Dilling and Azalea met on the following morning, in all outward
respects, exactly as they had met for nearly five years.
A third person watching them would have detected no change in their
manner, no relaxing in their poise, no studied indifference. Neither was
there discernible the strained control proclaiming a furtive
curiosity—a hunger—to see how the other would behave.
“Good morning,” said Dilling, finding her engrossed with the mail. “I
hope you are well.”
Azalea echoed this cliché and observed that their correspondence seemed
to increase daily. It was the sort of thing they often said.
“I’ll be ready in just a moment,” he told her, and passed quickly behind
the green baize door that gave into his private office.
All this was as it had been many times before.
Azalea caught her breath in two fluttering little sighs. That was over;
and without any of the embarrassments she had dreaded. It had been quite
easy—almost disappointingly easy—but altogether fine. That was what
she had prayed that Dilling should remain; it was what she knew he would
always remain—fine!
At the same time, she wondered how he felt, exactly what minute little
thoughts had come to him since he stood between the dull, fringed
portieres and stared at her, stunned, yet with the light of a sublime
revelation dawning in his eyes. She wondered with a hot stab of pain, if
he felt himself duped, humbugged, betrayed.
She visualised the brief and pregnant scene again, imagining—or was it
divining?—the thought that must have come to him as his eyes held hers
in that sudden bond of understanding. “This is a piece of staggering
news to me,” he must have said. “I am taken at a disadvantage . . .
emotionally naked . . . but you knew . . . you knew . . .”
And she saw herself mutely admitting the accusation, but with sadness,
as a mother might have felt when some disturbing information could no
longer be withheld from the child she loved. And she wondered if he
suffered at losing the false serenity in which he had been living.
Did he resent the age-old wisdom that enabled her to see, while he
groped and stumbled, fatuous in his blindness? Did he feel humiliation?
On her desk the buzzer sounded. His summons. For a moment, Azalea sat
quite still, looking at the little instrument that had called her in
exactly the same way countless times before. And yet, not quite the
same. To-day, there was something different. No, it would never be the
same again.
As she gathered up her notebook, pencil and a sheaf of papers, her heart
ached for him.
“Why,” she asked herself, rebelliously, “why must the cup of knowledge
be so bitter? Why must the coming of truth be so difficult and hard to
bear?”
He did not raise his eyes when she entered the room, but presently, he
seemed to know that she was seated and ready.
“Taking up the matter of the Quebec Bridge,” he began, “is the report
down from Council, yet?” Then, without waiting for an answer, “But
first, are there any Imperial despatches?”
The routine of the morning progressed as usual. Reports to Council,
petitions from small centres demanding votes from the Public Treasury
out of all proportion to their possible returns, eternal complaints and
criticisms from malcontents, applications for pensions from War Widows,
enquiries from distracted mothers—all the departmental _acta-diurna_ of
a ministerial incumbency that had to be cleared away before he was free
to undertake the pressing matters that fell to his especial talents to
perform.
And he compelled his brain to function along its accustomed channels,
while some inner chamber of his mind carried on a separate trend of
thought—separate, and, at the same time, veiled, like the thinking that
is part of a dream.
He wondered how Azalea felt, sitting there so composedly; and beautiful,
like Lamb’s divinely plain _Miss Kelly_. Was there an element of pity,
even contempt beneath her consistent consideration, for the man who was
insentient to the message of his own heart? Dilling recoiled from the
mawkish flavour of the phrase. He despised all sentimentality, and had
he been called upon to debate the subject would have denied the heart
the conspicuous place universally accorded it, in emotional relations
between the sexes. Imbeciles and sensualists “fell in love”, because the
world refuses to countenance the cruder, if more honest, passion.
Dilling had never been in love—neither with Marjorie nor any other
woman. Even now he refused to connect the term with Azalea. He had
suddenly become aware of joy in her companionship, of his dependence
upon the mental stimulation she provided, of a hitherto unsuspected
peace in their spiritual communion. In her, he had found the priceless
thing for which men seek throughout their lives—Understanding.
“I couldn’t get along without her,” he said to himself. “She understands
me.” And having thus spoken, he could say no more. It was the highest
tribute he could pay—the highest tribute any man can pay to woman.
With Azalea, he felt himself the man he wished to be; not smug and
stodgily content, but rejoicing in the struggle towards an ideal which
he believed was one that she approved.
Sitting opposite her, apparently engrossed in matters of a widely
divergent nature, Dilling examined himself, detachedly. He had no desire
to touch her . . . to cry to her, “I love you!” But the thought of
losing her companionship, mental contact with her, produced a pain so
intolerable that it dismayed him.
And in that flash of utter wretchedness, he saw how completely he was
wedded to Azalea; how sublime was this cold, pure marriage of the
spirit. With Marjorie, mental companionship was absolutely non-existent.
They were bound together by duty, habit, and the intimacies permitted
those who have accepted man-made ritual as final . . . and Divine. They
had no need of one another. Fondness expressed the extent of his
emotion, and for several years, he had realised that a fierce
maternalism on her part was substitute for the rarer ecstasy of love.
He was as free from connubial fetters as it is given man to be. Marjorie
was never exacting, but even so, Dilling was conscious of restriction,
bondage. He wanted to be free!
He thought of other married men, and saw for the first time how their
wives crowded into their lives; they were like two snails trying to
crowd into the same shell. Through no fault of hers, Marjorie often
crowded him. Then his mind turned to Azalea, who never had provoked that
sensation in all the years of their association. On the contrary, she
always seemed to liberate his mind, to give him light and space and air.
She was his mate, not his keeper or his charge.
He wondered when she first began to love him, and whether the knowledge
had brought her pleasure or unrest. Had she felt humiliation at his
unresponsiveness, perhaps? Had he ever hurt her? What a contrast between
Azalea and Hebe Barrington! A gentle perspiration broke out on his brow,
and he lost the trend of his thought for an instant. One was suggestive
of the hot breath of the jungle; the other, the cool freshness of the
open sea. Mentally, Dilling removed his sandals as he looked across the
crowded desk, and reverently kneeled at Azalea’s feet.
“I’m glad I know . . .” he said to himself. “Not that it will make the
slightest difference. We will go on exactly as before. Thank God, she is
sensible—not like other women!”
It did not occur to him, however, that he was like other men—in one
respect, at least; that this was a matter differing from any problem
that had entered into his career. It would not be settled once and for
all. It would not be laid away beyond the need of further consideration.
He was soon to find that he could not ignore the insistency of this
strange emotion that caught him at most unexpected, inconvenient
moments. At first, such unaccustomed tyranny annoyed him. But gradually,
he grew to like it, to seek the refreshment of it, as one who finds
refreshment in the perfume of a flower.
Mechanically, he selected a letter from the wire basket under his hand,
and dictated,
“Dear Mr. Jackson,
“(The Jackson case again. I’ll finish it this morning!) . . . I have
just had your letter, dated 22nd ultimo—now a week overdue, here—by
this morning’s mail. It does not occur to me that carelessness caused
your delay in sending it off. I note that it was posted only four days
ago.
“I am inclined to think that it was some evocation of your better
judgment, I will even go so far as to say conscience, in this extremely
unpleasant affair, that provoked a debate within yourself as to whether
the letter should be mailed to me, at all.
“It is necessary at times to speak plainly to one’s friends, and a
moment’s reflection will convince you, I am sure, that this is such a
time. Frankly, your letter and its suggestion that I should use my
political influence to forward the project of the Moccasin Realty Co.
Ltd., which is only the business name cloaking that of yourself and your
son-in-law, to sell the jerry-built Cameron Terrace to the Dominion
Government at five times the price for which you built it two years
since, is a stark offence to me. I will have no part or lot in such an
unpleasant—I speak euphemistically—transaction, and I ask you to
consider this answer final.
“The Terrace has twice been reported against by the Inspector of the
Indian Department as quite unfit for the purpose of an Indian School.
You, sir, are perfectly well aware that it is ill-drained and impossible
to heat without being veneered, or stuccoed, at great additional cost.
“I shall say no more about the matter, but if my refusal to aid your
attempt upon the Treasury of this overburdened country costs me the loss
of your support—if it should cost me the loss of my entire
constituency—I shall accept the situation in the knowledge that, at
least, I have done my duty. It is only upon such a footing that I can
remain in public life . . .”
He raised his eyes, hard and cold with anger, and asked,
“Do you think he’ll believe I’m sincere?”
Azalea shook her head. “He’ll complain, as so many of them do.”
“How’s that?”
“He will say when in power the Liberals forget their principles and the
Conservatives, their friends.”
They both sighed.
The banging of doors and quivering of beaver-board partitions that had
converted the spaciousness of the Victoria Memorial Museum into cubicles
wherein Canada’s Parliamentarians might be temporarily housed, the
scurrying along corridors and clang of the elevator gate, told Azalea
that noon had come. When immersed in work, Dilling was utterly oblivious
to the flight of time.
“What about lunch?” she asked, as soon as he paused. “The gun sounded
some time ago.”
How often had she said exactly the same thing!
“Are you so hungry?” he asked, astonished to miss the playful effect he
had intended to convey. Dropping into the still room, the silly words
had almost a nervous note.
“Starving,” lied Azalea, easily, and knowing his unadmitted dependence
upon food.
“Very well. I’ll go, too. But I’m coming back early, to-day. We must
unearth that Hansard before I go to Council. It will never do to let
Bedford get away with his want-of-confidence Motion on the British
Preference, in this high-handed fashion! We must make him eat his words
. . . and while I think of it. Miss Deane, please don’t let
anyone—_anyone_—disturb me.”