In the early morning he awoke, full of the discomfort of this strange
place and the medley of his dreams. Lying, with his nose peeping over
the quilt, he was visited by a horrible suspicion. When he could bear it
no longer, he started up in bed. What if it were all a plot to get him
to marry her? The thought was treacherous, and inspired in him a faint
disgust. Still, she might be ignorant of it! But was she so innocent?
What innocent girl would have come to his room like that? What innocent
girl? Her father, who pretended to be caring only for his country? It
was not probable that any man was such a fool; it was all part of the
game--a scheming rascal! Kasteliz, too—his threats! They intended him
to marry her! And the horrid idea was strengthened by his reverence for
marriage. It was the proper, the respectable condition; he was genuinely
afraid of this other sort of liaison—it was somehow too primitive! And
yet the thought of that marriage made his blood run cold. Considering
that she had already yielded, it would be all the more monstrous! With
the cold, fatal clearness of the morning light he now for the first time
saw his position in its full bearings. And, like a fish pulled out of
water, he gasped at what was disclosed. Sullen resentment against this
attempt to force him settled deep into his soul.
He seated himself on the bed, holding his head in his hands, solemnly
thinking out what such marriage meant. In the first place it meant
ridicule, in the next place ridicule, in the last place ridicule. She
would eat chicken bones with her fingers—those fingers his lips still
burned to kiss. She would dance wildly with other men. She would talk of
her “dear Father-town,” and all the time her eyes would look beyond him,
some where or other into some d—d place he knew nothing of. He sprang up
and paced the room, and for a moment thought he would go mad.
They meant him to marry her! Even she—she meant him to marry her! Her
tantalising inscrutability; her sudden little tendernesses; her quick
laughter; her swift, burning kisses; even the movements of her hands;
her tears—all were evidence against her. Not one of these things that
Nature made her do counted on her side, but how they fanned his longing,
his desire, and distress! He went to the glass and tried to part his
hair with his fingers, but being rather fine, it fell into lank streaks.
There was no comfort to be got from it. He drew his muddy boots on.
Suddenly he thought: 'If I could see her alone, I could arrive at some
arrangement!' Then, with a sense of stupefaction, he made the discovery
that no arrangement could possibly be made that would not be dangerous,
even desperate. He seized his hat, and, like a rabbit that has been
fired at, bolted from the room. He plodded along amongst the damp woods
with his head down, and resentment and dismay in his heart. But, as the
sun rose, and the air grew sweet with pine scent, he slowly regained a
sort of equability. After all, she had already yielded; it was not as
if...! And the tramp of his own footsteps lulled him into feeling that
it would all come right.
'Look at the thing practically,' he thought. The faster he walked the
firmer became his conviction that he could still see it through. He took
out his watch—it was past seven—he began to hasten back. In the yard of
the inn his driver was harnessing the horses; Swithin went up to him.
“Who told you to put them in?” he asked.
The driver answered, “Der Herr.”
Swithin turned away. 'In ten minutes,' he thought, 'I shall be in
that carriage again, with this going on in my head! Driving away from
England, from all I'm used to--driving to--what?' Could he face it? Could
he face all that he had been through that morning; face it day after
day, night after night? Looking up, he saw Rozsi at her open window
gazing down at him; never had she looked sweeter, more roguish. An
inexplicable terror seized on him; he ran across the yard and jumped
into his carriage. “To Salzburg!” he cried; “drive on!” And rattling out
of the yard without a look behind, he flung a sovereign at the hostler.
Flying back along the road faster even than he had come, with pale face,
and eyes blank and staring like a pug-dog's, Swithin spoke no single
word; nor, till he had reached the door of his lodgings, did he suffer
the driver to draw rein.