"Oh!" she commented softly.
"I've had romantic visions, too," I went on; "of what she would look like
when I did meet her. But when I saw you, I remembered, and all the
visions--oh! scattered; vanished into thin air."
"If you hadn't been so successful..." she murmured.
"I'm sorry for that," I agreed. "But I'm going to make amends. I realised
it all this afternoon in the wood when I went to meet Arthur. I'm going to
begin all over again, now. I'm coming to Canada--to work." The whole
solution of my problem was suddenly clear, although I had not guessed it
until that moment. "I'm going to buy a farm for all of us," I went on
quickly, "and all the money that's over, I shall give away. The hospitals
are always willing to accept money without asking why you give it. They're
not suspicious, _they_ don't consider themselves under any obligation."
"How much should you have to give away?" she asked.
"Thirty or forty thousand pounds," I said. "It depends on how much the
farm costs."
"Hadn't you better keep a little, in case the farm fails?" she put in.
"It won't fail," I said. "How could it?"
"And you'd do all that just because you've--remembered me?"
"There was another influence," I admitted.
"What was that?" she asked, with the sound of new interest in her voice.
"All this affair with the Jervaises," I said. "It has made me hate the
possession of money and the power money gives. That farm of ours is going
to be a communal farm. Our workers shall have an interest in the profits.
No one is to be the proprietor. We'll all be one family--no scraping for
favours, or fears of dismissal; we'll all be equal and free."
She did not answer that, at once; and I had an unpleasant feeling that she
was testing my quality by some criterion of her own, weighing the
genuineness of my emotion.
"Did you feel like this about things this afternoon?" she asked, after
what seemed to me an immense interval.
I was determined to tell her nothing less than the truth. "No," I
confessed, "much of it was a result of what you said to me. I--I had an
illumination. You made me see what a poor thing my life had been; how
conventional, artificial, worthless, it was. What you said about my plays
was so true. I had never realised it before--I hadn't bothered to think
about it."
"I don't remember saying anything about your plays," she interrupted me.
"Oh! you did," I assured her; "very little; nothing directly; but I knew
what you felt, and when I came to think it over, I agreed with you."
"I've only seen _one_," she remarked.
"They're all the same," I assured her, becoming fervent in my humility.
"But why go to Canada?" she asked. "Why not try to write better plays?"
"Because I saw my whole life plainly, in the wood this afternoon," was my
reply. "I did not know what to do then. I couldn't see any answer to my
problem. But when you were speaking to me a minute ago, I realised the
whole thing clearly. I understood what I wanted to do.
"It's a form of conversion," I concluded resolutely.
"I'm sure you mean it all--now," she commented, as if she were speaking to
herself.
"It isn't a question of _meaning_ anything," I replied. "The experiences
of this week-end have put the whole social question in a new light for me.
I could never go back, now, to the old life. My conscience would always be
reproaching me, if I did."
"But if you're rich, and feel like that, oughn't you to shoulder your
responsibilities?" she asked.
"Do something? Wouldn't it be rather like running away to give your money
to the hospitals and go to Canada to work on a farm?"
"That's my present impulse," I said. "And I mean to follow it. I don't
know that I shall want to stay in Canada for the rest of my life. I may
see further developments after I've been there for a few years. But..."
"Go on," she urged me.
"But I want to--to stay near you--all of you. I can't tell you how I
admire your father and mother and Arthur and--all of you. And you see, I
admit that this conversion of mine has been very sudden. I--I want to
learn."
"Do you always follow your impulses like this?" she put in.
"I've never had one worth following before," I said.
"What about wanting to fight Frank Jervaise?" she asked. "And running away
from the Hall? And suddenly taking Arthur's side in the row? and all those
things? Didn't you follow your impulses, then?"
And yet, it had never before occurred to me that I was impulsive. I had
imagined myself to be self-controlled, rather business-like, practical. I
was frankly astonished at this new light on my character.
"I suppose I did, in a way," I admitted doubtfully.
"To say nothing of..." she began, and stopped with a little, rather
embarrassed laugh.
"Of what?" I urged her.
"How many times before have you imagined yourself to be head over ears in
love?" she asked.
I was repaid in that moment for all the self-denials and fastidious
shrinkings of my youth.
"Never once!" I acclaimed triumphantly. "It's the one common experience
that has passed me by. I've often wondered why I could never fall in love.
I've admired any number of women. I've tried to fall in love with them.
And I have never been able to, try as I would. I could deceive myself
about other things, but never about that. Now, I know why."
I waited for her encouragement, but as she did not speak I went on with
more hesitation. "You'll think me a romantic fool, I suppose, if I tell
you why?"
"Oh! I know, I know," she said. "You've told me already in so many words.
You mean that you've been waiting for me; that you _had_ to wait for me.
You've been very frank. You deserve some return. Shall I tell you just how
I feel? I will. I don't mind telling you the truth, too. I did remember
you last night. But not since; not even now. But I like you--I like you
very much--as you are this evening. More than I've ever liked any man
before. And if you went away, I should remember you; and want you to come
back. But you must give me time. Lots of time. Don't make love to me any
more; not yet; not till I've really remembered. I think I shall--in a
little while--when you've gone away. You're so near me, now. And so _new_.
You don't belong to my life, yet."
She paused and then went on in another tone. "But I believe you're right
about Canada. I'll explain it all to the others. We'll make some kind of
arrangement about it. I expect it will have to be _your_ farm, nominally,
for a time--until we all know you better. I can feel that you do--that you
have taken a tremendous fancy to all of us. I felt it just now, after
supper. I was watching you and--oh! well, I knew what you were feeling
about my father and mother; and it seemed to be just what I should have
liked you to feel. But I don't think I would give _all_ my money to the
hospitals, if I were you. Not without thinking it over a bit, first. Wait
until we get to Canada and see--how we get on."
"You don't trust my impulses," I said.
She laughed. "Wait till to-morrow anyway," she replied.
And as she spoke I heard far away, across the Park, the sound of the
stable-clock at the Hall, striking twelve. The artificial sound of it was
mellowed and altered by distance; as different from that theatrical first
striking I had noticed in the exciting atmosphere of the crowd, as was my
present state of mind from that in which I had expectantly waited the
coming of romance....
"To-morrow begins now," I said.
"And I have to be up before six," she added, in the formal voice she knew
so well how to assume.
I felt as though she had by that one return to civility cancelled all that
she said, and as we turned back to the house, I began to wonder whether
the promise of my probation was as assured as I had, a minute earlier, so
confidently believed.
We were nearly at the little porch that would for ever be associated in my
mind with the fumbling figure of Frank Jervaise, when she said,
"One moment. I'll get you something," and left me standing in almost
precisely the same spot from which I had gazed up at her window the night
before.
She returned almost immediately, but it was not until we were inside the
house and she had lighted my candle that she gave me the "something,"
pressing it into my hand with a sudden delicious, girlish embarrassment.
She was gone before I recognised that the precious thing she had given me
was a sprig of Rosemary.