It was a cloudless afternoon when I went back to Derryaghy. Katherine
was quite ready and we set out immediately. As I walked beside her,
in her simple cotton dress, and with her gay parasol, I thought her
adorable.
“Do you remember our picnic?” I asked, for I was for ever harking back
to it in my mind.
“Which? There have been so many!”
“I mean our own――the one we went together――the first of all.”
“It seems centuries ago. I wonder if Bryansford isn’t too far for this
afternoon? The others were saying something about driving. That would
be better.”
“It was a day very like this,” I went on, “a perfect summer day.” And a
strange thrill passed through me as I recalled its incidents.
The air was as soft as velvet. The August sun streamed over the fields.
We followed a lane which led us past a long, low house, where an
immense cherry-tree, with a trunk nine or ten feet in circumference,
spread its branches in a small green orchard. I repeated aloud some
lines of a poem I remembered:
“I know a little garden-close
Set thick with lily and red rose,
Where I would wander if I might
From dewy dawn to dewy night,
And have one with me wandering.”
Two friendly dogs wagged their tails, and a cat lounging on the gray
stone wall unclosed its eyes in sleepy yellow slits.
“Can’t we be friends, Katherine, as we were then?” I pleaded.
“But aren’t we friends?” she asked, with a shade of impatience in her
voice.
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m afraid I _don’t_ know what you mean, Peter.” Then she unexpectedly
added: “You’re a very queer mixture. I often wonder how you’ll come out
in the end.”
“I haven’t an idea,” I replied, somewhat taken aback. The remark
appeared to me peculiar, and I felt as if she had pushed me farther
away; and with this my self-confidence began to evaporate.
We walked on in silence. There was, at the particular point we had
now reached, a certain grandeur in the landscape, which even at that
agitated moment impressed me with a sense of solemnity. From childhood
I had imagined it――quite without historical foundation――as the scene
of ancient Druidical worship. I thought of the dark soil as having
drunk up the hot, sweet blood of human sacrifice, while the “pale-eyed
priest” lifted his gaze to the clear autumn sky, and watched against
it, just that same dark curving line of quiet hills that I was watching
now.
Yet, when we began to speak again it was of things about which we were
both profoundly indifferent, and I had a sickening feeling that I was
failing to interest my companion, and that while she was talking to me
her thoughts were elsewhere. Somehow it appeared to be impossible to
raise our conversation out of the rut of deadly commonplace into which
it had fallen. It seemed to me almost as if Katherine were keeping it
there on purpose, and before we came to Bryansford, I proposed trying
to get tea at one of the cottages, for I felt that any interruption
would be a relief.
When we had finished, and paid for, our refreshment, instead of
continuing our way round under the mountains, as I had intended,
Katherine decided that we ought to start for home.
“Let us at least go back through the woods,” I begged. “We don’t want
to tramp along that dusty road again.”
She yielded to my persuasion, and we entered the estate that lay beyond
Derryaghy. It was strangely still in the late afternoon. Not a leaf
stirred. On and on we walked, hardly speaking, and suddenly the dead
silence, and our complete solitude, became, as it were, visible to
me; and with that there rose in my mind, with intense vividness, a
memory――the memory of Elsie at Owen’s party. The whole thing came back
to me almost with the strength of hallucination: her lips on mine, my
own kisses, her yielding body as she closed her eyes under my embrace.
I was horribly nervous. I felt myself trembling and a faint mist swam
before my eyes. I put out my hand and tried to take Katherine’s, but
she drew away from me at once. I stopped short, facing her, on the
narrow path. “I want to speak to you,” I said. “What have I done?”
She made as if to pass me, but I barred the way. I was conscious once
more, through other things, of a smouldering anger against her. “Why do
you draw back when I touch you? You once told me you cared for me. You
wrote to me that you did.”
“So I do,” she answered quietly, though her face had altered. “I don’t
know what you want, nor why you aren’t satisfied.”
And, all the time, that other vision was acting like an hypnotic
suggestion upon my mind. “You know that I love you,” I persisted,
hoarsely, my voice sounding queer, though I tried to speak naturally.
“Tell me, would you rather have Owen?”
“I don’t think you should speak to me like this. I wish you would allow
me to pass, please.”
Her dark blue eyes were fixed on me; she was very near. I was
passionately conscious of her attraction for me; my heart was thumping,
and the blood began to drum in my temples, while a sort of shadow
veiled my sight. I threw my arms round her; I could feel her body
straining away from me, her breath on my face. For a moment she seemed
to submit as I kissed her, but the next instant she struggled from me,
and I felt a blow across my face. She had struck me with her parasol,
which now hung broken in her hand.
Her eyes flashed on me like a withering fire. She was furiously angry.
“How dare you touch me! Let me pass at once, you――you beast.”
My arms dropped to my sides. A sudden, bitter shame overcame me. I saw
her pass me with head erect and flaming cheeks, and then I dropped on
my face on the ground.
When I got up she was out of sight. I did not know how long I had lain
there, but I made no attempt to follow her. As I brushed mechanically
the earth and bits of grass and twigs from my clothes, I felt almost
dazed. It had all passed, and I did not want to think. I heard the
drowsy prattle of a stream, and became aware that I was hot and
thirsty. I went down to it and followed the bank till I reached a deep
green pool, from which, lying flat on my belly, I drank greedily. As
I raised my head I saw my own image in the water――my bright eyes, my
dark, flushed face, my coarse, ruffled hair.