"If you like."
"I adore you."
"So do I you," said Jenny.
"Not so much as I do."
"Just as much, Mr. Knowall," she said, shaking her head.
They kissed once more.
"Jenny, Jenny!" It was almost a poignant cry. "Jenny, I wish this moment were a thousand years. But never mind, we shall always be lovers."
"I hope we shall."
"Why only hope? We shall. We must."
"You never know," she whispered. "Men are funny; you never know."
"Don"t you trust me?"
"I trust n.o.body. Yes, I do. I trust you."
"My darling, darling!"
Then downstairs they went, closer locked on every step, close together with hearts beating, the world before them, and the stars winking overhead.
Chapter XVI: _Loves Halcyon_
The next fortnight pa.s.sed quickly enough in the rapture of daily meetings and kisses still fresh and surprising as those first primroses of spring which few can keep from plucking. There was n.o.body to interrupt the intimacy; for Irene remained ill, and the rest of the world was as yet unconscious of the affair. Nevertheless, with all these opportunities for a complete understanding, the relation of Maurice and Jenny to one another was still essentially undefined. Their manner of life in that first fortnight of mutual adoration had the exquisite and ephemeral beauty of a daylong flower. It possessed the elusive joy that mayflies have in dancing for a few sunny days above a glittering stream.
It had the character of a pleasant dream, where thought is instantly translated into action. It was the opening of a poem by Herrick or Horace before the prescience of transitoriness has marred the exultation with melancholy.
Everything favored a halcyon love. October had come in, windless and very golden. Such universal serenity was bound to preserve for lovers the illusion of permanence that exists so poignantly in fine autumn weather, when the leaves, falling one by one at rare intervals, scarcely express the year"s decay. The sly hours stole onward in furtive disguises. Milk-white dawns evaporated in skies of thinnest azure and noons of beaten gold, until in pearl-gray dusks each day met its night delicately. For Maurice and Jenny even the night conjured no wintry thoughts, and when the moon came up round and tawny, floating unsubstantially above the black house-tops, an aged moon lacquered with rust, full of calamities, these lovers were not dismayed; although they were not influenced to quick and fervid enterprises.
No doubt, if they had wandered, treading violets under foot, beneath the silver moons of Spring, there would have been a more rapid encounter of emotions. But the tranquillity of nature affected Maurice particularly.
He was like a man who, having endured the grief of long separation, meets his love in joyful security. It was as if with a sigh he folded her to his arms, conscious only of acquiring her presence. He had from the fret of London gained the quiet of high green cliffs and was no longer ambitious of anything save meditation on the beauty spread before his eyes. He had bought the much-desired book, and now was idly turning its leaves, safe in the triumph of possession.
Jenny, too, after her long experience of casual attraction, was glad to surrender herself to the luxury of absent effort; but in her case the feverishness of a child, who dreads any discussion that may rob the perfect hour of a single honeyed moment, made her fling white arms around his neck and hold him for her own against invisible thieves.
There exist in the heart of a London dawn a few minutes when the street lamps have just been extinguished, but before the sun has risen, when the city cannot fail to be beautiful even in its meanest aspects. At such an hour the Bayswater Road has the mystery of a dew-steeped glade; the Strand wears the frail hues of a sea-sh.e.l.l; Regent Street is crystalline. Even Piccadilly Circus stands on the very summit of the world, wind-washed and n.o.ble.
To Maurice and Jenny London was always a city seen at dawn; so many dull streets had been enchanted by their meetings, so many corners had been invested with the delight of the loved one"s new appearance. But, though they were still imparadised, a certain wistfulness in looks and handclasps showed that they both instinctively felt they would never again tread the pavement so lightly, never again make time a lyric, life a measure.
On the afternoon before Jenny"s birthday, she and Maurice had gone to Hampstead, there to discuss the details of a wonderful party that was to celebrate in the studio the lucky occasion. They had wandered arm in arm through the green alleys and orderly byways of the mellow suburb, dreaming away all sense of time and s.p.a.ce. It was the very culmination of St. Luke"s summer, and nowhere had the glories been more richly displayed. Robins sang in Well Walk, and Michaelmas daisies splashed every garden with constellations of vivid mauve. After tea they walked up Heath Street and on a wooden seat stayed to watch the sunset. Below them the Heath rolled away in gra.s.sland to houses whose smoke was heavy on the dull crimson of a stormy dusk. The sun sank with an absence of effect which chilled them both. Night, with a cold wind that heralded rain, came hard on the heels of twilight. The mist rose thickly from the lower parts of the Heath, and the night"s jewelry was blurred.
Maurice spoke suddenly as if to a signal.
"Jenny, we seem to have spent a very long time together now in finding out nothing."
"What _do_ you mean?" she asked.
"I mean--we"ve been together a frightful lot, but I don"t know anything about you and you don"t know anything about me."
"I know you"re a darling."
"Yes, I know that, but----"
"What!" she broke in, "well, if you don"t properly go out with yourself."
"No, I mean--bother about me being a darling--what I mean is--what are we going to do?"
"What do you want us to do?"
"You don"t help me out," he complained. "Look here, are you really in love with me?"
"Of course I am," she said softly.
"Yes, but really violently, madly in love to the exclusion of everything else in the world?"
"Kiss me," said Jenny, answering him from her heart.
"Kissing"s too easy," said Maurice. "Kissing proves nothing. You"ve probably kissed dozens of men."
"Well, why not?"
"Why not? Good Heavens, if I give up my whole being to you, do you mean to say you"re not going to think anything of kissing dozens of men?"
"Don"t be silly. To begin with, they did all the kissing."
"That makes no difference."
"I think it makes all the difference."
"I don"t," he maintained.
"I do."
"Look here, don"t let"s quarrel," he said.
"I"m not quarrelling. You began."
"All right. I know I did. Only do think things out."
"What"s the matter with your brain to-night?" Jenny asked.