"You love her."
"Yes," said Lewisham lamely and pulling at his moustache. "I suppose ... that must be it."
For a s.p.a.ce neither spoke. Then Miss Heydinger said "_Oh_!" with extraordinary emphasis.
"To think of this end to it all! That all your promise ... What is it she gives that I could not have given?
"Even now! Why should I give up that much of you that is mine? If she could take it--But she cannot take it. If I let you go--you will do nothing. All this ambition, all these interests will dwindle and die, and she will not mind. She will not understand. She will think that she still has you. Why should she covet what she cannot possess? Why should she be given the thing that is mine--to throw aside?"
She did not look at Lewisham, but before her, her face a white misery.
"In a way--I had come to think of you as something, belonging to me ... I shall--still."
"There is one thing," said Lewisham after a pause, "it is a thing that has come to me once or twice lately. Don"t you think that perhaps you over-estimate the things I might have done? I know we"ve talked of great things to do. But I"ve been struggling for half a year and more to get the sort of living almost anyone seems able to get. It has taken me all my time. One can"t help thinking after that, perhaps the world is a stiffer sort of affair ..."
"No," she said decisively. "You could have done great things.
"Even now," she said, "you may do great things--If only I might see you sometimes, write to you sometimes--You are so capable and--weak. You must have somebody--That is your weakness. You fail in your belief. You must have support and belief--unstinted support and belief. Why could I not be that to you? It is all I want to be. At least--all I want to be now. Why need she know? It robs her of nothing. I want nothing--she has. But I know of my own strength too I can do nothing. I know that with you ... It is only knowing hurts her. Why should she know?"
Mr. Lewisham looked at her doubtfully. That phantom greatness of his, it was that lit her eyes. In that instant, at least he had no doubts of the possibility of his Career. But he knew that in some way the secret of his greatness and this admiration went together. Conceivably they were one and indivisible. Why indeed need Ethel know? His imagination ran over the things that might be done, the things that might happen, and touched swiftly upon complication, confusion, discovery.
"The thing is, I must simplify my life. I shall do nothing unless I simplify my life. Only people who are well off can be--complex. It is one thing or the other--"
He hesitated and suddenly had a vision of Ethel weeping as once he had seen her weep with the light on the tears in her eyes.
"No," he said almost brutally. "No. It"s like this--I can"t do anything underhand. I mean--I"m not so amazingly honest--now. But I"ve not that sort of mind. She would find me out. It would do no good and she would find me out. My life"s too complex. I can"t manage it and go straight. I--you"ve overrated me. And besides--Things have happened. Something--" He hesitated and then s.n.a.t.c.hed at his resolve, "I"ve got to simplify--and that"s the plain fact of the case. I"m sorry, but it is so."
Miss Heydinger made no answer. Her silence astonished him. For nearly twenty seconds perhaps they sat without speaking. With a quick motion she stood up, and at once he stood up before her. Her face was flushed, her eyes downcast.
"Good-bye," she said suddenly in a low tone and held out her hand.
"But," said Lewisham and stopped. Miss Heydinger"s colour left her.
"Good-bye," she said, looking him suddenly in the eyes and smiling awry. "There is no more to say, is there? Good-bye."
He took her hand. "I hope I didn"t--"
"Good-bye," she said impatiently, and suddenly disengaged her hand and turned away from him. He made a step after her.
"Miss Heydinger," he said, but she did not stop. "Miss Heydinger." He realised that she did not want to answer him again....
He remained motionless, watching her retreating figure. An extraordinary sense of loss came into his mind, a vague impulse to pursue her and pour out vague pa.s.sionate protestations....
Not once did she look back. She was already remote when he began hurrying after her. Once he was in motion he quickened his pace and gained upon her. He was within thirty yards of her as she drew near the gates.
His pace slackened. Suddenly he was afraid she might look back. She pa.s.sed out of the gates, out of his sight. He stopped, looking where she had disappeared. He sighed and took the pathway to his left that led back to the bridge and Vigours".
Halfway across this bridge came another crisis of indecision. He stopped, hesitating. An impertinent thought obtruded. He looked at his watch and saw that he must hurry if he would catch the train for Earl"s Court and Vigours". He said Vigours" might go to the devil.
But in the end he caught his train.
CHAPTER x.x.xII.
THE CROWNING VICTORY.
That night about seven Ethel came into their room with a waste-paper basket she had bought for him, and found him sitting at the little toilet table at which he was to "write." The outlook was, for a London outlook, s.p.a.cious, down a long slope of roofs towards the Junction, a huge sky of blue pa.s.sing upward to the darkling zenith and downward into a hazy bristling mystery of roofs and chimneys, from which emerged signal lights and steam puffs, gliding chains of lit window carriages and the vague vistas of streets. She showed him the basket and put it beside him, and then her eye caught the yellow doc.u.ment in his hand. "What is that you have there?"
He held it out to her. "I found it--lining my yellow box. I had it at Whortley."
She took it and perceived a chronological scheme. It was headed "SCHEMA," there were memoranda in the margin, and all the dates had been altered by a hasty hand.
"Hasn"t it got yellow?" she said.
That seemed to him the wrong thing for her to say. He stared at the doc.u.ment with a sudden accession of sympathy. There was an interval. He became aware of her hand upon his shoulder, that she was bending over him. "Dear," she whispered, with a strange change in the quality of her voice. He knew she was seeking to say something that was difficult to say.
"Yes?" he said presently.
"You are not grieving?"
"What about?"
"_This_."
"No!"
"You are not--you are not even sorry?" she said.
"No--not even sorry."
"I can"t understand that. It"s so much--"
"I"m glad," he proclaimed. "_Glad."_
"But--the trouble--the expense--everything--and your work?"
"Yes," he said, "that"s just it."
She looked at him doubtfully. He glanced up at her, and she questioned his eyes. He put his arm about her, and presently and almost absent-mindedly she obeyed his pressure and bent down and kissed him.
"It settles things," he said, holding her. "It joins us. Don"t you see? Before ... But now it"s different. It"s something we have between us. It"s something that ... It"s the link we needed. It will hold us together, cement us together. It will be our life. This will be my work now. The other ..."
He faced a truth. "It was just ... vanity!"
There was still a shade of doubt in her face, a wistfulness.