Her words fell on him with a chill. His smile faded, and he looked away for a moment.
"But I hope Cicely will be here often," he said.
"Oh, I hope so too," she rejoined, with seeming unconsciousness of any connection between the wish and her previous words.
Amherst hesitated. He had meant to propose a visit to the old Eldorado building, which now at last housed the long-desired night-schools and nursery; but since she had spoken he felt a sudden indifference to showing her anything more. What was the use, if she meant to leave Cicely, and drift out of his reach? He could get on well enough without sympathy and comprehension, but his momentary indulgence in them made the ordinary taste of life a little flat.
"There must be more to see?" she continued, as they turned back toward the village; and he answered absently: "Oh, yes--if you like."
He heard the change in his own voice, and knew by her quick side-glance that she had heard it too.
"Please let me see everything that is compatible with my getting a car to Hanaford by six."
"Well, then--the night-school next," he said with an effort at lightness; and to shake off the importunity of his own thoughts he added carelessly, as they walked on: "By the way--it seems improbable--but I think I saw Dr. Wyant yesterday in a Westmore car."
She echoed the name in surprise. "Dr. Wyant? Really! Are you sure?"
"Not quite; but if it wasn"t he it was his ghost. You haven"t heard of his being at Hanaford?"
"No. I"ve heard nothing of him for ages."
Something in her tone made him return her side-glance; but her voice, on closer a.n.a.lysis, denoted only indifference, and her profile seemed to express the same negative sentiment. He remembered a vague Lynbrook rumour to the effect that the young doctor had been attracted to Miss Brent. Such floating seeds of gossip seldom rooted themselves in his mind, but now the fact acquired a new significance, and he wondered how he could have thought so little of it at the time. Probably her somewhat exaggerated air of indifference simply meant that she had been bored by Wyant"s attentions, and that the reminder of them still roused a slight self-consciousness.
Amherst was relieved by this conclusion, and murmuring: "Oh, I suppose it can"t have been he," led her rapidly on to the Eldorado. But the old sense of free communion was again obstructed, and her interest in the details of the schools and nursery now seemed to him only a part of her wonderful art of absorbing herself in other people"s affairs. He was a fool to have been duped by it--to have fancied it was anything more personal than a grace of manner.
As she turned away from inspecting the blackboards in one of the empty school-rooms he paused before her and said suddenly: "You spoke of not seeing Westmore again. Are you thinking of leaving Cicely?"
The words were almost the opposite of those he had intended to speak; it was as if some irrepressible inner conviction flung defiance at his surface distrust of her.
She stood still also, and he saw a thought move across her face. "Not immediately--but perhaps when Mr. Langhope can make some other arrangement----"
Owing to the half-holiday they had the school-building to themselves, and the fact of being alone with her, without fear of interruption, woke in Amherst an uncontrollable longing to taste for once the joy of unguarded utterance.
"Why do you go?" he asked, moving close to the platform on which she stood.
She hesitated, resting her hand on the teacher"s desk. Her eyes were kind, but he thought her tone was cold.
"This easy life is rather out of my line," she said at length, with a smile that draped her words in vagueness.
Amherst looked at her again--she seemed to be growing remote and inaccessible. "You mean that you don"t want to stay?"
His tone was so abrupt that it called forth one of her rare blushes.
"No--not that. I have been very happy with Cicely--but soon I shall have to be doing something else."
Why was she blushing? And what did her last phrase mean? "Something else--?" The blood hummed in his ears--he began to hope she would not answer too quickly.
She had sunk into the seat behind the desk, propping her elbows on its lid, and letting her interlaced hands support her chin. A little bunch of violets which had been thrust into the folds of her dress detached itself and fell to the floor.
"What I mean is," she said in a low voice, raising her eyes to Amherst"s, "that I"ve had a great desire lately to get back to real work--my special work.... I"ve been too idle for the last year--I want to do some hard nursing; I want to help people who are miserable."
She spoke earnestly, almost pa.s.sionately, and as he listened his undefined fear was lifted. He had never before seen her in this mood, with brooding brows, and the darkness of the world"s pain in her eyes.
All her glow had faded--she was a dun thrush-like creature, clothed in semi-tints; yet she seemed much nearer than when her smile shot light on him.
He stood motionless, his eyes absently fixed on the bunch of violets at her feet. Suddenly he raised his head, and broke out with a boyish blush: "Could it have been Wyant who was trying to see you?"
"Dr. Wyant--trying to see me?" She lowered her hands to the desk, and sat looking at him with open wonder.
He saw the irrelevance of his question, and burst, in spite of himself, into youthful laughter.
"I mean--It"s only that an unknown visitor called at the house yesterday, and insisted that you must have arrived. He seemed so annoyed at not finding you, that I thought...I imagined...it must be some one who knew you very well...and who had followed you here...for some special reason...."
Her colour rose again, as if caught from his; but her eyes still declared her ignorance. "Some special reason----?"
"And just now," he blurted out, "when you said you might not stay much longer with Cicely--I thought of the visit--and wondered if there was some one you meant to marry...."
A silence fell between them. Justine rose slowly, her eyes screened under the veil she had lowered. "No--I don"t mean to marry," she said, half-smiling, as she came down from the platform.
Restored to his level, her small shadowy head just in a line with his eyes, she seemed closer, more approachable and feminine--yet Amherst did not dare to speak.
She took a few steps toward the window, looking out into the deserted street. "It"s growing dark--I must go home," she said.
"Yes," he a.s.sented absently as he followed her. He had no idea what she was saying. The inner voices in which they habitually spoke were growing louder than outward words. Or was it only the voice of his own desires that he heard--the cry of new hopes and unguessed capacities of living?
All within him was flood-tide: this was the top of life, surely--to feel her alike in his brain and his pulses, to steep sight and hearing in the joy of her nearness, while all the while thought spoke clear: "This is the mate of my mind."
He began again abruptly. "Wouldn"t you marry, if it gave you the chance to do what you say--if it offered you hard work, and the opportunity to make things better...for a great many people...as no one but yourself could do it?"
It was a strange way of putting his case: he was aware of it before he ended. But it had not occurred to him to tell her that she was lovely and desirable--in his humility he thought that what he had to give would plead for him better than what he was.
The effect produced on her by his question, though undecipherable, was extraordinary. She stiffened a little, remaining quite motionless, her eyes on the street.
"_You!_" she just breathed; and he saw that she was beginning to tremble.
His wooing had been harsh and clumsy--he was afraid it had offended her, and his hand trembled too as it sought hers.
"I only thought--it would be a dull business to most women--and I"m tied to it for life...but I thought...I"ve seen so often how you pity suffering...how you long to relieve it...."
She turned away from him with a shuddering sigh. "Oh, I _hate_ suffering!" she broke out, raising her hands to her face.
Amherst was frightened. How senseless of him to go on reiterating the old plea! He ought to have pleaded for himself--to have let the man in him seek her and take his defeat, instead of beating about the flimsy bush of philanthropy.
"I only meant--I was trying to make my work recommend me..." he said with a half-laugh, as she remained silent, her eyes still turned away.
The silence continued for a long time--it stretched between them like a narrowing interminable road, down which, with a leaden heart, he seemed to watch her gradually disappearing. And then, unexpectedly, as she shrank to a tiny speck at the dip of the road, the perspective was mysteriously reversed, and he felt her growing nearer again, felt her close to him--felt her hand in his.
"I"m really just like other women, you know--I shall like it because it"s your work," she said.