IX

_Saturday Morning:_

Yesterday I was so restless I could not settle to anything. I read pages

and pages of Plato and was conscious that the words were going over in

my head without conveying the slightest meaning, and that the other part

of my mind was absorbed with thoughts of Miss Sharp--. If I only dared

to be natural with her we surely could be friends, but I am always

obsessed with the fear that she will leave me if I transgress in the

slightest beyond the line she has marked between us--. I see that she is

determined to remain only the secretary, and I realize that it is her

breeding which makes her act as she does--. If she were familiar or

friendly with me, she would feel it was not correct to come to my flat

alone--She only comes at all because the money is so necessary to

her--and having to come, she protects her dignity by wearing this ice

mask.--I know that she was affronted by Coralie's look on Thursday, and

that is why she went home pretending the typing machine was out of

order--Now if any more of these _contretemps_ happen she will probably

give me warning. Burton instinctively sensed this, and that is why he

disapproved of my asking her to lunch--If she had been an ordinary

typist Burton would not have objected in the least,--as I said before,

Burton knows the world!

Now what is to be done next?--I would like to go and confide in the

Duchesse, and tell her that I believe I have fallen in love with my

secretary, who won't look at me, and ask her advice--but that I fear

with all her broad-minded charity, her class prejudice is too strong to

make her really sympathetic. Her French mind of the _Ancien Régime_

could not contemplate a Thormonde--son of Anne de Mont-Anbin--falling in

love with an insignificant Miss Sharp who brings bandages to the

Courville hospital!

These thoughts tormented me so all yesterday that I was quite feverish

by the evening--and Burton wore an air of thorough disapproval. A rain

shower came on too, and I could not go up on the terrace for the sunset.

I would like to have taken asperines and gone to sleep, when night

came--but I resisted the temptation, telling myself that to-morrow she

would come again.

I am dawdling over this last chapter on purpose--and I have re-read the

former ones and decided to rewrite one or two, but at best I cannot

spread this out over more than six weeks, I fear, and then what excuse

can I have for keeping her? I feel that she would not stay just to

answer a few letters a day, and do the accounts and pay the bills with

Burton. I feel more desperately miserable than I have felt since last

year--And I suppose that according to her theory, I have to learn a

lesson. It seems if I search, as she said one must do without vanity,

that the lesson is to conquer emotion, and be serene when everything

which I desire is out of reach.

* * * * *

_Saturday Night:_

To-day has been one of utter disaster and it began fairly well. Miss

Sharp turned up at eleven as I shut my journal. I had sent to the

station to meet her this time--She brought all the work she had taken

away with her on Thursday, quite in order--and her face wore the usual

mask. I wonder if I had not ever seen her without her glasses if I

should have realized now that she is very pretty--I can see her

prettiness even with them on--her nose is so exquisitely fine, and the

mouth a Cupid's bow really--if one can imagine a Cupid's bow very firm.

I am sure if she were dressed as Odette, or Alice, or Coralie, she would

be lovely. This morning when she first came I began thinking of this and

of how I should like to give her better things than any of the fluffies

have ever had--how I would like her to have some sapphire bangles for

those little wrists and a great string of pearls round that little

throat--my mother's pearls--and perhaps big pearls in those shell

ears--And how I would like to take her hair down and brush it out, and

let it curl as it wanted to--and then bury my face in it--those stiff

twists must take heaps of hair to make.--But why am I writing all this

when the reality is further off than ever, and indeed has become an

impossibility I fear.

We worked in the sitting-room--it was a cloudy day--and presently, after

I had been dreaming on in this way, I asked her to read over the

earlier chapters of the book.--She did--.

"Now what do you think of the thing as a whole?" I asked her.

She was silent for a moment as though trying not to have to answer

directly, then that weird constitutional honesty seemed to force out the

words.

"It perhaps tells what that furniture is."

"You feel it is awful rot?"

"No--."

"What then?"

"It depends if you mean to publish it?"

I leaned back and laughed--bitterly! the realization that she understood

so completely that it was only a "_soulagement_"--an "asperine" for me,

so to speak as the Duchesse said--cut in like a knife. I had the

exasperated feeling that I was just being pandered to, humored by

everyone, because I was wounded. I was an object of pity, and even my

paid typist--but I can't write about it.

Miss Sharp started from her chair, her fine nostrils were quivering, and

her mouth had an expression I could not place.

"Indeed, it is not bad," she said--"You misunderstand me--."

I knew now that she was angry with herself for having hurt me--and that

I could have made capital out of this, but something in me would not let

me do that.

"Oh--it is all right--" I replied, but perhaps my voice may have been

flat and discouraged--for she went on so kindly.

"You know a great deal about the subject of course--but I feel the

chapters want condensing--May I tell you just where?"

I felt that the thing did not interest me any more, one way or another,

it was just a ridiculous non-essential--. I saw it all in a new

perspective--but I was glad she seemed kindly--though for a moment even

that appeared of less importance. Something seemed to have numbed me.

What, what could be the good of anything?--the meaning of anything?--I

unconsciously put my head back against the cushion of my chair in

weariness--I felt the soft silk and shut my eye for a moment.

When Miss Sharp spoke again, her voice was full of sympathy--and was it

remorse--?

"I would like to help you to take interest in it--again--won't you let

me?" she pleaded.

I was grateful that she did not say she was sorry she had hurt me--that

I could not have stood--.

I opened my eye now and looked at her, she was bending nearer to me, but

I felt nothing particular, only a desire to go to sleep and have done

with it all. It was as if the fabric of my make-believe had been rent

asunder.

"It is very good of you," I answered politely--"Yes--say what you

think."

Her tact is immense--she plunged straight into the subject without

further imputation of sympathy,--her voice, full of inflections of

interest and friendliness, her constrained self-control laid aside for

the time. She spoke so intelligently, showing trained critical

faculties--and at last my numbness began gradually to melt, and I could

not help some return of sensation. There may have been soothing syrup in

the fact that she must have been interested in the work, or she could

not have dissected it chapter by chapter, point by point, as she was

doing.

She grew animated as we discussed things, and once unconsciously took

off her glasses--It was like the sun coming out after days of storm

clouds--her beautiful, beautiful blue eyes!--My "heart gave a bound"--(I

believe that is the way to express what I mean!)--I felt a strange

emotion of excitement and pleasure--I had not time to control my

admiration, I expect,--for she took fright and instantly replaced them,

a bright flush in her cheeks--and went on talking in a more reserved

way--Alas!--

Of course then I realized that she does not wear the glasses for any

reason of softening light or of defective sight, but simply to hide

those blue stars and make herself unattractive--.