HOWEVER, Miss Brooke said nothing to him about Charlie in the days that
followed, though he saw her often. Without it being specially mentioned
again, it was somehow understood they were, for the present, to meet at
mid-day at the little restaurant, and, moreover, she allowed him to take
her several times to the two Salons. He might easily have dragged in
references to Pemberton, but he felt it would not be right to do so for
the mere purpose of discovering what it would have been an impertinence
to demand outright.
And the more his _camaraderie_ with Miss Brooke became an established
fact, the more did this question of Charlie disturb him. He had
discovered by this time that a harmless friendship between a man and a
girl was by no means unusual among the students and was not necessarily
assumed to imply matrimonial intentions. He knew, moreover, that such
friendships grew rapidly on this soil where the English-speaking
students gravitated together during the years of their voluntary exile.
But, if this thought pacified him as to Miss Brooke and Charlie, the
very pacification carried with it a sting. For it led to the further
tormenting suspicion that Miss Brooke did not take the relationship
between her and himself as seriously as he would have liked her to. Her
conduct and bearing towards him were all he could wish, yet he seemed to
feel behind them a stern limit to the intimacy, a barrier, as it were,
that might bear on its face: "I am put here by way of giving you a
reminder you are not to make any mistakes as to the extent of your
rights over this property."
Sometimes, indeed, in envisaging the position, he came to the conclusion
that this was entirely due to his own imagination and that he might
safely ask her to share his life. But at that point uncertainty would
rise again, warning him that to make any such impulsive proposition just
then might be to jeopardise the future of his romance. The remembrance
of the distress caused him by his effort to determine the precise degree
of Celia's claim on him by reason of his having engaged her for five
dances in the same evening intruded in grotesque contrast now that he
was endeavouring to determine the precise degree of his claim on Miss
Brooke.
Despite these prickings, and despite Charlie, sweetness predominated in
his life. He felt untrammelled and unwatched over, recalling with a
shudder the old strands that had tethered him. Though he wrote regularly
to his mother, whom he had seen twice last autumn, on her way southward
and on her return, all reference to Miss Brooke was excluded from his
letters. He would not discuss his relation to her with anybody else,
foreseeing that would only lead to a deal of useless and perhaps endless
talk.
After Miss Brooke had moved to the _pension_, where she had arranged to
take all her meals, he no longer saw her every day. But it was
understood he could take his chance of finding her at home whenever he
chose to call in the evenings. She generally received him in her little
oblong sitting-room on the second floor, that opened out on a pleasant
balcony, overlooking the street. He soon grew to love this room, to the
decorations of which she had added a huge Japanese umbrella, which hung
from the ceiling, and two Japanese lights, and a piece of Oriental
tapestry, besides her personal nicknacks. Paul's usual lounging-place,
whilst Miss Brooke gave him his after-dinner coffee, was an old
cretonne-covered ottoman, on which a broken spring made a curious hump,
and over his head were suspended some book-shelves. Now and again he
would find other callers, of both sexes, for Miss Brooke was "at home"
once a week to all her friends. Of course, Paul did not abuse his
privilege, but firmly restricted the number of his visits. Occasionally,
too, he had the happiness of taking her to dine at some one or other of
the great cafes on the Grands Boulevards, and they would stroll back
together along the river bank, enchanted by the wonderful nocturnes. On
Sunday sometimes, they would make an excursion beyond the
fortifications to some rural spot, she taking her paint-box and
sketching lazily whilst they talked; and if, on rare afternoons, he left
his work, and looked in at the Luxembourg to find her deftly plying her
brush in her big blue coarse linen apron, with its capacious pockets,
she seemed by no means displeased.
Every legitimate topic was talked over between them. He had long since
exhausted the theme of his own life, that is, he had told it so far as
he cared to tell it. Celia, for one thing, did not appear in it, and
there were one or two little matters he was especially careful to
suppress. He felt vaguely saint-like, when, in the course of this
judicious selection from his biography, he arrived at his slumming
experiences, and hinted at his charities, which were being continued
during his absence. Miss Brooke repaid the confidence in kind, enabling
him, by her various reminiscences, to reconstruct a fairly continuous
account of her existence, which, it never struck him, might also be
selected.
They drifted, too, into the realm of ideas, exchanging their notions
on--among other things--love and platonic friendship. They discussed the
last-mentioned phenomenon in great detail, Paul, aflame with
self-consciousness, but quite unable to pierce beneath the sphinx-like
demeanour with which Miss Brooke made her impartial and freezingly
impersonal statements. From ideas they passed on to the consideration of
conduct and how it should be determined under divers subtle conditions.
"Yes, but don't you really think that one _ought_ to listen to such an
appeal _if_....," she would gravely interpose with her sweet voice as
her brush made sensuous strokes on the canvas. And Paul became more and
more impressed with the nobility of her soul, and strove likewise--as
was but natural in the circumstances--to impress her with the nobility
of his. He usually felt ethically perfect after such conversations, and,
had the occasion immediately arisen, it would have found him equal to
acting along the lines of the "ought" laid down by Miss Brooke. He
imagined that he certainly was receiving endless benefit from this
threshing out of things with a quick and sympathetic personality.
So ran by a couple of months, "Charlie" continuing to be the chief cause
of disturbance in Paul's existence. The two men had by now met several
times at Miss Brooke's, had saluted civilly, but had little to say to
each other. Paul felt sure his hatred was returned, and neither showed
the least disposition to become better acquainted. Neither asked the
other to dine or drink, or play billiards, or even to walk with him,
and if rarely they passed in the street a nod was all they exchanged.
The lines of their lives occasionally met in a point, but never ran
together.
The enmity between them only became irksome when no others were present,
but never did Miss Brooke herself manifest the least suspicion of it.
Whatever the relation between Miss Brooke and Pemberton, it never seemed
to interfere in practice with the relation between Miss Brooke and
himself. She alluded to "Charlie" in her talk much more freely than
heretofore, but always apropos, always impersonally, just as she might
casually mention Katharine, who was so happy now. Charlie had such and
such a habit, such and such a way of looking at things, such and such
ideas of art.
But Paul's jealousy grew till he became well-nigh intolerable to
himself. It made him resort to underhand watchings, from the mere
thought of which, in saner moments, he shrank with shame and remorse.
But he had thus ascertained that Charlie was, if anything, a more
frequent visitor than himself, and had less scruples in the matter of
standing on ceremony.