She was still thinking of the blinds when she saw that the man who
came towards her was Rowcliffe.
He was wearing his rough tweed suit and his thick boots, and he had
the look of the open air about him.
"Is that you, Miss Cartaret? Good!"
He grasped her hand. He behaved exactly as if he had expected her. He
never even wondered what she had come for. She might have come to say
that her father or one of her sisters was dying, and would he go at
once; but none of these possibilities occurred to him.
He didn't want to account for her coming to him. It was natural and
beautiful that she should come.
Then, as she stepped into the lighted passage, he saw that she was
bareheaded and that her eyelashes were parted and gathered into little
wet points.
He took her arm gently and led her into his study and shut the door.
They faced each other there.
"I say--is anything wrong?"
"I thought you were ill."
She hadn't grasped the absurdity of it yet. She was still under the
spell of the illusion.
"I? Ill? Good heavens, no!"
"They told me in the village you'd got diphtheria. And I came to know
if it was true. It _isn't_ true?"
He smiled; an odd little embarrassed smile; almost as if he were
owning that it was or had been true.
"_Is_ it?" she persisted as he went on smiling.
"Of course it isn't."
She frowned as if she were annoyed with him for not being ill.
"Then what was that other man here for?"
"Harker? Oh, he just took my place for a day or two while I had a sore
throat."
"You _had_ a throat then?"
Thus she accused him.
"And you _did_ sit up for three nights with Ned Alderson's baby?"
She defied him to deny it.
"That's nothing. Anybody would. I had to."
"And--you saved the baby?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. Some thing or other pulled
the little beggar through."
"And you might have got it?"
"I might but I didn't."
"You _did_ get a throat. And it _might_ have been diphtheria."
Thus by accusing him she endeavored to justify herself.
"It might," he said, "but it wasn't. I had to knock off work till I
was sure."
"And you're sure now?"
"I can tell you _you_ wouldn't be here if I wasn't."
"And they told me you were dying."
(She was utterly disgusted.)
At that he laughed aloud. An irresistible, extravagantly delighted
laugh. When he stopped he choked and began all over again; the idea of
his dying was so funny; so was her disgust.
"That," she said, "was why I came."
"Then I'm glad they told you."
"I'm not," said she.
He laughed again at her sudden funny dignity. Then, as suddenly, he
was grave.
"I say--it _was_ nice of you."
She held out her hand.
"And now--as you're not dead--I'm off."
"Oh no, you're not. You're going to stay and have tea and I'm going to
walk back with you."
She stayed.
* * * * *
They walked over the moor by Karva. And as they went he talked to her
as he hadn't talked before. It was all about himself and his tone
was very serious. He talked about his work and (with considerable
reservations and omissions) about his life in Leeds, and about his
ambition. He told her what he had done and why he had done it and what
he was going to do. He wasn't going to stay in Garthdale all his life.
Not he. Presently he would want to get to the center of things. (He
forgot to mention that this was the first time he had thought of it.)
Nothing would satisfy him but a big London practice and a name. He
might--ultimately--specialise. If he did he rather thought it would be
gynæcology. He was interested in women's cases. Or it might be nervous
diseases. He wasn't sure. Anyhow, it must be something big.
For under Gwenda Cartaret's eyes his romantic youth became fiery and
turbulent inside him. It not only urged him to tremendous heights,
it made him actually feel that he would reach them. For a solid
three-quarters of an hour, walking over the moor by Karva, he had
ceased to be one of the obscurest of obscure little country doctors.
He was Sir Steven Rowcliffe, the great gynæcologist, or the great
neurologist (as the case might be) with a row of letters after his
name and a whole column under it in the Medical Directory.
And Gwenda Cartaret's eyes never for a moment contradicted him. They
agreed with every one of his preposterous statements.
She didn't know that it was only his romantic youth and that he
never had been and never would be more youthful than he was for that
three-quarters of an hour. On the contrary, to _her_ youth he seemed
to have left youth behind him, and to have grown suddenly serious and
clear-sighted and mature.
And then he stopped, right on the moor, as if he were suddenly aware
of his absurdity.
"I say," he said, "what must you think of me? Gassing about myself
like that."
"I think," she said, "it's awfully nice of you."
"I don't suppose I shall do anything really big. Do you?"
She was silent.
"Honestly now, do you think I shall?"
"I think the things you've done already, the things that'll never be
heard of, are really big."
His silence said, "They are not enough for me," and hers, "For me they
are enough."
"But the other things," he insisted--"the things I want to do----Do
you think I'll do them?"
"I think"--she said slowly--"in fact I'm certain that you'll do them,
if you really mean to."
"That's what you think of me?"
"That's what I think of you."
"Then it's all right," he said. "For what I think of _you_ is that
you'd never say a thing you didn't really mean."
They parted at the turn of the road, where, as he again reminded her,
he had seen her first.
Going home by himself over the moor, Rowcliffe wondered whether he
hadn't missed his opportunity.
He might have told her that he cared for her. He might have asked her
if she cared. If he hadn't, it was only because there was no need to
be precipitate. He felt rather than knew that she was sure of him.
Plenty of time. Plenty of time. He was so sure of _her_.