She came, reluctantly so she said, to the bookstall at Charing
Cross station, but only to tell him that she could not do as he wished
her to do. She would take tea with him for this once, but it was
useless to ask her to go for a walk with him or for a 'bus-ride either,
and she certainly would not dine with him nor would she go to a
theatre. Yet she went for a walk on the Embankment with him, and they
paced up and down so long that she saw the force of his argument that
she might as well have her dinner in town as go back to her club where
the food would be tepid, if not actually cold, by the time she was
ready to eat it. She need not go to a theatre unless she wished to do,
but he could not help telling her that a great deal of praise had been
given to a piece called _Justice_ by a man called Galsworthy.
Mebbe she would like to see it. She was not to imagine that he was
forcing her to go to the theatre.... And so she went, and they sat
together in the pit, hearing with difficulty because of the horrible
acoustics of the Duke of York's Theatre; and when the play was over, he
had to comfort her, for the fate of Falder had pained her. They climbed
on to the top of a 'bus at Oxford Circus and were carried along Oxford
Street to the Bayswater Road. They sat close together on the back seat
of the 'bus, with a waterproofed apron over their knees because the
night was damp and chilly; and as the 'bus drove along to Marble Arch
they did not speak. The rain had ceased to fall before they quitted
the theatre, but the streets were still wet, and John found himself
again realising their beauty. Trees and hills and rivers in the country
and flowers and young animals were beautiful, but until this moment
he had never known that wet pavements and wooden or macadamised roads
were beautiful, too, when the lamps were lit and the cold grey gleam
of electric arcs or the soft, yellow, reluctant light of gas lamps
fell upon them. He could see a long wet gleam stretching far ahead
of him, past the Marble Arch and the darkness of Hyde Park and Kensington
Gardens into a region of which he knew nothing; and as he contemplated
that loveliness, he remembered that the sight of tramlines shining at
night had unaccountably moved him more than once. Once, at Ballyards,
he had stood still for a few moments to look at the railway track
glistening in the sunshine, and he remembered how puzzled he had been
when, in some magazine, he had read a complaint of trains, that they
marred the beauty of the fields. He had seen trains a long way off,
moving towards him and sending up puffs of thick white smoke that
trailed into thin strips of blown cloud, and had waited until the
silence of the distant engine, broken once or twice by a shrill, sharp
whistle, had become a stupendous noise, and the great machine,
masterfully hauling its carriages behind it, had galloped past him,
roaring and cheering and sending the debris swirling tempestuously
about it! ... The sight of a train going at a great speed had always
seemed to him to be a wonderful thing, but now he realised that it
was more than wonderful, that it was actually beautiful.... He turned
his head a little and looked past Eleanor to the Park. Little vague
yellow lights flickered through the trees, all filmy with the evening
mists, and he could smell the rich odour of wet earth. He looked
at Eleanor and as he did so, they both smiled, and he realised that
suddenly affection for him had come to life in her. Beneath the
protection of the waterproofed apron, his hand sought for hers and
held it. Half-heartedly she tried to withdraw her fingers from his grasp,
but he would not let them go, and so she did not persist in her effort.
"Look!" he said, snuggling closer to her.
She turned towards the Park, and then, after a little while, turned
back again. "I've always loved the Park," she said. "It's the most
friendly thing in London!"
He urged his love for her again. He had seen affection for him in her
eyes and had felt that her hand was not being firmly withdrawn from
his.
"No, no," she protested, "don't let's talk about it any more. I don't
love you!..."
"Well, marry me anyhow!"
Backwards and forwards their arguments passed, returning always to that
point: _But I don't love you! Well, marry me anyhow!..._
He took her to the door of her club, and for a while, they stood at the
foot of the steps talking of the play they had seen that evening and of
his love for her.
"It's no good," she said, trying to leave him, but unable to do so
because he had taken hold of her hand and would not release it.
"Don't go in yet," he pleaded. "Wait a wee while longer!"
"What's the use?" she exclaimed.
"You'll meet me again to-morrow?..."
"I can't meet you _every_ night!"
"Why not?" he demanded. "Tell me why not!"
"Well... well, because I can't. It's ridiculous. You're so absurd. You
keep on saying the same thing over and over... and it's so silly. If I
were in love with you, I might go out with you every evening, but!..."
"Do you like me!"
"I don't know. I... I suppose I must or I wouldn't go out with you at
all. Really, I'm sorry for you!..."
"Well, if you're sorry for me, come out with me tomorrow night. We'll
have our dinner in town again!"
"No, no! Don't you understand, Mr. MacDermott!..."
"John, John, John!" he said.
"I can't call you by your Christian name!..."
"Why not? I call you by yours, don't I?"
"Yes, but you oughtn't to. I've asked you not to call me Eleanor, but
it doesn't seem to be any good asking you to do anything that you don't
want to do. But even you must understand that I can't let you take me
out every evening. I can't let you pay for things!..."
"Oh," he said, as if his mind were illuminated. "Is that your trouble?
We can soon settle that. If you won't let me pay for things, pay for
them yourself ... only let me be with you when you're doing it. You
have to have food, haven't you? Well, so have I. We have no friends
in London that matter to us, and you like me ... you admitted it
yourself ... and I love you ... so why shouldn't we have our meals
together even, if you do pay for your own food?"
"Of course, it sounds all right as you put it," she answered, "but it
isn't all right. I can't explain things. I don't know how to explain
them, but I know about them all the same. And I know it isn't all
right. You'll begin to think I'm in love with you!..."
"I hope you will be, but you'll never be certain unless you see me fair
and often. You'll come again to-morrow, won't you?"
"Oh, good-night," she said impatiently, suddenly breaking from him.
"You're like a baby. You think you've only got to keep on asking for
things and people will get tired of saying 'No!' I won't go out with
you again. You make me feel tired and cross!..."
"Well, if you won't meet me to-morrow night, will you meet me the next
night?"
"No!"
"Then will you stay a wee while longer now?"
She turned on the top step and looked at him, and he saw with joy that
the anger had gone out of her eyes and that she was smiling at him.
"You really are!..." she said, and then she stopped. He waited for her
to go on, but she shrugged her shoulders and said only, "I don't know!
It simply isn't any good talking to you!"
He went up the steps and stood beside her and took hold of her hand.
"Let me kiss you, Eleanor," he said.