"What luck!" he ejaculated. "Whoever would have thought of finding you
here? This saves me a journey."
"I thought you were abroad," she said, her face irradiating happiness.
"It's just a dream, I can't believe you are real."
He stooped over her, and laid his hands on her shoulders and held her,
looking into her upturned face. "I thought myself at first _you_ were a
dream," he said--"a vision which the longing in my heart had conjured
up. And then your voice--the touch of your hand..." He bent lower and
kissed her lips. "That is no dream," he murmured, and drew back,
smiling at her. "How good it is to be with you again! All the way home
on the ship I've had you in my thoughts. For that matter, I've had you
in my thoughts right along ever since I went away. I came home, I
think, just to see you."
"I thought you had forgotten," she said, and turned aside her face to
hide the regret in her eyes. "I waited to hear from you. I waited, and
waited. And then--I thought surely you must have forgotten."
"You might have known I couldn't forget," he said. "You told me not to
write. I did write several times, but I didn't send the letters for
fear they might get you into trouble at home. But all that doesn't
count now. I've come back."
There was a ring of triumph in his voice, a joyous inflection that
seemed not only to invite, but to confidently expect, a sympathetic
response. Prudence, who in the first flush of her gladness at being
with him again, had forgotten everything else for the moment, gave
herself up to the pleasure of this unexpected encounter: her marriage,
everything outside the immediate present, every one save themselves, was
blotted out like patterns on the sand which the incoming tide
obliterates. She was as a person whose mind swings abruptly backward,
with every event which has befallen in the interval wiped from her
memory for the time.
"You've come back!" she repeated, and smiled happily. "I'm so glad.
Why did you go abroad?"
"Because there didn't seem much chance of getting on here," he replied.
"I couldn't afford to waste the years. You see, I wanted to make a
home. Well, I've done that."
"Oh! but that's splendid!" she cried, her eyes shining with excitement.
"You've got on quickly."
He laughed with her, and seated himself on the arm of her chair and laid
a hand upon one of hers.
"I've been lucky," he said.
He lifted his hand to her neck and slipped his arm around her shoulders.
It did not seem to occur to him that she might resent or feel surprised
at this familiarity. They were in love with one another; he took that
for granted; he was so certain about it that it did not appear necessary
even to raise that point.
"So now, you see," he added, "I can afford to marry."
She looked at him with a quick darkening of her blue eyes, a sudden
gravity chasing the smiling happiness from her face. She knew quite
well whom he wished to marry. And she loved him. She had no doubt
about that at all. She loved the feel of his nearness, the clasp of his
arm about her: the touch of his lips had caused her a thrill of
happiness, deeper and sweeter than any emotion she had felt or imagined.
He wanted her; she wanted him; and she was not free to go to him.
"Yes," she said, with, to him, unaccountable nervousness. "Yes. That's
wonderful. It's great news. Tell me more--something about your life
out there. Where was it you went? South Africa! Funny! I didn't even
know where you were. You'll go back, I suppose, after the war?"
"Yes, I'll go back. I don't think I'd care to live in England again.
It's jolly out there--always summer. You'd like it. Say you'll like
it--the jolly warmth and the brightness. The scenery knocks spots out
of Wortheton. Do you remember that day in the woods, Prudence?--and the
primroses we gathered and threw away? I've often thought of that day,
when I've been lonely and wanting you, and comparing the blue of your
eyes with the blue of the African sky. Dear, waking and dreaming, I
have pictured you continually--leaning out of a window with the roses
beneath the sill."
He bent lower over her and clasped her closely, smiling at the
reluctance, which he realised, and attributed to shyness; it was not
because she did not love him that she shrank from his embrace.
"Little girl," he said, "dear little girl, I didn't come over only to
fight for the old country, I came for the purpose of fetching you and
taking you out with me, if I am spared. You'll go with me, Prudence--as
my wife? You know how I love you."
"Oh!" she said. And suddenly she was clinging to him sobbing, with her
face hidden against his sleeve. "I can't. I can't."
He was surprised, but manifestly unconvinced. He supposed it was family
opposition she feared, and he set himself to the business of sweeping
this difficulty aside.
"We're up against a lot, of course," he said, and smoothed her hair with
his ungloved hand. "Who cares? If I go back to Africa I'm going to
take you with me, if all the blooming family rolls up to prevent me.
You trust me? You love me, Prudence dear?"
Prudence lifted her head, and sat back, looking at him with drenched,
dismayed blue eyes. The realisation that she must tell him of her
marriage, that she ought to have told him sooner, came to her with
startling abruptness. A distressful certainty that she was about to
give pain to this man whom she loved better than any one in all the
world gripped her tormentingly. She felt ashamed at the confession
which she must make. Horror of her marriage seized her. She wanted to
hide her eyes from the tenderness in his.
"You don't understand," she said, and clenched her hands on the chair
arm, her face strained and weary and her eyes full of a humiliated
appeal. "It's not the family. Their attitude wouldn't matter. If I
had only known! I thought you had forgotten, and I was so unhappy at
home." Her head drooped suddenly; she hid her eyes from his gaze. "I
can't tell you," she faltered. "I can't tell you."
He seized her hands almost roughly and held them in a grip which hurt.
His face, set and stern and paler than her own, seemed suddenly to have
aged. His voice was hoarse.
"You aren't going to tell me that you are married?" he said. "For God's
sake, don't tell me that!"
Prudence did not answer, did not raise her head; she dared not meet his
eyes. He loosened her hands abruptly and stood up.
"Some one's got before me," he said in odd constrained tones. "Is that
it?"
He turned deliberately away, and remained rigid and outwardly composed,
staring at a hideous old print on the wall, without consciously seeing
what he looked at. Prudence stood up also, and approached him, a
white-robed quiet figure, in the stillness of the dimly-lit room. She
put one hand to her throat and nervously fingered the pearls which
Edward Morgan had given her.
"Yes, I'm married," she said, "to Mr Morgan."
"That man!" He turned on her angrily. "He's old enough to be your
father."
"My mother married a man much older than herself," she answered quietly.
"They were very happy."
He emitted a short hard laugh.
"So that's the end of my hopes," he said. "Fool that I was! I thought
you cared for me."
She moved nearer to him, and something of her forced control left her in
that moment of intense emotion. She laid a hand swiftly on his arm; and
he read the despair and the longing in her saddened eyes.
"You know I cared," she said. "You know I care still. I didn't
understand. I thought you had forgotten. I was not sure how much you
really meant. You went away; and life was very difficult. I had to get
away from it all--I had to. You had gone. I believed that I should
never see you again. If I'd known you remembered, I would have borne
with things; I would have waited all my life, if necessary, until you
came back to me. And now you've come--and it's too late. It's too
late."
He looked down at her long and steadily, with a hint of something in his
eyes which she did not understand, which she instinctively feared. She
put a hand before her eyes to shut out that look in his; and he seized
the hand and dragged it aside and compelled her to meet his gaze.
"Look here," he said quickly. "We've got to meet and talk this matter
out. We can't talk here. They'll miss you presently, and search for
you."
They had missed her already. Mr Morgan was even then on his way to
discover their retreat. He approached the door while Steele spoke.
Steele continued speaking rapidly and with vehement insistence.
"It's not going to end like this, you know. It can't. Now that I know
you love me, I'm not reckoning anything else. Nothing else counts.
I'll win you, if I have to break every law under the sun. You are mine.
I'll have you, whoever stands in my way. Yours is no better than a
forced marriage. You belong to me. You belonged to me first. I went
abroad to make a home for you. I've done that. Now I've come back to
fight for you--in a double sense. If I come through this war, you go
back with me. I won't go without you. Think it over. I'll see you
somehow, and learn your decision later. We'll bolt. Don't be
frightened. It's a bit of a muddle, but it will all come right."
At which moment the door opened, and Mr Morgan, ruffled and large and
important, with an air of refusing to see what was altogether painfully
obvious, advanced with an exaggeration of dignity and offered Prudence
his arm.
"Your partner is looking for you," he said. "You have overstayed the
interval."
Prudence placed her hand on his sleeve, and, with her face averted from
Steele, walked silently out of the room.