She was sitting in the office chair; he on the desk. She said in a
trembling voice--
"I should never have come to the Five Towns again, if you hadn't--"
"Why not?"
"I couldn't have stood it. I couldn't." She spoke almost bitterly,
with a peculiar smile on her twitching lips.
To him it seemed that she had resumed her mystery, that he had only
really known her for one instant, that he was bound to a woman
entrancing, noble, but impenetrable. And this, in spite of the fact
that he was close to her, touching her, tingling to her in the confined,
crepuscular intimacy of the cubicle. He could trace every movement of
her breast as she breathed, and yet she escaped the inward searching of
his gaze. But he was happy. He was happy enough to repel all anxieties
and inquietudes about the future. He was steeped in the bliss of the
miracle. This was but the fourth day, and they were vowed.
"It was only Monday," he began.
"Monday!" she exclaimed. "I have thought of you for over a year." She
leaned towards him. "Didn't you know? Of course you did! ... You
couldn't bear me at first."
He denied this, blushing, but she insisted.
"You don't know how awful it was for me yesterday when you didn't come!"
he murmured.
"Was it?" she said, under her breath. "I had some very important
letters to write." She clasped his hand.
There it was again! She spoke just like a man of business, immersed in
secret schemes.
"It's awfully funny," he said. "I scarcely know anything about you, and
yet--"
"I'm Janet's friend!" she answered. Perhaps it was the delicatest
reproof of imagined distrust.
"And I don't want to," he went on. "How old are you?"
"Twenty-four," she answered sweetly, acknowledging his right to put such
questions.
"I thought you were."
"I suppose you know I've got no relatives," she said, as if relenting
from her attitude of reproof. "Fortunately, father left just enough
money for me to live on."
"Must you go to Brighton?"
She nodded.
"Where can I write to?"
"It will depend," she said. "But I shall send you the address
to-morrow. I shall write you before I go to bed whether it's to-night
or to-morrow morning."
"I wonder what people will say!"
"Please tell no one, yet," she pleaded. "Really, I should prefer not!
Later on, it won't seem so sudden; people are so silly."
"But shan't you tell Janet?"