Hugh laughed.
"You've never seen me a prey to the yellows, but I can imagine myself in
their clutches. Another man would have meant possibilities. No, I'm
grateful."
Wareham had a horrible impulse to cry out, "Fool!" and this to his
friend. Instead of it, he said--"You'd better bottle up your gratitude
till you know it's due." He would have liked to let out more, but how?
"I'm not afraid. And I tell you what, I'm glad for another reason. You
can't have seen her for all these hours without understanding something
of her charm. Where are your prejudices now? But I won't reproach you.
You've done me too good a turn. By Jove, it's hard work waiting, even
if only a few hours!"
He had his elbows on the table, his chin in his hands. Wareham pushed
back his chair and stared at him with something of the feeling of a man
who, worsted, yet will look his fate in his face. He knew his age--
eight-and-twenty--but never before had he seen him as the very
incarnation of youth. It could be read in every line, in the twist of
his shoulders, in the spring of his thick wavy hair, in the attitude,
half comical, half petulant. He was tall, and his shoulders
prognosticated size; fair as a northerner, and clean-faced; grey-eyed
and wide-mouthed. Wareham, with thirty not long left behind him, felt
an absurd envy of his three years' advantage. He stood up suddenly.
"Look here, Hugh, I'm done. I'm going to bed."
"All right, old fellow. You do look a bit seedy. Shall I come up and
see that they've treated you properly? Say the word, and I will."
"For heavens sake, no."
"You'd rather tumble in at once? Good. I haven't said half there is in
my head, but I dare say you think it'll keep. I don't know what I'll
do. Lie down, I suppose; but there's a bath-house out there on the
pier, and I feel more like a swim. You won't try that instead?"
"Bed," said Wareham laconically.
"Bed it is, then. I'd better show the way in this rabbit-warren.
You're close to me."
"Kviknaes will come. He and I are old friends."
It was difficult to shake off Hugh's good-will. Wareham had no
inclination for sleep, but imperative need to be alone, to meet these
disjointed fancies which had neither sense nor sequence, yet threatened
mastery. Kviknaes, smiling hospitably as though four o'clock in the
morning were the usual hour for receiving guests, showed him his little
room, the same as he had had there once before. It looked out on the
great fjord, now lying in sunniest radiance. Evidently Hugh, from the
next room, had spied the boat coming over the waters, and timed his own
departure to the landing-place. Wareham decided, with a grim smile,
that Anne doubtless credited him with a night watch on the shore.
This was the first consolatory reflection, and it was petty enough.
It allowed entrance, however, to others. His mind was like an American
house with the valves for hot and cold air both open; cold and heat
rushed in in brisk emulation. Out of sight of Hugh, out of hearing his
transports, with the shining waters before him across which he and she
had floated, he wondered at his own sudden dejection, and rated it as
cowardly. The world's veriest fledgeling would have borne himself more
bravely. Say that Hugh was there, say that Anne encountered him without
displeasure, what did that prove? Did he expect her to frown, to hurl
reproach? He eluded that second speech of hers in the boat, which had
fallen icily; he went back to her confession that Hugh bored her. That
had seemed to him decisive. A woman does not marry the man who bores
her, except for cogent reasons, which he would not hold of possible
weight with Anne. He bored her, she had flung up her engagement and
fled. There was the long and short of it. Nothing was altered, and out
jumped a hundred excellent little arguments protesting that nothing ever
should alter.
But the worst of these Jack-in-the-box puppets is that a very little
sends them in again. Opportunity--golden opportunity--had been his,
when his hands were tied; would she ever come again? How was Anne to
know what point of honour checked words, looks? If she did know--there
was the rub!--would she accept it as valid reason? Down, dismally down,
went the poor puppets, one after the other. She would not, she could
not!
If that had been all! But he knew that he was turning his back upon the
worst difficulty.
What would happen when the unconscious Hugh received that letter which
was off on its travels after him, and which sooner or later must come
into his hands. What should he do? Forestall it? Stand aside and
wait?
Regrets, forebodings scourged him. If he had spoken he might have won
her. Faith to his friend--which he could not have failed in without
being false to himself--had probably lost her. And in spite of all,
there was that in the situation which might cause Hugh to think him a
traitor.
The varying sensations of the day had battered him into a condition more
nearly approaching exhaustion than he knew. Sleep came before he had
formed plans for his waking, and he was only aroused by Hugh thundering
at his door.
"Slept well? So have I. Like a top. Come along down to the
bath-house."
Wareham dispatched him with promise to follow. Waking, as often
happens, had brought decision, so that he shook himself free of the
foggy doubts which beset him a few hours before. There could be no
question of Hugh's prior rights. He had nothing to do but to stand
aside, and hold his tongue. As for the letter, it must be left to its
fate. Long before it reached Hugh, that impetuous young man would have
carried or lost the day, and Wareham had sufficient faith in his
friend's warm-heartedness to believe that he would understand, too.
That, for the moment, was of greater consequence. He walked slowly down
to the pier of black piles, where a red-tiled building is picturesquely
perched, revolving other people's possible actions. They are wheels
which we can drive with fewer jolts than our own. And the pure fresh
air, the sparkling gaiety of the morning had their effect. They
intoxicated Hugh. Wareham, who had a stronger head, felt their
influence more subtly. Thoughts of escape had fluttered before him; now
he would have none of them. Stand aside he must, but from where he
stood he could see and measure, and that alone was an incalculable
advantage.