I came down late, the morning after that drive, having spent a bad
night. In spite of the fact that Johnson had been out with the motor
and the old ladies till nearly midnight, I never thought of going down
to look at the car. It had lost interest in a way I didn't like. To
tell the truth, I was thinking of nothing at all except of that girl.
I had made up my mind that this was not to be endured. Since I kissed
her--it is awful to confess it--I have wished for nothing so much as
to kiss her again, and before I become the sort of blithering idiot
that a man is when in love, I must and shall be off. It is not the
girl I funk; she is a nice girl; I never wish to see a nicer, and I
know I never shall. It is the feeling I am beginning to have about
her. When she is not there I feel as if something necessary to my
existence were wanting,--as if I had come off without a
pocket-handkerchief or gone out in a top-hat and frock-coat without an
umbrella on a showery day in town. When a man gets to feel this about
another human being it is time he was off. I have sent orders to
Johnson to be ready to start at any moment.
I wish I had not seen Miss Virginia, though, before going. She looked
so pale and done up. Mrs. MacGill came into the room before I had time
to speak to her, even to tell her I was going away, though I somehow
think she guessed it. As to that old frump, that harpy in black velvet
and beads, Mrs. MacGill, I will not write down the things she elected
to say to me about Virginia, when she had got me tied to her
apron-string with her confounded skein of wool. I wish I had chucked
it in her face and told her to go to the devil. If I'd had the spirit
of half a man, I would have done it, and gone straight to Virginia.
Virginia! This gave me a feeling about her that I can't
describe,--much, much worse than the handkerchief-and-umbrella
feeling,--a feeling that seemed to tweak and pull at something inside
me that I had never been conscious of before. But I had an obstinate
fit on, that I'm subject to, like other men, I suppose. I had said I
would go, and I have gone, leaving a card of good-bye for the
Pomeroys, and making straight for town.
* * * * *
It is no use; for after a few days of struggle and doubt and misery, I
have got to go back to that girl--if I can find her. What a wretched
time I have had! If this is being in love I hope it won't last. I'm
told it doesn't usually, after marriage. Perhaps it settles down into
something more comfortable, that does not interfere with a man's meals
or destroy his sleep. It is awful to think that your whole life may or
may not be changed, according to the fancy of a girl whose existence
you weren't aware of a fortnight ago! I have told Johnson we are going
straight back to Dartmoor, and he grinned--the wretch! Of course he
knows why.