We went out together into the street. It was nearly two o'clock, and the
very slight breeze seemed only to make the night hotter. We walked down
Gray's Inn Road and across Holborn and through a labyrinth of alleys and
side-streets towards Fleet Street and the river. All the time there was
the lightning and the heavy-rolling thunder; the storm would break very
soon, and the blackness of the sky was something that could almost be
seen. Everything seemed grotesquely unreal, including what he said and
what I said. Perhaps we were both possessed; perhaps the whole night was
agog with demons and angels, and we, with our problem, were their
pitiful sport....
We went on arguing. I told him that if I didn't understand, it was his
fault for obscuring everything in a fog of reticence. I had made
deductions from what I could see with my eyes, and that was what he must
expect other people, including Severn, to do. If these deductions were
all wrong, then it was _his_ place to assure and convince me of it. But
he said: "No, not at all. If your deductions are wrong, then it's your
own fault for having made them."
"Will you tell that to Severn, if _his_ deductions are wrong?"
"I don't know what I shall tell Severn."
"You admit he has some right to object to what's going on?"
"As much as a man who boasts of doing what he likes has _any_ right to
object to other people doing what they like."
He was a shrewder disputant than I had suspected. "Look here, Terry," I
said, rather more cordially, "why don't you try to see my point? It
isn't just nosiness that's making me ask you all these infernally
awkward questions. You know that, or at any rate, you ought to.... It's
just what I feel--I have an idea--that you may be on the verge of doing
something that you'll afterwards regret. Naturally, I want to warn
you--to help you, if I can. But you won't let me get near the
subject--you won't even let me know what it is you're going to do."
"I'm going to stay in London," he said resolutely. "That's what I'm
going to do, and I've been telling you that for the last hour."
"But what does it mean? Does it mean that you and Helen----? ... Look
here, will you give me your assurance that there's nothing in your
relationship but this--this teaching business that you spoke of?"
"Which you called highbrow bunkum."
"Well, if I did----"
"You _did_, anyhow. And now you want my assurance that there's nothing
in my relationship with Helen except highbrow bunkum. Do you really
expect me to give it to you? And would you believe it if I did?"
"Never mind that. Come to the point.... Is your relationship with her
perfectly all-square and above board?"
"I don't quite know what you mean."
"Is it the sort of thing you could let Severn know about?"
"No.... It isn't the sort of thing I could let anybody know about."
"You mean you're in love with her?"
"No--don't ask me that. Don't ask me any more. I can't and I shan't
answer any more."
Deadlock--and then the storm broke. But the rain seemed to change the
feeling of the world; it opened, as it were, a window in the sky, and a
cool breeze floated through, scouring and freshening every corner. We
were cool at last, and then cold, and then, with tremendous suddenness,
tired. Too tired to go on arguing, too tired to think of how to get
back, too tired to do anything but stand under the Embankment tramway
shelter and wait for the clouds to exhaust themselves.
When the rain had nearly stopped we hastened northwards through the
swirling and deserted streets. It was three o'clock. We spoke very
little on the way, and by tacit agreement the argument was not resumed.
Only once was it so much as referred to, and that was when, bidding him
good-bye at the door of his lodgings, I said: "I don't retract anything
I said a little while ago, but I'm sorry I lost my temper over it."
And he answered, with shy cordiality: "Oh, _that's_ all right. Don't
trouble about _that_...."