"I thought I should die before this moment came. There isn"t a minute that I don"t long for you so terribly that I can hardly live."
"And do you think that I don"t long for you?"
"Then come to me!"
She looked at him mournfully and shook her head.
Well, he had known that she would not. He had not earned her. What right had he to ask her to fly against the world, to brave everything, to have such faith in him--as yet? He had no heart to press his words, beginning then to understand the paralyzing truth that there was no longer any resolving this or that; with love like his he had ceased to be a separate being with a separate will. He was entwined with her, could act only if her will and his were one. He would never be able to say to her: "You must!" He loved her too much. And she knew it. So there was nothing for it but to forget the ache, and make the hour happy. But how about that other truth--that in love there is no pause, no resting?... With any watering, however scant, the flower will grow till its time comes to be plucked.... This oasis in the desert--these few minutes with her alone, were swept through and through with a feverish wind. To be closer! How not try to be that? How not long for her lips when he had but her hand to kiss? And how not be poisoned with the thought that in a few minutes she would leave him and go back to the presence of that other, who, even though she loathed him, could see and touch her when he would? She was leaning back in the very chair where in fancy he had seen her, and he only dared sit at her feet and look up. And this, which a week ago would have been rapture, was now almost torture, so far did it fall short of his longing. It was torture, too, to keep his voice in tune with the sober sweetness of her voice. And bitterly he thought: How can she sit there, and not want me, as I want her? Then at a touch of her fingers on his hair, he lost control, and kissed her lips. Her surrender lasted only for a second.
"No, no--you must not!"
That mournful surprise sobered him at once.
He got up, stood away from her, begged to be forgiven.
And, when she was gone, he sat in the chair where she had sat. That clasp of her, the kiss he had begged her to forget--to forget!--nothing could take that from him. He had done wrong; had startled her, had fallen short of chivalry! And yet--a smile of utter happiness would cling about his lips. His fastidiousness, his imagination almost made him think that this was all he wanted. If he could close his eyes, now, and pa.s.s out, before he lost that moment of half-fulfilment!
And, the smile still on his lips, he lay back watching the flies wheeling and chasing round the hanging-lamp. Sixteen of them there were, wheeling and chasing--never still!
XII
When, walking from Lennan"s studio, Olive reentered her dark little hall, she approached its alcove and glanced first at the hat-stand. They were all there--the silk hat, the bowler, the straw! So he was in! And within each hat, in turn, she seemed to see her husband"s head--with the face turned away from her--so distinctly as to note the leathery look of the skin of his cheek and neck. And she thought: "I pray that he will die! It is wicked, but I pray that he will die!" Then, quietly, that he might not hear, she mounted to her bedroom. The door into his dressing-room was open, and she went to shut it. He was standing there at the window.
"Ah! You"re in! Been anywhere?"
"To the National Gallery."
It was the first direct lie she had ever told him, and she was surprised to feel neither shame nor fear, but rather a sense of pleasure at defeating him. He was the enemy, all the more the enemy because she was still fighting against herself, and, so strangely, in his behalf.
"Alone?"
"Yes."
"Rather boring, wasn"t it? I should have thought you"d have got young Lennan to take you there."
"Why?"
By instinct she had seized on the boldest answer; and there was nothing to be told from her face. If he were her superior in strength, he was her inferior in quickness.
He lowered his eyes, and said:
"His line, isn"t it?"
With a shrug she turned away and shut the door. She sat down on the edge of her bed, very still. In that little pa.s.sage of wits she had won, she could win in many such; but the full hideousness of things had come to her. Lies! lies! That was to be her life! That; or to say farewell to all she now cared for, to cause despair not only in herself, but in her lover, and--for what? In order that her body might remain at the disposal of that man in the next room--her spirit having flown from him for ever. Such were the alternatives, unless those words: "Then come to me," were to be more than words. Were they? Could they be? They would mean such happiness if--if his love for her were more than a summer love? And hers for him? Was it--were they--more than summer loves? How know? And, without knowing, how give such pain to everyone? How break a vow she had thought herself quite above breaking? How make such a desperate departure from all the traditions and beliefs in which she had been brought up! But in the very nature of pa.s.sion is that which resents the intrusion of hard and fast decisions.... And suddenly she thought: If our love cannot stay what it is, and if I cannot yet go to him for always, is there not still another way?
She got up and began to dress for dinner. Standing before her gla.s.s she was surprised to see that her face showed no signs of the fears and doubts that were now her comrades. Was it because, whatever happened, she loved and was beloved! She wondered how she had looked when he kissed her so pa.s.sionately; had she shown her joy before she checked him?
In her garden by the river were certain flowers that, for all her care, would grow rank and of the wrong colour--wanting a different soil. Was she, then, like those flowers of hers? Ah! Let her but have her true soil, and she would grow straight and true enough!
Then in the doorway she saw her husband. She had never, till to-day, quite hated him; but now she did, with a real blind horrible feeling.
What did he want of her standing there with those eyes fixed on her--those forceful eyes, touched with blood, that seemed at once to threaten, covet, and beseech! She drew her wrapper close round her shoulders. At that he came up and said:
"Look at me, Olive!"
Against instinct and will she obeyed, and he went on:
"Be careful! I say, be careful!"
Then he took her by the shoulders, and raised her up to him. And, quite unnerved, she stood without resisting.
"I want you," he said; "I mean to keep you."
Then, suddenly letting her go, he covered his eyes with his hands.
That frightened her most--it was so unlike him. Not till now had she understood between what terrifying forces she was balancing. She did not speak, but her face grew white. From behind those hands he uttered a sound, not quite like a human noise, turned sharply, and went out.
She dropped back into the chair before her mirror, overcome by the most singular feeling she had ever known; as if she had lost everything, even her love for Lennan, and her longing for his love. What was it all worth, what was anything worth in a world like this? All was loathsome, herself loathsome! All was a void! Hateful, hateful, hateful! It was like having no heart at all! And that same evening, when her husband had gone down to the House, she wrote to Lennan:
"Our love must never turn to earthiness as it might have this afternoon.
Everything is black and hopeless. HE suspects. For you to come here is impossible, and too dreadful for us both. And I have no right to ask you to be furtive, I can"t bear to think of you like that, and I can"t bear it myself. I don"t know what to do or say. Don"t try to see me yet. I must have time, I must think."
XIII
Colonel Ercott was not a racing man, but he had in common with others of his countrymen a religious feeling in the matter of the Derby. His remembrances of it went back to early youth, for he had been born and brought up almost within sound of the coaching-road to Epsom. Every Derby and Oaks day he had gone out on his pony to watch the pa.s.sing of the tall hats and feathers of the great, and the pot-hats and feathers of the lowly; and afterwards, in the fields at home, had ridden races with old Lindsay, finishing between a cow that judged and a clump of bulrushes representing the Grand Stand.
But for one reason or another he had never seen the great race, and the notion that it was his duty to see it had now come to him. He proposed this to Mrs. Ercott with some diffidence. She read so many books--he did not quite know whether she would approve. Finding that she did, he added casually:
"And we might take Olive."
Mrs. Ercott answered dryly:
"You know the House of Commons has a holiday?"
The Colonel murmured:
"Oh! I don"t want that chap!"
"Perhaps," said Mrs. Ercott, "you would like Mark Lennan."
The Colonel looked at her most dubiously. Dolly could talk of it as a tragedy, and a--a grand pa.s.sion, and yet make a suggestion like that!
Then his wrinkles began slowly to come alive, and he gave her waist a squeeze.
Mrs. Ercott did not resist that treatment.
"Take Olive alone," she said. "I don"t really care to go."