THE MOMENT
The miracle had been achieved. She was sitting upon his bed, her hands
in her lap, looking with curiosity about her. She was very calm and
quiet, as she always was, but she suddenly turned and smiled at him as
though she would say: "I do like you for having brought me here."
His happiness almost choked him, but he was determined to be severely
practical. He found out from her the name of her uncle and the hotel at
which he was staying. He wrote a few lines saying that Miss Christina
Tenssen was here in his room, that it was urgently necessary that she
should be fetched by her uncle as soon as possible for reasons that he,
Henry, would explain later. He got Christina herself to write a line at
the bottom of the page.
"You see if we went on to your uncle's hotel now at once he might not
be in and we would not be able to go up to his room. It is much better
that we should stay here. Your mother may come on here, but they shall
only take you from this room over my dead body." He laughed. "That's a
phrase," he said, "that comes naturally to me because I'm a romantic
novelist. Nevertheless, this time it's true. All the most absurd things
become true at such a time as this. If you knew what nights and days
I've dreamt of you being just like this, sitting alone with me like
this. . . . Oh, Gimini! I'm happy. . . ." He pressed the bell that
here rang and there did not. For the first time in history (but was
not to-day a fairy tale?) the carroty-haired factotum arrived with
marvellous promptitude, quite breathless with unwonted exertion. Henry
gave him the note. He looked for an instant at Christina, then stumbled
away.
"If your uncle is in he should be here in half an hour. If he is out,
of course, it will be longer. At least I have half an hour. For half
an hour you are my guest in my own palace, and for anything in the
world that you require I have only to clap my hands and it shall be
brought to you!"
"I don't want anything," she said; "only to sit here and be quiet and
talk to you." She took off her hat and it reposed with its scarlet
feather on Henry's rickety table.
She looked about her, smiling at everything. "I like it
all--everything. That picture--those books. It is so like you--even the
carpet!"
"Won't you lie down on the bed?" he said. "And I'll sit here, quite
close, where I can see you. And I'll take your hand if you don't mind.
I suppose we shan't meet for a long time again, and then we shall
be so old that it will all be quite different. I shall never have a
moment like this again, and I want to make the very most of it and then
remember every instant so long as I live!"
She lay down as he had asked her and her hand was in his.
"You don't know what it is," she said, "to be away from that place at
last. All this last fortnight my mother has been hesitating what she
was to do. She has been trying to persuade Leishman to take me away
himself, but there has been some trouble about money. There has been
some other man too. All she has wanted lately is to get the money; she
has wanted, I know, to leave the country--she has been cursing this
town every minute--but she was always bargaining for me and could not
get quite what she wanted. Then suddenly only this morning she had a
letter from my uncle to say that he had arrived. She is more afraid
of him than of any one in the world. She and the old man have been
quarrelling all the morning, but at last they came to some decision. We
were to leave for somewhere by the six o'clock train. She had hardly
for a moment her eyes off me, but I had just a minute when I could give
that note to Rose, the girl who comes in in the morning to work for us.
I was frightened that you might not be here, away from London, but it
was all I could do. . . . I was happy when I saw you come."
"This is the top moment of my life," said Henry, "and for ever
afterwards I'm going to judge life by this. Just for half an hour you
are mine and I am yours, and I can imagine to myself that I have only
to say the word and I can carry you off to some island where no one can
touch you and where we shall be always together."
"Perhaps that's true," she said, suddenly looking at him. "I have
never liked any one as I like you. My father and my uncles were quite
different. If you took me away who knows what would come?"
He shook his head, smiling at her. "No, my dear. You're grateful just
now and you feel kind but you're not in love with me and you never,
never will be. I'm not the man you'll be in love with. He'll be some
one fine, not ugly and clumsy and untidy like me. I can see him--one
of your own people, very handsome and strong and brave. I'm not brave
and I'm certainly not handsome. I lose my temper and then do things on
the spur of the moment--generally ludicrous things--but I'm not really
brave. But I believe in life now. I know what it can do and what it can
bring, and no one can take that away from me now."
"I believe," she said, looking at him, "that you're going to do fine
things--write great books or lead men to do great deeds. I shall be
so proud when I hear men speaking your name and praising you. I shall
say to myself: 'That's my friend whom they're speaking of. I knew him
before they did and I knew what he would do.'"
"I think," said Henry, "that I always knew that this moment would
come. When I was a boy in the country and was always being scolded for
something I did wrong or stupidly I used to dream of this. I thought it
would come in the War but it didn't. And then when I was in London I
would stop sometimes in the street and expect the heavens to open and
some miracle to happen. And now the miracle _has_ happened because I
love you and you are my friend, and you are here in my shabby room and
no one can ever prevent us thinking of one another till we die."
"I shall always think of you," she answered, "and how good you have
been to me. I long for home and Kjöbenhaven and Langlinir and Jutland
and the sand-dunes, but I shall miss you--now I know how I shall miss
you. Henry, come back with me--if only for a little while. Come and
stay with my uncle, and see our life and what kind of people we are."
His hand shook as it held hers. He stayed looking at her, their eyes
lost in one another. It seemed to him an eternity while he waited. Then
he shook his head.
"No. . . . It may be cowardice. . . . I don't know. But I don't want to
spoil this. It's perfect as it is. I want you always to think about me
as you do now. You wouldn't perhaps when you knew me better. You don't
see me as I really am, not all the way round. For once I know where to
stop, how to keep it perfect. Christina darling, I love you, love you,
love you! I'll never love any one like this again. Let me put my arms
around you and hold you just once before you go."
He knelt on the floor beside the bed and put his arms around her. Her
cheek was against his. She put up her hand and stroked his hair.
They stayed there in silence and without moving, their hearts beating
together.
* * * * *
There was a knock on the door.
"Give me something," he said. "Something of yours before you go. The
scarlet feather!"
She tore it from her hat and gave it to him. Then he went to the door
and opened it.