Peter meanwhile rolled away through the summer night to Saint John's
Wood. He had put the pressure of strong words on his young friend,
entreating her to drive home immediately, return there without any one,
without even her mother. He wished to see her alone and for a purpose he
would fully and satisfactorily explain--couldn't she trust him? He
besought her to remember his own situation and throw over her supper,
throw over everything. He would wait for her with unspeakable impatience
in Balaklava Place.
He did so, when he got there, but it had taken half an hour.
Interminable seemed his lonely vigil in Miss Lumley's drawing-room,
where the character of the original proprietress came out to him more
than ever before in a kind of afterglow of old sociabilities, a vulgar,
ghostly reference. The numerous candles had been lighted for him, and
Mrs. Rooth's familiar fictions lay about; but his nerves forbade him the
solace of a chair and a book. He walked up and down, thinking and
listening, and as the long window, the balmy air permitting, stood open
to the garden, he passed several times in and out. A carriage appeared
to stop at the gate--then there was nothing; he heard the rare rattle of
wheels and the far-off hum of London. His impatience was overwrought,
and though he knew this it persisted; it would have been no easy matter
for Miriam to break away from the flock of her felicitators. Still less
simple was it doubtless for her to leave poor Dashwood with his supper
on his hands. Perhaps she would bring Dashwood with her, bring him to
time her; she was capable of playing him--that is, of playing Her
Majesty's new representative to the small far-off State, or even of
playing them both--that trick. Perhaps the little wretch in
buttons--Peter remembered now the neglected shilling--only pretending to
go round with his card, had come back with an invented answer. But how
could he know, since presumably he couldn't read Italian, that his
answer would fit the message? Peter was sorry now that he himself had
not gone round, not snatched Miriam bodily away, made sure of her and of
what he wanted of her.
When forty minutes had elapsed he regarded it as proved that she
wouldn't come, and, asking himself what he should do, determined to
drive off again and seize her at her comrade's feast. Then he remembered
how Nick had mentioned that this entertainment was not to be held at the
young actor's lodgings but at some tavern or restaurant the name of
which he had not heeded. Suddenly, however, Peter became aware with joy
that this name didn't matter, for there was something at the garden door
at last. He rushed out before she had had time to ring, and saw as she
stepped from the carriage that she was alone. Now that she was there,
that he had this evidence she had listened to him and trusted him, all
his impatience and bitterness gave way and a flood of pleading
tenderness took their place in the first words he spoke to her. It was
far "dearer" of her than he had any right to dream, but she was the best
and kindest creature--this showed it--as well as the most wonderful. He
was really not off his head with his contradictory ways; no, before
heaven he wasn't, and he would explain, he would make everything clear.
Everything was changed.
She stopped short in the little dusky garden, looking at him in the
light of the open window. Then she called back to the coachman--they had
left the garden door open--"Wait for me, mind; I shall want you again."
"What's the matter--won't you stay?" Peter asked. "Are you going out
again at this absurd hour? I won't hurt you," he gently urged. And he
went back and closed the garden door. He wanted to say to the coachman,
"It's no matter--please drive away." At the same time he wouldn't for
the world have done anything offensive to her.
"I've come because I thought it better to-night, as things have turned
out, to do the thing you ask me, whatever it may be," she had already
begun. "That's probably what you calculated I would think, eh? What this
evening has been you've seen, and I must allow that your hand's in it.
That you know for yourself--that you doubtless felt as you sat there.
But I confess I don't imagine what you want of me here now," she added.
She had remained standing in the path.
Peter felt the irony of her "now" and how it made a fool of him, but he
had been prepared for this and for much worse. He had begged her not to
think him a fool, but in truth at present he cared little if she did.
Very likely he was--in spite of his plea that everything was changed: he
cared little even himself. However, he spoke in the tone of intense
reason and of the fullest disposition to satisfy her. This lucidity only
took still more from the dignity of his change of front: his separation
from her the day before had had such pretensions to being lucid. But the
explanation and the justification were in the very fact, the fact that
had complete possession of him. He named it when he replied to her:
"I've simply overrated my strength."
"Oh I knew--I knew! That's why I entreated you not to come!" Miriam
groaned. She turned away lamenting, and for a moment he thought she
would retreat to her carriage. But he passed his hand into her arm, to
draw her forward, and after an instant felt her yield.
"The fact is we must have this thing out," he said. Then he added as he
made her go into the house, bending over her, "The failure of my
strength--that was just the reason of my coming."
She broke into her laugh at these words, as she entered the
drawing-room, and it made them sound pompous in their false wisdom. She
flung off, as a good-natured tribute to the image of their having the
thing out, a white shawl that had been wrapped round her. She was still
painted and bedizened, in the splendid dress of her climax, so that she
seemed protected and alienated by the character she had been acting.
"Whatever it is you want--when I understand--you'll be very brief, won't
you? Do you know I've given up a charming supper for you? Mamma has gone
there. I've promised to go back to them."
"You're an angel not to have let her come with you. I'm sure she wanted
to," Peter made reply.
"Oh she's all right, but she's nervous." Then the girl added: "Couldn't
she keep you away after all?"
"Whom are you talking about?" Biddy Dormer was as absent from his mind
as if she had never existed.
"The charming thing you were with this morning. Is she so afraid of
obliging me? Oh she'd be so good for you!"
"Don't speak of that," Peter gravely said. "I was in perfect good faith
yesterday when I took leave of you. I was--I was. But I can't--I can't:
you're too unutterably dear to me."
"Oh don't--_please_ don't!" Miriam wailed at this. She stood before the
fireless chimney-piece with one of her hands on it. "If it's only to say
that, don't you know, what's the use?"
"It isn't only to say that. I've a plan, a perfect plan: the whole thing
lies clear before me."
"And what's the whole thing?"
He had to make an effort. "You say your mother's nervous. Ah if you knew
how nervous I am!"
"Well, I'm not. Go on."
"Give it up--give it up!" Peter stammered.
"Give it up?" She fixed him like a mild Medusa.
"I'll marry you to-morrow if you'll renounce; and in return for the
sacrifice you make for me I'll do more for you than ever was done for a
woman before."
"Renounce after to-night? Do you call that a plan?" she asked. "Those
are old words and very foolish ones--you wanted something of that sort a
year ago."
"Oh I fluttered round the idea at that time; we were talking in the air.
I didn't really believe I could make you see it then, and certainly you
didn't see it. My own future, moreover, wasn't definite to me. I didn't
know what I could offer you. But these last months have made a
difference--I do know now. Now what I say is deliberate--It's deeply
meditated. I simply can't live without you, and I hold that together we
may do great things."