He had noticed, he said, as they sat in the park, that she had a weak face. Her thoughts were far away; he had caught her face, as it were, napping, and had seen through it to the root of her being. The conclusion at which he had arrived was that she was not capable of leading an independent life.
"Am I not right? Isn"t it so?"
"You think that because I don"t leave father and go abroad."
"You might go abroad and lead a dependent life; you might stay at home and lead an independent life."
He asked her what offers of marriage she had had.
One was from the Vicar, a widower, a man of fifty, the other from a young man in a solicitor"s office. She did not care for either, and had not entertained their proposals for a second.
"If you marry anyone, it must be a duke. Life is a battle; society will get the better of us unless we get the better of society. Everyone must realise that--every young man, every young woman. We must conquer or be conquered."
Society, he argued, did not require a chaperon from her; society would, indeed, resent a chaperon if she were to appear with one. Society not only granted her freedom, but demanded that she should exercise it. As a freelance she would be taken notice of, as a respectable, marriageable girl she would be pa.s.sed over. The cradle and the masterpiece were irreconcilable ideals. He drew an amusing picture of the prima donna"s husband, the fellow who waits with a scarf ready to wind it round the throat of his musical instrument; the fellow who is always on the watch lest someone should walk off with his means of subsistence. Evelyn listened because she liked to hear him talk; she knew that he was trying to influence her with argument, but it was he himself who was influencing her, she dreaded his presence, not his argument.
She got up and walked across the sward; and as they returned through the flowery village street, the faint May breeze shed the white chestnut bloom about their feet. It seemed to him better to say nothing; there are times when silence is more potent than speech. They were walking under the trees of the old Dulwich street, and so charming were the hedge-hidden gardens, and the eighteenth-century houses with white porticoes, that Owen could not but think Dulwich at that moment seemed the natural nativity of the young girl"s career. A few moments after they were at Dowlands. She was trembling, and had no strength of will to refuse to ask him in. She would have had the strength if she had not been obliged to give him her hand. She had tried to bid him good-bye without giving her hand, and had not succeeded, and while he held her hand her lips said the words without her knowing it. She spoke unconsciously, and did not know what she had said till she had said it.
And while they waited for tea, Evelyn lay back in a wicker chair thinking. He had said that life without love was a desert, and many times the conversation trembled on the edge of a personal avowal, and now he was playing love music out of "Tristan" on the harpsichord. The gnawing, creeping sensuality of the phrase brought little shudders into her flesh; all life seemed dissolved into a dim tremor and rustling of blood; vague colour floated into her eyes, and there were moments when she could hardly restrain herself from jumping to her feet and begging of him to stop.... The servant brought in the tea, and she thought she would feel better when the music ceased. But neither did the silence nor the tea help her. He sat opposite her, his eyes fixed upon her, that half-kindly, half-cynical face of his showing through the gold of his moustache. He seemed to know that she could not follow the conversation, and seemed determined to drive the malady that was devouring her to a head. He continued to speak of the motive of the love call, how it is interwoven with the hunting fanfare; when the fanfare dies in the twilight, how it is then heard in the dark loneliness of the garden. She heard him speak of the handkerchief motive, of thirty violins playing three notes in ever precipitated rhythm, until we feel that the world reels behind the woman, that only one thing exists for her--Tristan. A giddiness gathered in Evelyn"s brain, and she fell back in her chair, slightly to the left side, and letting her hand slip towards him, said, with a beseeching look--
"I cannot go on talking, I am too tired."
It seemed as if she were going to faint, and this made it easy and natural for him to take her hand, to put his arm about her, and then to whisper--
"Evelyn, dear, what is the matter?"
She opened her eyes; their look was sufficient answer.
"Dearest Evelyn," he said; and bending over, he kissed her on the cheek.
"This is very foolish of me," she said, and throwing her arm about his neck, she kissed him on the mouth. "But you are fond of me?" she said impulsively, laying her hand on his shoulder. It was a movement full of affectionate intimacy.
"Yes," he said, moving her face again towards him. "I love you, I"ve always loved you."
"No," she said, "you didn"t, not always; I know when you began to care for me."
"When?"
"When you returned from Greece, at the moment when you said you wanted me to like you. Is it not true?"
Owen dared not tell her that it was at the moment of kissing her that he had really begun to love her. In that moment he had entered into her atmosphere; it was fragrant as a flower, and it had decided him to use every effort to become her lover.
"No," she said, "you must not kiss me again."
She got up from the low wicker chair; he followed her, and they sat close together on two low seats. He put his arm round her and said--
"I love to kiss you.... Why do you turn away your head?"
"Because it is wrong; I shall be miserable to-night."
"You don"t think it wrong to kiss me?"
"Yes, I do."
Then turning her face to his, she kissed him.
"Who taught you to kiss like that?"
"No one, I never kissed anyone before--father, of course. You know what I mean."
"She"ll be an adorable mistress," he thought, "and in four years the greatest singer in England. I shall get very fond of her. I like her very much as it is, and when she gets over her religious scruples--when I"ve reformed her--she"ll be enchanting. It is lucky she met me; without me she"d have come to nothing."
She asked him what he was thinking about, and he answered of the happiness he had begun to feel was in store for them.
"What happiness?" she asked; and he answered--
"The happiness of seeing each other constantly--the happiness of lovers.
Now we must see each other more often."
"How often? Every day?"
He wondered what was the exact colour of her eyes, and he pressed her to answer. At last she said--
"You cannot come here oftener than you do at present. I"m deceiving father about these lessons. What will you do if he asks you to play to him? What excuse will you give? You daren"t attempt the simplest exercise, you haven"t got over the difference of the bowing; you"d play false notes all the time."
"Yes," he said; "I"ve not made much progress, have I?"
"No, you haven"t; but that isn"t my fault."
"But the days I don"t see you seem so long!"
"Do you think they do not seem long to me? I"ve nothing to think about but you."
"Then, on your weariest days, come and see me. We can always see each other in Berkeley Square. Send me a wire saying you are coming."
"I could not come to see you," she said, still looking at him fixedly; "you know that I could not.... Then why do you ask me?"
"Because I want you."
"You know that I"d like to come."
"Then, if you do, you"ll come. I don"t believe in temptations that we don"t yield to."
"I suppose that the temptation that we yield to is the temptation?"
"Of course. But, Evelyn, you are not going to waste your life in Dulwich. Come and see me to-morrow and, if you like, we"ll decide."
"On what?"