"I am going to America," she said.
They sat in the sitting-room at Carteret street. Richard had not seen
her since the dinner at the vegetarian restaurant, and these were
almost the first words she addressed to him. Her voice was as tranquil
as usual; but he discerned, or thought he discerned, in her manner a
consciousness that she was guilty towards him, that at least she was
not treating him justly.
The blow was like that of a bullet: he did not immediately feel it.
"Really?" he questioned foolishly, and then, though he knew that she
would never return: "For how long are you going, and how soon?"
"Very soon, because I always do things in a hurry. I don't know for
how long. It's indefinite. I have had a letter from my uncles in San
Francisco, and they say I _must_ join them; they can't do without me.
They are making a lot of money now, and neither of them is married....
So I suppose I must obey like a good girl. You see I have no relatives
here, except Aunt Grace."
"You many never come back to England?"
(Did she colour, or was it Richard's fancy?)
"Well, I expect I may visit Europe sometimes. It wouldn't do to give
England up entirely. There are so many nice things in England,--in
London especially...."
Once, in late boyhood, he had sat for an examination which he felt
confident of passing. When the announcement arrived that he failed, he
could not believe it, though all the time he knew it to be true. His
thoughts ran monotonously: "There must be some mistake; there must be
some mistake!" and like a little child in the night, he resolutely shut
his eyes to keep out the darkness of the future. The same puerility
marked him now. Assuming that Adeline fulfilled her intention, his
existence in London promised to be tragically cheerless. But this
gave him no immediate concern, because he refused to contemplate the
possibility of their intimacy being severed. He had, indeed, ceased
to think; somewhere at the back of the brain his thoughts lay in wait
for him. For the next two hours (until he left the house) he lived
mechanically, as it were, and not by volition, subsisting merely on a
previously acquired momentum.
He sat in front of her and listened. She began to talk of her uncles
Mark and Luke. She described them in detail, told stories of her
childhood, even recounted the common incidents of her daily life with
them. She dwelt on their kindness of heart, and their affection for
herself; and with it all she seemed a little to patronise them, as
though she had been accustomed to regard them as her slaves.
"They are rather old-fashioned," she said, "unless they have altered.
Since I heard from them, I have been wondering what they would think
about my going to theatres and so on--with you."
"What should they think?" Richard broke in. "There's nothing whatever
in that. London isn't a provincial town, or even an American city."
"I shall tell them all about you," she went on, "and how kind you were
to me when I scarcely knew you at all. You couldn't have been kinder if
you'd been my only cousin."
"Say 'brother,'" he laughed awkwardly.
"No, really, I'm quite serious. I never thanked you properly. Perhaps I
seemed to take it all as a matter of course."
He wished to heaven she would stop.
"I'm disgusted that you are going," he grumbled, putting his hands
behind his head,--"disgusted."
"In many ways I am sorry too. But don't you think I am doing the right
thing?"
"How am I to tell?" he returned quickly. "All I know is that when you
go I shall be left all alone by my little self. You must think of me
sometimes in my lonely garret." His tone was light and whimsical, but
she would not follow his lead.
"I shall often think of you," she said musingly, scanning intently the
toe of her shoe.
It seemed to him that she desired to say something serious, to justify
herself to him, but could not gather courage to frame the words.
When he got out of the house, his thoughts sprang forth. It was a
chilly night; he turned up the collar of his overcoat, plunged his
hands deep into the pockets, and began to walk hurriedly, heedlessly,
while examining his feelings with curious deliberation. In the first
place, he was inexpressibly annoyed. "Annoyed,"--that was the right
word. He could not say that he loved her deeply, or that there was a
prospect of his loving her deeply, but she had become a delightful
factor in his life, and he had grown used to counting upon her for
society. Might he not, in time, conceivably have asked her to marry
him? Might she not conceivably have consented? In certain directions
she had disappointed him; beyond doubt her spiritual narrowness had
checked the growth of a passion which he had sedulously cherished and
fostered in himself. Yet, in spite of that, her feminine grace, her
feminine trustfulness, still exercised a strong and delicate charm. She
was a woman and he was a man, and each was the only friend the other
had; and now she was going away. The mere fact that she found a future
with her uncles in America more attractive than the life she was then
leading, cruelly wounded his self-love. He, then, was nothing to her,
after all; he had made no impression; she could relinquish him without
regret! At that moment she seemed above and beyond him. He was the poor
earthling; she the winged creature that soared in freedom now here, now
there, giving her favours lightly, and as lightly withdrawing them.
One thing came out clear: he was an unlucky fellow.
He ran over in his mind the people who would remain to him in London
when she had gone. Jenkins, Miss Roberts--Bah! how sickeningly
commonplace were they! _She_ was distinguished. She had an air, a
_je ne sais quoi_, which he had never observed in a woman before.
He recalled her gowns, her gestures, her turns of speech,--all the
instinctive touches by which she proved her superiority.
It occurred to him fancifully that there was a connection between her
apparently sudden resolve to leave England, and their visit to the
Crabtree and encounter with Miss Roberts. He tried to see in that
incident a premonition of misfortune. What morbid fatuity!
Before he went to sleep that night he resolved that at their next
meeting he would lead the conversation to a frank discussion of their
relations and "have it out with her." But when he called at Carteret
Street two days later, he found it quite impossible to do any such
thing. She was light-hearted and gay, and evidently looked forward to
the change of life with pleasure. She named the day of departure, and
mentioned that she had arranged to take Lottie with her. She consulted
him about a compromise, already effected, with her landlord as to the
remainder of the tenancy, and said she had sold the furniture as it
stood, for a very small sum, to a dealer. It hurt him to think that she
had given him no opportunity of actively assisting her in the hundred
little matters of business involved in a change of hemisphere. What had
become of her feminine reliance upon him?
He felt as if some object was rapidly approaching to collide with and
crush him, and he was powerless to hinder it.
Three days, two days, one day more!