They came out into a luminous blue night, with a crescent young moon
high overhead. It was so fine that the Popes and the Plessingtons and
Mr. Magnet declined Lady Petchworth's proffered car, and walked back to
Buryhamstreet across the park through a sleeping pallid cornfield, and
along by the edge of the pine woods. Mr. Pope would have liked to walk
with Mr. Magnet and explain all that the pressure on his time had caused
him to omit from his speech, and why it was he had seen fit to omit this
part and include that. Some occult power, however, baffled this
intention, and he found himself going home in the company of his
brother-in-law and Daffy, with Aunt Plessington and his wife like a
barrier between him and his desire. Marjorie, on the other hand, found
Mr. Magnet's proximity inevitable. They fell a little behind and were
together again for the first time since her refusal.
He behaved, she thought, with very great restraint, and indeed he left
her a little doubtful on that occasion whether he had not decided to
take her decision as final. He talked chiefly about the lecture, which
had impressed him very deeply. Mrs. Plessington, he said, was so
splendid--made him feel trivial. He felt stirred up by her, wanted to
help in this social work, this picking up of helpless people from the
muddle in which they wallowed.
He seemed not only extraordinarily modest but extraordinarily gentle
that night, and the warm moonshine gave his face a shadowed earnestness
it lacked in more emphatic lights. She felt the profound change in her
feelings towards him that had followed her rejection of him. It had
cleared away his effect of oppression upon her. She had no longer any
sense of entanglement and pursuit, and all the virtues his courtship had
obscured shone clear again. He was kindly, he was patient--and she felt
something about him a woman is said always to respect, he gave her an
impression of ability. After all, he could banish the trouble that
crushed and overwhelmed her with a movement of his little finger. Of all
her load of debt he could earn the payment in a day.
"Your aunt goes to-morrow?" he said.
Marjorie admitted it.
"I wish I could talk to her more. She's so inspiring."
"You know of our little excursion for Friday?" he asked after a pause.
She had not heard. Friday was Theodore's birthday; she knew it only too
well because she had had to part with her stamp collection--which very
luckily had chanced to get packed and come to Buryhamstreet--to meet its
demand. Mr. Magnet explained he had thought it might be fun to give a
picnic in honour of the anniversary.
"How jolly of you!" said Marjorie.
"There's a pretty bit of river between Wamping and Friston Hanger--I've
wanted you to see it for a long time, and Friston Hanger church has the
prettiest view. The tower gets the bend of the river."
He told her all he meant to do as if he submitted his plans for her
approval. They would drive to Wamping and get a very comfortable little
steam launch one could hire there. Wintersloan was coming down again; an
idle day of this kind just suited his temperament. Theodore would like
it, wouldn't he?
"Theodore will think he is King of Surrey!"
"I'll have a rod and line if he wants to fish. I don't want to forget
anything. I want it to be _his_ day really and truly."
The slightest touch upon the pathetic note? She could not tell.
But that evening brought Marjorie nearer to loving Magnet than she had
ever been. Before she went to sleep that night she had decided he was
quite a tolerable person again; she had been too nervous and unjust with
him. After all, his urgency and awkwardness had been just a part of his
sincerity. Perhaps the faint doubt whether he would make his request
again gave the zest of uncertainty to his devotion. Of course, she told
herself, he would ask again. And then the blissful air of limitless
means she might breathe. The blessed release....
She was suddenly fast asleep.