upper lip and no more. No insight,
no foreboding troubled her. Her face, soft and golden white in the
candlelight, expressed a shy and delicate content. For Flossie was a
little materialist through and through. Her smooth and over feminine
body seemed to have grown smoother and more feminine still under the
touch of pleasure; all that was hard and immobile in her melting in
the sense of well-being.
It was not merely that Flossie was on her good behaviour. His
imagination (in league with his conscience) suggested that the poor
child, divinely protected by the righteousness of her cause, was
inspired to confound his judgement of her, to give no vantage ground
to his disloyalty, to throw him defenceless on his own remorse. Or was
it Lucia who inspired her? Lucia, whose loving spirit could create the
thing it loved, whose sweetness was of so fine and piercing a quality
that what it touched it penetrated. He could not tell, but he thanked
Heaven that at least for this hour which was hers the little thing was
happy. He, for his part, by unprecedented acts of subterfuge and
hypocrisy, endeavoured to conceal his agony.
Miss Roots alone divined it. Beyond looking festive in a black silk
gown and a kind of white satin waistcoat, that clever lady took a
strained and awkward part in the rejoicing. He was inclined to think
that the waistcoat committed her to severity, until he became aware
that she was watching him with a furtive sympathy in the clever eyes
that saw through his pitiful play. How was it that Lucia, she who once
understood him, could not divine him too?
From this estranging mood he was roused by the innocent laughter of
the Beaver. He was aware of certain thin and melancholy sounds that
floated up from some room below. They struggled with the noises of the
street, overcame, and rose strident and triumphant to invade the
feast. They seemed to him in perfect keeping with the misery and
insanity of the hour.
It was Mr. Partridge playing on his flute.
Miss Roots looked at Lucia. "That's you, Lucy. You've been talking to
him about that flute. I suppose you told him you would love to hear
him play it?"
"No, Sophie, I didn't tell him that." But Lucy looked a little guilty.
The flute rose as if in passionate protest against her denial. It
seemed to say "You did! You know you did!"
"I only said it was a pity he'd given it up, and I meant it. But oh!"
and Lucy put her hands up to her ears, "I don't mean it any more."
"That comes," said Rickman, "of taking things on trust."
She smiled and shook her head. It was her first approach to a sign of
reassurance.
"That's the sort of thing she's always doing. It doesn't matter for
you, Lucy. You won't have to stay on and hear him."
"I don't know. I think I shall stay on. You see, Mr. Rickman, I can't
part with this pretty room."
"Do you like it?"
"I like it very much indeed. You're all coming to dine with me here
again some day."
"And you must come and dine with us, Miss Harden, when we've got
settled." It was Flossie who spoke.
"I shall be delighted."
He looked up, surprised. He could not have believed the Beaver could
have done it so prettily. He had not even realized that it could be
done at all. It never occurred to him that his marriage could bring
him nearer to Lucia Harden. He looked kindly at the Beaver and blessed
her for that thought. And then a thought bolder than the Beaver's came
to him. "I hope," he said, "you'll do more than that. You must come
and stay with us in the summer. You shall sit out in a deck-chair in
the garden all day. That's the way to get strong."
Then he remembered that she could do that just as well in someone
else's garden up at Hampstead, and he looked shy and anxious as he
added, "Will you come?"
"Of course I'll come," said she.
He saw her going through the house at Ealing and sitting in the little
green garden with the lilac bushes about her all in flower. And at the
thought of her coming he was profoundly moved. His eyes moistened, and
under the table his knees shook violently with the agitation of his
nerves. Miss Roots gave one queer little glance at him and another at
Flossie, and the moment passed.
And Lucia had not divined it. No, not for a moment, not even in the
moment of leave-taking. She was still holding Flossie's hand in hers
when her eyes met his, kind eyes that were still saying almost
triumphantly, "I told you so."
As she dropped Flossie's hand for his, she answered the question that
he had not dared to ask. "I've read them," she said, and there was no
diminution in her glad look.
"When may I see you?"
"To-morrow, can you? Any time after four?"
CHAPTER LXI
He came into Lucia's presence with a sense of doing something
voluntary and yet inevitable, something sanctioned and foreappointed;
a sense of carrying on a thing already begun, of returning, through a
door that had never been shut, to the life wherein alone he knew
himself. And yet this life, measured by days and hours and counting
their times of meeting only, ran hardly to six weeks.
Since times and places were of no account, he might have been coming,
as he came five years ago, to hear her judgement on his neo-classic
drama. Strange and great things had happened to his genius since that
day. Between _Helen in Leuce_ and the Nine and Twenty Sonnets there
lay the newly discovered, heavenly countries of the soul.
"Well," he said, glancing at the poems, as he seated himself. "What do
you think of them? Am I forgiven? Do you consent?"
"So many questions? They're all answered, aren't they, if I say I
consent?"
"And do you?" There was acute anxiety in his voice and eyes. It struck
her as painful that the man, whom she was beginning to look on as
possibly the greatest poet of his age, should think it necessary to
plead to her for such a little thing.
"I do indeed."
"Without reservations?"
"What reservations should there be? Of course I could only be
glad--and proud--that you should do me so much honour. If I can't say
very much about it, don't think I don't feel it. I feel it more than I
can say."
"Do you really mean it? I was afraid that it might offend you; or
that you'd think I oughtn't to have written the things; or at any rate
that I'd no business to show them to you. And as for the dedication, I
couldn't tell how you'd feel about that."
And she, having before her eyes the greatness of his genius, was
troubled by the humility and hesitation of his approach. It recalled
to her the ways of his pathetic youth, his youth that obscurity made
wild and shy and unassured.
"I can't tell either," she replied, "I don't know whether I ought to
feel proud or humble about it; but I think I feel both. Your wanting
to dedicate anything to me would have been enough to make me very
proud. Even if it had been a little thing--but this thing is great. In
some ways it seems to me the greatest thing you've done yet. I did
think just at first that I ought perhaps to refuse because of that.
And then I saw that, really, that was what made it easy for me to
accept. It's so great that the dedication doesn't count."
"But it _does_ count. It's the only thing that counts to me. You can't
take it like that and separate it from the rest. Those sonnets would
still be dedicated to you even if you refused to let me write your
name before them. I want you to see that they _are_ the dedication."
Lucia shook her head. She had seen it. She could see nothing else when
she read them. How was it that the poet's bodily presence made her
inclined to ignore the reference to herself; to take these poems
dedicated to her as an event, not in her life or his, but in the
history of literature?
"No," she said, "you must not look at them that way. If they were, it
might be a reason for refusing. I know most people would think they'd
less right to accept what wasn't really dedicated to them. But, you
see, it's just because it isn't really dedicated to me that I can
accept it."
"But it is--"
"No, not to me. You wouldn't be so great a poet if it were. I don't
see myself here; but I see you, and your idea of me. It's--it's
dedicated to that dream of yours. Didn't I tell you your dream was
divorced from reality?"
"You told me it would be reconciled to it."
"And it is, isn't it? And the reality is worth all the dreams that
ever were?"
He could have told her that so it appeared to those who are bound in
the house of bondage; but that in Leuce, the country of deliverance,
the dream and the reality are indivisible, being both divine. He could
have told her that he had known as much five years ago; even before he
knew her.
"After all," he said, "that's admitting that they _are_ divided. And
that, if you remember, was what I said, not what you said."
Lucia evaded the issue in a fashion truly feminine. "It doesn't matter
a bit what either of us said then, so long as _you_ know now."
"There's one thing I don't know. I don't know how you really take it;
or whether you will really understand. Just now I thought you did, But
after all it seems you don't. You think I'm only trying to pay you a
stupid literary compliment. You think when I wrote those things I
didn't mean them; my imagination was simply taking a rather more
eccentric flight than usual. Isn't that so?"
"I'm certainly allowing for your imagination. I can't forget that you
are a poet. You won't let me forget it. I can't separate your genius
from the rest of you."
"And I can't separate the rest of me from it. That makes the
difference, you see." He was angry as he said that. He had wondered
whether she would deal as tenderly with his passion as she had dealt
with his dream; and she had dealt just as tenderly. But it was because
she identified the passion with the dream. He had not been prepared
for that view of it; and somehow it annoyed him. But for that, he
would never have spoken as he now did. "When I wondered how you would
take it I thought it might possibly strike you as something rather too
real, almost offensively so. Do you know, I'd rather you'd taken it
that way than that you should talk about my dreams. My _dreams_." (It
was shocking, the violent emphasis of disgust the poet, the dreamer,
flung into that one word.) "As if I'd dreamed that I knew you. As if
I'd dreamed that I cared for you. Would you rather think I dreamed it?
You can if you like. Or would you rather think it was the most real
thing that ever happened to me? So real that after it happened--_because_
it happened--I left off being the sort of man and the sort of poet I
was, and became another sort. So real and so strong that it saved me
from one or two other things, uncommonly strong and real, that had got
a pretty tight hold of me, too. Would you rather think that you'd
really done this for me, or that I'd dreamed it all?"
She looked at his face, the unforgotten, unforgetable face, which when
she first knew it had kindled and darkened so swiftly and
inexplicably. She knew it now. She held the key of all its mysteries.
It was the face that had turned to her five years ago with just that
look; in the mouth and lifted chin that imperious impetuous
determination to make her see; in the eyes that pathetic trust in her
seeing. The same face; and yet it would have told her, if he had not,
that he was another man. No, not another man; but of all the ways that
were then open to him to take he had chosen the noblest. And so, of
all the expressions that in its youth had played on that singularly
expressive face, it was the finest only that had become dominant. That
face had never lied to her. Why should he not plead for the sincerity
of his passion, since it was all over now? Was it possible that there
was some secret insincerity in her? How was it that she had made him
think that she desired to ignore, to repudiate her part in him? That
she preferred a meaningless compliment to the confession which was the
highest honour that could be paid to any woman? Was it because the
honour was so great that she was afraid to take it?
"Of course I would rather think it was really so."
"Then you must believe that I really cared for you; and that it is
only because I cared that it is really so."
"I do believe it. But I can't take it all to myself. Another person
might have cared just as much, and it might have done him harm--I
would never have forgiven myself if I had done you harm--I want you to
see that it wasn't anything in _me_; it was something in _you_ that
made the difference."
He smiled sadly. "You know it _does_ sound as if you wanted to keep
out of it."
"Does it? If I had really been in it, do you think that I wouldn't be
glad and thankful? I am, even for the little that I have done. Even
though I know another woman might have done as much, or more, I'm glad
I was the one. But, you see, I didn't know I was in it at all. I
didn't know the sort of help you wanted. Perhaps, if I had known, I
couldn't have helped you. But my knowing or not knowing doesn't matter
one bit. If I _did_ help you--that way--I helped some one else too. At
least I should like to think I did. I should like to think that one
reason why you care for your wife so much is because you cared a
little for me. There is that way of looking at it." Then, lest she
should seem to be seeking some extraneous justification of a fact that
in her heart she abhorred, she added, "Every way I look at it I'm
glad. I'm glad that you cared. I'm glad because it's been, and glad
because it's over. For if it hadn't been over--"
"What were you going to say?"
"I was going to say that if it hadn't been over you couldn't have
given me these. I didn't say it; because it would have sounded as if
that were all I cared about. As if I wouldn't have been almost as glad
if you'd never written a line of them. Only in that case I should
never have known."
"No. You would never have known."
"I think I should have been glad, even if the poems had been--not very
good poems."
"You wouldn't have known in that case either. I wouldn't have shown
them to you if they had not been good. As it is, when I wrote them I
never meant to show them to you."
"Oh, but I think--"
"Of course you do. But I wasn't going to print them before you'd seen
them. Do you know what I'd meant to do with them--what in fact I _did_
do with them? I left them to you in my will with directions that they
weren't to be published without your consent. It seems a rather
unusual bequest, but you know I had a conceited hope that some time
they might be valuable. I don't know whether they would have sold for
three thousand pounds--I admit it was a draft on posterity that
posterity might have dishonoured--but I thought they might possibly go
a little way towards paying my debt."
"Your debt? I don't understand." But the trembling of her mouth belied
its words.
"Don't you? Don't you remember?"
"No, I don't. I never _have_ remembered."
"Probably not. But you can hardly suppose that I've forgotten it."
"What has it to do with you, or me--or this?"
"Not much, perhaps; but still something, you'll admit."
"I admit nothing. I can't bear your ever having thought of it. I wish
you hadn't told me. It spoils everything."
"Does it? Such a little thing? Surely a friend might be allowed to
leave you a small legacy when he was decently dead? And it wasn't
_his_ fault, was it, if it paid a debt as well?"
The tears rose in her eyes to answer him.
"But you see I didn't leave it. I didn't wait for that. I was afraid
that my being dead would put you in a more embarrassing position than
if I'd been alive. You might have hated those poems and yet you might
have shrunk from suppressing them for fear of wounding the immortal
vanity of a blessed spirit. Or you might have taken that horrid
literary view I implored you not to take. You might have hesitated to
inflict so great a loss on the literature of your country." He tried
to speak lightly, as if it were merely a whimsical and extravagant
notion that he should be reckoned among the poets. And yet in his
heart he knew that it must be so. "But now the things can't be
published unless you will accept them as they were originally meant.
There's nothing gross about the transaction; nothing that need offend
either you or me."
"I can't--I can't--"
"Well," he said gently, fearing the appearance of grossness in
pressing the question, "we can settle that afterwards, can't we?
Meanwhile at all events the publication rests with you."
"The publication has nothing whatever to do with me--The dedication,
_perhaps_."
"You've accepted that. Still, you might object to your name appearing
before the public with mine."
Lucia looked bewildered. She thought she had followed him in all his
subtleties; but she had had difficulty in realizing that he was
actually proposing to suppress his poems in deference to her
scruples, if she had any. Some shadowy notion of his meaning was
penetrating her now.
"My name," she said, "will mean nothing to the public."
"Then you consent?"
"Of course. It's absurd to talk about my consent. Besides, why should
I mind now--when it is all over?"
He was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, it was by an effort,
as if he unwillingly obeyed some superior constraint. "If it hadn't
been all over would you have minded then? Would you have refused your
consent?"
"To your publishing your own poems? How could I?"
"To the dedication, I mean. If it hadn't been all over, would you have
given your consent to that?"
His anxiety had deepened to an agony which seemed to have made his
face grow sharp and thin almost as she looked at him. She judged that
this question was vital, and that the truth was required of her.
"No, not to that. You see, it's only because it's all over that I've
consented now."
"I see; that's the condition? You would never have consented but for
that."
"Why should we talk about that now?"
"I wanted to know the truth."
"Why should you? It's a truth that has nothing to do with things as
they are, only with things as they might have been. Isn't it enough to
be glad that they weren't, that it is all over, and that this is the
end of it?"
Even as she said the words it struck her that there was something
ominous in this reiteration.
"But it isn't all over. This isn't the end of it."
His voice was so low that she could hardly have heard it but for the
intense vibration of the tones. There was a pause in which they seemed
still to be throbbing, but with no meaning behind the passionate pulse
of sound.
"I didn't mean to tell you. I know you'd rather think it wasn't so.
And I would have let you think it if it hadn't been for what you told
me--what I made you tell me."
"I don't understand. What did I tell you?"
"You told me the truth." He spoke with a sudden savage energy. "How
could I go on lying after that?"
She looked at him with that almost imperceptible twitching of her
soft mouth which he knew to be a sign of suffering; and in her eyes
there was pain and a vague terror.
"I might have gone on lying to the end, if nothing had depended on it.
But if you tell me that you only give your consent to a thing on one
condition, and I know that I can't possibly fulfil the condition, what
am I to do? Say nothing about it, and do what you would loathe me for
doing if you knew?"
Till now she had left the manuscript lying in her lap, where
unconsciously her hands covered it with a gentle protecting touch. But
as he spoke she took it up and put it away from her with an
irresistible impulse of rejection. He knew that he was answered.
"If I had," he said, "in one sense I should have done you no wrong.
All this would be nothing to the world which would read these poems.
But when I knew that it made all the difference to _you_--"
She turned, as he had seen her turn once and only Once before, in
reproach that was almost anger.
"To me? Do you suppose I'm thinking of myself?"
"Perhaps not. That doesn't prevent my thinking of you. But I was
thinking of myself, too. Supposing I had done this thing that you
would have loathed; even though you had never known it, I should have
felt that I had betrayed your trust, that I had taken something from
you that I had no right to take, something that you would never have
given me if you had known. What was I to do?"
She did not answer him. Once before, he remembered, when his honour
was in difficulties, she had refused to help it out, left it to
struggle to the light; which was what it did now.
"It would have been better to have said nothing and done nothing."
He expected her to close instantly with that view of his behaviour
which honour had presented as the final one, but this she did not do.
"If you had said nothing you might have done what you liked."
"I see. It's my saying it that makes the difference?"
"That is _not_ what I meant. I meant that you were free to publish
what you have written. You are not free to say these things to me."
"For the life of me I don't know why I said them. It means perdition
for my poems and for me. I knew that was all I had to gain by telling
you the truth."
"But it _isn't_ the truth. You know it isn't. You don't even think it
is."
"And if it were, would it be so terrible to you to hear it?"
She did not answer. She only looked at him, as if by looking she could
read the truth. For his face had never lied.
He persisted. "If it were true, what would you think of me?"
"I should think it most dishonourable of you to say so. But it isn't
true."
He smiled. "Therefore it can't be dishonourable of me to say so."
"No, not that. You are not dishonourable; therefore it can't be true.
Let us forget that you ever said it."
"But I can't forget that it's true any more than I can make it untrue.
You think me dishonourable, because you think I've changed. But I
haven't changed. It always was so, ever since I knew you; and that's
more than five years ago now. I am dishonourable; but that's not where
the dishonour comes in. _The_ dishonourable thing would have been to
have left off caring for you. But I never did leave off. There never
was a minute when it wasn't true, nor a minute when I didn't think it.
If I was sure of nothing else I was always sure of that. Where the
dishonour came in was in caring for another woman, in another way."
"The dishonour would come in if you'd left off caring for her. And you
haven't done that. It would come in a little now, I think, if you said
that you didn't care. But you don't say it; you don't even think it.
Shall I tell you the truth? You've let your genius get too strong a
hold over you. You've let it get hold, too, of this feeling that you
had for me. And now, though you know perfectly well--as well as I
do--that it's all over, your genius is trying to persuade you that the
feeling is still there when it isn't."
"That is not so, but you can say it is, if it makes you any happier."
"It does make me happier to think that it's your genius, not you, that
says these things. For I can forgive your genius; but I couldn't have
forgiven you."
At that moment he felt a savage jealousy of his genius, because she
loved it. "And yet, you said a little while ago you couldn't separate
the two."
"You have obliged me to separate them, to find an excuse for you. This
ought not to have happened; but it could not have happened to a man
who was not a poet."
All the time she was miserably aware that she was trying to defend
herself with subtleties against the impact of a terrible reality. And
because that reality must weigh more heavily on him than her, she was
trying to defend him too, against himself, to force on him, against
himself, her own subtilizing, justifying view.
But his subtlety was a match for hers. "Your cousin once did me the
honour to say I was one-seventh part a poet, and upon my honour I
prefer his estimate to yours."
"What is mine?"
"That I'm nothing but a poet. That there wasn't enough of me left over
to make a man."
"That is not my estimate, and you know it. I think you so much a man
that your heart will keep you right, even though your genius has led
you very far astray."
"Is that all you know about it?"
"Well, I'm not sure that it is your genius, this time. I rather think
it's your sense of honour. I believe you think that because you once
cared for me you've got to go on caring, lest I should accuse you of
being faithless to your dream." ("Surely," she said to herself, "I've
made it easy for him now?")
But the word was too much for him. "For Goodness' sake don't talk to
me any more about my dream. You may think any mortal thing you like
about me, so long as you don't do that."
She smiled faintly, as if with an effort at forbearance. "Very well
then, I won't talk about your dream. I'll say you were afraid lest I
should think you had been faithless to _me_. It would never have
occurred to you if you hadn't seen me again. It will not occur to you
after I am gone. It will be all over by to-morrow."
"Why to-morrow?" He spoke stupidly. Fear had made him stupid. "Why
to-morrow?"
"Because I am going to-morrow."
Then he knew that it was indeed all over. The door which had been open
to him was about to close; and once closed it would never be open to
him again.
"What _must_ you think of me--"
"I think you have done very wrong, and that our talking about it only
makes it worse. And so--I'm sorry--but I must ask you to leave me."
But he did not leave her. "And I must ask you to forgive me," he said
gently.
"I? I have nothing to forgive. You haven't done anything to me. But I
should never forgive you if I thought this foolishness could make one
moment's difference to--to Flossie."
"It never has made any difference to her," he replied coldly, "or to
my feeling for her. I never felt towards any woman as I feel towards
you. It isn't the same thing at all. Heaven knows I thought I cared
enough for her to marry her. But it seems I didn't. That's why I say
it makes no difference to her. Nothing is altered by it. As far as
Flossie is concerned, whether I marry her or not I shall have behaved
abominably. I don't know which is the more dishonourable."
"Don't you?"
"No. I only know which I'm going to do."
She turned her head away. And that turning away was intolerable. It
was the closing of the door.
"Is it so very terrible to you?" he said gently.
He could not see the tears in her eyes, but he heard them in her
voice, and he knew that he had wounded her, Hot in her pride, but in
her tenderness and honour--Lucia's honour.
"To me? I'm not thinking of myself--not of myself at all. How could I
think of myself? I'm thinking of _her_." She turned to him and let her
tears gather in her eyes unheeded. "Don't you see what you've done?"
Oh, yes; he saw very well what he had done. He had taken the
friendship she had given to him to last his life and destroyed it in a
moment, with his own hands. All for the sake of a subtlety, a
fantastic scruple, a question asked, a thing said under some obscure
compulsion. He had been moved by he knew not what insane urgency of
honour. And whatever else he saw he did not see how he could have done
otherwise. The only alternative was to say nothing, to do nothing.
Supposing he had suppressed both his passion and the poems that
immortalized it, what would she have thought of him then? Would she
not have thought that he had either dedicated to her a thing that he
was afterwards ashamed of, or that he had meant nothing by the
dedication?
"Don't you see what you have done?" she said. "You've made me wish I
had never come here and that I'd never seen you again. It was only the
other night--the dear little girl--she came up here and sat with me,
and we had a talk. We talked about you. She told me how she came to
know you, and how good you'd been to her and how long it was before
either of you knew. She told me things about herself. She is very
shy--very reserved--but she let me see how much she cares--and how
much you care. Think what you must be to her. She has no father and no
mother, she has nobody but you. She told me that. And then--she took
me up to her room and showed me all her pretty things. She was so
happy--and how can I look at her again? She would hate me if she knew;
and I couldn't blame her, poor child. She could never understand that
it was not my fault."
But as she said it her conscience rose in contradiction and told her
that it was her fault. Her fault in the very beginning for drawing him
into an intimacy that his youth and inexperience made dangerous. Her
fault for sacrificing, yes, sacrificing him to that impulse to give
pleasure which had only meant giving pleasure to herself at his
expense. Her fault for endlessly refining on the facts of life, till
she lost all feeling of its simpler and more obvious issues. Kitty had
been right when she told her that she treated men as if they were
disembodied spirits. She had trusted too much to her own subtlety.
That was how all her blunders, had been made. If she had been cold as
well as subtle--but Lucia was capable of passionate indiscreet things
to be followed by torments of her pride. Her pride had only made
matters worse. It was her pride, in the beginning, that had blinded
her. When she had told Kitty that she was not the sort of woman to let
this sort of thing happen with this sort of man, she had summed up her
abiding attitude to one particular possibility. She had trusted to the
social gulf to keep her safe, apart. Afterwards, she knew that she had
not trusted so much to the social gulf. She had not been quite so
proud; neither, since Kitty had opened her eyes, had she been so
blind; but she had been ten times more foolish. Her mind had refused
to dwell upon Kitty's dreadful suggestions, because they were
dreadful. Unconscious of her sex, she had remained unconscious of her
power; she had trusted (unconsciously) to the power of another woman
for protection. Flossie had, so to speak, detached and absorbed the
passionate part of Keith Rickman; by which process the rest of him was
left subtler and more pure. She had thought she could really deal with
him now as a disembodied spirit. And so under the shelter of his
engagement she had, after her own manner, let herself go.
These thoughts swept through her brain like one thought, as she
contemplated the misery she had made. They came with the surging of
the blood in her cheeks, so swiftly that she had no time to see that
they hardly exhausted the aspects of her case. And it was not her own
case that she was thinking of.
She turned to him pleading. "Don't you see that I could never forgive
myself if I thought that I had hurt her? You are not going to make me
so unhappy?"
"Do you mean, am I going to marry her?"
She said nothing; for she was conscious now, conscious and ashamed of
using a power that she had no right to have; ashamed, too, of being
forced to acknowledge the truth of the thing she had so passionately
denied.
"You needn't be afraid," he said. "Of course I am going to marry her."
He turned away from her as he had turned away five years ago, with the
same hopeless sense of dishonour and defeat. She called him back, as
she had called him back five years ago, and for the same purpose, of
delivering a final stab. Only that this time she knew it was a stab;
and her own heart felt the pain as she delivered it.
But the terrible thing had to be done. She had got to return the
manuscript, the gift that should never have been given. She gathered
the loosened sheets tenderly, like things that she was grieved to part
from. He admitted that she was handling her sword with all gentleness
so as to avoid as far as possible any suggestion of a thrust.
"You must take them back," she said. "I can't keep them--or--or have
anything to do with them after what you told me. I should feel as if
I'd taken what belonged to some one else."
As he took the sheets from her and pocketed them, she felt that again
he was pocketing an insult as well as a stab.