X.
From one of the high, wooden benches, at the back of the amphitheatrein the ALBERTHALLE, where he had lain at full length, listening to theperformance of a Berlin pianist, Krafft rose, full to the brim ofimpressions, and eager to state them.
"That man," he began, as he left the hall between Maurice and AveryHill, "is a successful teacher. And therewith his fate as an artist issealed. No teacher can get on to the higher rungs of the ladder, and noinspired musician be a satisfactory teacher. If the artist is obligedto share his art, his pupils, should they be intelligent, may pick upsomething of his skill, learn the trick of certain things; but themoment he begins to set up dogmas, it is the end of him.--As if it werepossible for one person to prescribe to another, of a totally differenttemperament, how he ought to feel in certain passages, or be affectedby certain harmonies! If I, for example, choose to play the laterBeethoven sonatas as I would the Brahms Concerto in B flat, with athoroughly modern irony, what is it that hinders me from doing it, andfrom satisfying myself, and kindred souls, who are honest enough toadmit their feelings? Tradition, nothing in the world but tradition;tradition in the shape of the teacher steps in and says anathema: tothis we are not accustomed, ERGO, it cannot be good.--And it is justthe same with those composers who are also pedagogues. They know, nonebetter, that there are no hard and fast rules in their art; that it isonly convention, or the morbid car of some medieval monk, which hasbanished, say, consecutive fifths from what is called g pure writing ';that further, you need only to have the regulation number of yearsbehind you, to fling squeamishness to the winds. In other words, youlearn rules to unlearn them with infinite pains. But the pupil, in hisinnocence, demands a rigid basis to go on--it is a human weakness,this, the craving for rules--and his teachers pamper him. Instead ofsaying: develop your own ear, rely on yourself, only what you teachyourself is worth knowing--instead of this, they build up walls andbarriers to hedge him in, behind which, for their benefit, he must gothrough the antics of a performing dog. But nemesis overtakes them;they fall a victim to their own wiles, just as the liar finallybelieves his own lies. Ultimately they find their chief delight in theadroitness with which they themselves overcome imaginary obstacles."
His companions were silent. Avery Hill had a nine hours' working-daybehind her, and was tired; besides, she made a point of never replyingto Krafft's tirades. Once only, of late, had she said to him inMaurice's presence: "You would reason the skin off one's bones, Heinz.You are the most self-conscious person alive." Krafft had been muchannoyed at this remark, and had asked her to call him a Jew and be donewith it; but afterwards, he admitted to Maurice that she was right.
"And it's only the naive natures that count."
Maurice had found his way back to Krafft; for, in the days ofuncertainty that followed the posting of his letter, he needed humancompanionship. Until the question whether Louise would return or notwas decided, he could settle to nothing; and Krafft's ramblings tookhim out of himself. Since the ball, his other friends had given him thecold shoulder; hence it did not matter whether or no they approved ofhis renewed intimacy with Krafft--he said "they," but it was Madeleinewho was present to his mind. And Krafft was an easy person to take upwith again; he never bore a grudge, and met Maurice readily, half-way.
It had not taken the latter long to shape his actions or what hebelieved to be the best. But his thoughts were beyond control. He wasas helpless against sudden spells of depression as against dreams of aniridescent brightness. He could no more avoid dwelling on the futurethan reliving the Past. If Louise did not return, these memories wereall that were left him. If she did, what form were their relations toeach other going to assume?--and this was the question that cost himmost anxious thought.
A thing that affected him oddly, at this time, was his growinginability to call up her face. It was incredible. This face, which hehad supposed he knew so well that he could have drawn it blindfold, hadtaken to eluding him; and the more impatient he became, the poorer washis success. The disquieting thing, however, was, that though he couldnot materialise her face, what invariably rose before his eyes was herlong, bare arm, as it had lain on the black stuff of her dress. Atfirst, it only came when he was battling to secure the face; then ittook to appearing at unexpected moments; and eventually, it became akind of nightmare, which haunted him. He would start up from dreamingof it, his hair moist with perspiration, for, strangely enough, he wasalways on the point of doing it harm: either his teeth were meeting init, or he had drawn the blade of a knife down the middle of theblue-veined whiteness, and the blood spurted out along the line, whichreddened instantly in the wake of the knife.
April had come, bringing April weather; it was fitfully sunny, and amild and generous dampness spurred on growth: shrubs and bushes were sothickly sprinkled with small buds that, at a distance, it seemed asthough a transparent green veil had been flung over them. In theGewandhaus, according to custom, the Ninth Symphony had brought theconcert season to a close; once more, the chorus had struggledvictoriously with the ODE TO JOY. And early one morning, Maurice held anote in his hand, in which Louise announced that she had "come home,"the night before.
She had been away for almost two months, and, to a certain extent, hehad grown inured to her absence. At the sight of her handwriting, hehad the sensation of being violently roused from sleep. Now he shrankfrom the moment when he should see her again; for it seemed that notonly the present, but all his future depended on it.
Late in the evening, he returned from the visit, puzzled and depressed.
Seven had boomed from church-clocks far and near, before he reached theBRUDERSTRASSE, but, nevertheless, he had been kept waiting in thepassage for a quarter of an hour: and he was in such an apprehensiveframe of mind that he took the delay as a bad omen.
When he crossed the threshold, Louise came towards him with one ofthose swift movements which meant that she was in good spirits, andconfident of herself. She held out her hands, and smiled at him withall her dark, mobile face, saying words that were as impulsive as hergesture. Maurice was always vaguely chilled by her outbursts oflight-heartedness: they seemed to him strained and unreal, soaccustomed had he grown to the darker, less adaptable side of hernature.
"You have come back?" he said, with her hand in his.
"Yes, I'm here--for the present, at least."
The last words caught in his ear, and buzzed there, making hisforeboding a certainty. On the spot, his courage failed him; and thoughLouise continued to ring all the changes her voice was capable of, hedid not recover his spirits. It was not merely the sense ofstrangeness, which inevitably attacked him after he had not seen herfor some time; on this occasion, it was more. Partly, it might be dueto the fact that she was dressed in a different way; her hair was donehigh on her head, and she wore a light grey dress of modish cut anddesign. Her face, too, had grown fuller; the hollows in her cheeks hadvanished; and her skin had that peculiar clear pallor that wascharacteristic of it in health.
He was stupidly silent; he could not join in her careless vivacity.Besides, throughout the visit, nothing was said that it was worth hiscoming to hear.
But when she wished him good-bye, she said, with a strange smile:"Altogether, I am very grateful to you, Maurice, for having made me goaway."
He himself no longer felt any satisfaction at what he had done. As soonas he left her, he tried to comprehend what had happened: the change inher was too marked for him to be able to console himself that he hadimagined it. Not only had she seemingly recovered, as if by magic, fromthe lassitude of the winter--he could even have forgiven her thealteration in her style of dress, although this, too, helped toalienate her from him. But what he ended by recognising, with a jealousthrob, was that she had mentally recovered as well; she was once morethe self-contained girl he had first known, with a gift for keeping anoutsider beyond the circle of her thoughts and feelings. An outsider!The weeks of intimate companionship were forgotten, seemed never tohave been. She had no further need of him, that
was the clue to themystery, and the end of the matter.
And so it continued, the next day, and the next again; Louisedeliberately avoided touching on anything that lay below the surface.She vouchsafed no explanation of the words that had disquieted him, norwas the letter Maurice had written her once mentioned between them.
But, though she seemed resolved not to confide in him, she could notdispense with the small, practical services, he was able to render her.They were even more necessary to her than before; for, if one thing wasclear, it was that she no longer intended to cloister herself up insideher four walls: the day after her return, she had been out till late inthe afternoon, and had come home with her hands full of parcels. Shetook it now as a matter of course that Maurice should accompany her;and did not, or would not, notice his abstraction.
After the lapse of a very short time, however, the young man began tofeel that there was something feverish in the continual high level ofher mood. She broke down, once or twice, in trying to sustain it, andwas more of her eloquently silent self again: one evening, he came uponher, in the dusk, when she was sitting with her chin on her hand,looking out before her with the old questioning gaze.
Occasionally he thought that she was waiting for something: in themiddle of a sentence, she would break off, and grow absent-minded; andmore than once, the unexpected advent of the postman threw her into astate of excitement, which she could not conceal. She was waiting for aletter. But Maurice was proud, and asked no questions; he took pains touse the cool, friendly tone, she herself adopted.
Not a week had dragged out, however, since her return, before he wassuffering in a new way, in the oldest, cruellest way of all.
The PENSION at which she had stayed in Dresden, had been frequented byleisured foreigners: over twenty people, of various nationalities, hadsat down daily at the dinner-table. Among so large a number, it wouldhave been easy for Louise to hold herself aloof. But, as far as Mauricecould gather, she had felt no inclination to do this. From the first,she seemed to have been the nucleus of an admiring circle, chief amongthe members of which was a family of Americans--a brother and twosisters, rich Southerners, possessed of a vague leaning towards art andmusic. The names of these people recurred persistently in her talk;and, as the days went by, Maurice found himself listening for one namein particular, with an irritation he could not master. Raymond vanHoust--a ridiculous name!--fit only for a backstairs romance. But asoften as she spoke of Dresden, it was on her lips. Whether in theGalleries, or at the Opera, on driving excursions, or on foot, this manhad been at her side; and soon the mere mention of him was enough toset Maurice's teeth on edge.
One afternoon, he found her standing before an extravagant mass offlowers, which were heaped up on the table; there were white and purpleviolets, a great bunch of lilies of the valley, and roses of differentcolours. They had been sent to her from Dresden, she said; but, beyondthis, she offered no explanation. All the vases in the room werecollected before her; but she had not begun to fill them: she stoodwith her hands in the flowers, tumbling them about, enjoying thecontact of their moist freshness.
To Maurice's remark that she seemed to take a pleasure in destroyingthem, she returned a casual: "What does it matter?" and taking up asmany violets as she could hold, looked defiantly at him over theirpurple leaves. Through all she said and did ran a strong undercurrentof excitement.
But before Maurice left, her manner changed. She came over to him, andsaid, without looking up: "Maurice I want to tell you something."
"Yes; what is it?" He spoke with the involuntary coolness this mood ofhers called out in him; and she was quick to feel it. She returned tothe table.
"You ask so prosaically: you are altogether prosaic to-day. And it isnot a thing I can tell you off-hand. You would need to sit down again.It's a long story; and you were going; and it's late. We will leave ittill to-morrow: that will be time enough. And if it is fine, we can goout somewhere, and I'll tell you as we go."
It was a brilliant May afternoon: great white clouds were piled one onthe top of another, like bales of wool; and their fantastic bulgingroundnesses made the intervening patches of blue seem doubly distant.The wind was hardly more than a breath, which curled the tips of thinbranches, and fluttered the loose ends of veils and laces. In theROSENTAL, where the meadow-slopes were emerald-green, and each branchbore its complement of delicately curled leaves, the paths were socrowded that there could be no question of a connected conversation.But again, Louise was not in a hurry to begin.
She continued meditative, even when they had reached the KAISERPARK,and were sitting with their cups before them, in the long, wooden,shed-like building, open at one side. She had taken off her hat--asomewhat showy white hat, trimmed with large white feathers--and laidit on the table; one dark wing of hair fell lower than the other, andshaded her forehead.
Maurice, who was on tenterhooks, subdued his impatience as long as hecould. Finally, he emptied his cup at a draught, and pushed it away.
"You wanted to speak to me, you said."--His manner was curt, from sheernervousness.
His voice startled her. "Yes, I have something to tell you," she said,with a hesitation he did not know in her. "But I must go back alittle.--If you remember, Maurice, you wrote to me while I was away,didn't you?" she said, and looked not at him, but at her hands claspedbefore her. "You gave me a number of excellent reasons why it would bebetter for me not to come back here. I didn't answer your letter at thetime because ... What should you say, Maurice, if I told you now, thatI intended to take your advice?"
"You are going away?" The words jerked out gratingly, of themselves.
"Perhaps.--That is what I want to speak to you about. I have a chanceof doing so."
"Chance? How chance?" he asked sharply.
"That's what I am going to tell you, if you will give me time."
Drawing a letter from her pocket, she smoothed the creases out of theenvelope, and handed it to him.
While he read it, she looked away, looked over the enclosure. Somepeople were crossing it, and she followed them with her eyes, thoughshe had often seen their counterparts before. A man in a heavyulster--notwithstanding the mildness of the day--stalked on ahead,unconcerned about the fate of his family, which dragged, a woman andtwo children, in the rear: like savages, thought Louise, where the malegoes first, to scent danger. But the crackling of paper recalled herattention; Maurice was folding the sheet, and replacing it in theenvelope, with a ludicrous precision. His face had taken on a pinchedexpression, and he handed the letter back to her without a word.
She looked at him, expecting him to say something; but he was obdurate."This was what I was waiting all these days to tell you," she said.
"You knew it was coming then?" He scarcely recognised his own voice; hespoke as he supposed a judge might speak to a proven criminal.
Louise shrugged her shoulders. "No. Yes.--That is, as far as it'spossible to know such a thing."
Through the crude glass window, the sun cast a medley of lines andlights on her hands, and on the checkered table-cloth. There were tworough benches, and a square table; the coffeecups stood on a metaltray; the lid of the pot was odd, did not match the set: all theseinanimate things, which, a moment ago, Maurice had seen without seeingthem, now stood out before his eyes, as if each of them had acquired anindependent life, and no longer fitted into its background.
"Let us go home," he said, and rose.
"Go home? But we have only just come!" cried Louise, with what seemedto him pretended surprise. "Why do you want to go home? It is so quiethere: I can talk to you. For I need your advice, Maurice. You must helpme once again."
"I help you?--in this? No, thank you. All I can do, it seems, is towish you joy." He remained standing, with his hand on the back of thebench.
But at the cold amazement of her eyes, he took his seat again. "It is amatter for yourself--only you can decide. It's none of my business." Hemoved the empty cups about on the cloth.
"But why are you angry?"
"Haven't I good reason to be? To see you--you!--accepting animpertinence of this kind so quietly. For it IS an impertinence,Louise, that a man you hardly know should write to you in this cocksureway and ask you to marry him. Impertinent and absurd!"
"You have a way of finding most things I want to do absurd," sheanswered. "In this case, though, you're mistaken. The tone of theletter is all it should be. And, besides, I know Mr. Van Houst verywell."
Maurice looked at her with a sardonic smile.
"Seven weeks is a long time," she added.
"Seven weeks!--and for a lifetime!"
"Oh, one can get to know a man inside out, in seven weeks," she said,with wilful flippancy. "Especially if, from the first, he shows soplainly ... Maurice, don't be angry. You have always been kind to me;you're not going to fail me now that I really need help? I have no oneelse, as you very well know." She smiled at him, and held out her hand.He could not refuse to take it; but he let it drop again immediately.
"Let me tell you all about it, and how it happened, and then you willunderstand," Louise went on, in a persuasive voice--he had oncebelieved that the sound of this voice would reconcile him to any fate."You think the time was short, but we were together every day, andsometimes all day long. I knew from the first that he cared for me; hemade no secret of it. If anything, it is a proof of tactfulness on hispart that he should have written rather than have spoken to me himself.I like him for doing it, for giving me time. And then, listen, Maurice,what I should gain by marrying him. He is rich, really rich, andgood-looking--in an American way--and thirty-two years old. His sisterswould welcome me--one of them told me as much, and told me, too, thather brother had never cared for anyone before. He would make an idealhusband," she added with a sudden recklessness, at the sight ofMaurice's unmoved face. "Americanly chivalrous to the fingertips, andwith just enough of the primitive animal in him to ward off monotony."
Maurice raised his hand, as if in self-defence. "So you, too, then,like any other woman, would marry just for the sake of marrying?" heasked, with bitter disbelief.
"Yes.--And just especially and particularly I."
"For Heaven's sake, let us get out of here!"
Without listening to her protest, he went to find the waiter. Louisefollowed him out of the enclosure, carrying hat and gloves in her hand.
They struck into narrow by-paths going back, to avoid the people. Butit was impossible to escape all, and those they met, eyed them withcuriosity. The clear English voices rang out unconcerned; the pale girlwith the Italian eyes was visibly striving to appease her companion,who marched ahead, angry and impassive.
For a few hundred yards neither of them spoke. Then Louise began anew.
"And that is not all. You judge harshly and unfairly because you don'tknow the facts. I am almost quite alone in the world. I have norelatives that I care for, except one brother. I lived with him, on hisstation in Queensland, until I came here. But now he's married, andthere would be no room for me in the house--figuratively speaking. If Igo back now, I must share his home with his wife, whom I knew anddisliked. While here is some one who is fond of me, and is rich, andwho offers me not only a home of my own, but, what is far more to me,an entirely new life in a new world."
"Excellent reasons! But in reckoning them up, you have forgotten whatseems to me the most important one of all; whether or no you care forhim, for this ..." this in his trouble, he could not find a suitableepithet.
But Louise refused to be touched. "I like him," she answered, andlooked across the slope of meadow they were passing. "I liked him, yes,as any woman would like a man who treated her as he did me. He was verygood tome. And not in the least repugnant.--But care?" she interruptedherself. "If by care, you mean ... Then no, a hundred thousand times,no! I shall never care for anyone in that way again, and you know it. Ihad enough of that to last me all my life."
"Very well, then, and I say, if you married a man you care for aslittle as that, I should never believe in a woman again.--Not, ofcourse, that it matters to you what I believe in and what I don't? Butto hear you--you, Louise!--counting up the profits to be gained fromit, like ... like--oh, I don't know what! I couldn't have believed itof you."
"You are a very uncomfortable person, Maurice."
"I mean to be. And more than uncomfortable. Listen to me! You talk ofit lightly and coolly; but if you married this man, without caring forhim more than you say you do, just for the sake of a home, or hismoney, or his good manners, or the primitive animal, or whatever it isthat attracts you in him:"--he grew bitter again in spite ofhimself--"if you did this, you would be stifling all that is good andgenerous in your nature. For you may say what you like; the man islittle more than a stranger to you. What can you know of his realcharacter? And what can he know of you?"
"He knows as much of me as I ever intend him to know."
"Indeed! Then you wouldn't tell him, for instance, that only a fewmonths ago, you were eating your heart out for some one else?"
Louise winced as though the words had struck her in the face. Beforeshe answered, she stood still, in the middle of the path, and pinnedon, with deliberate movements, the big white hat, beneath the droopingbrim and nodding feathers of which, her eyes were as black as coals.
"No, I should not," she said. "Why should I? Do you think it would makehim care more for me to know that I had nearly died of love for anotherman?"
"Certainly not. And it might also make him less ready to marry you."
"That's exactly what I think."
One was as bitter as the other; but Maurice was the more violent of thetwo.
"And so you would begin the new life you talk of, with lies anddeceit?--A most excellent beginning!"
"If you like to call it that. I only know, that no one with any sensethinks of dragging up certain things when once they are dead andburied. Or are you, perhaps, simple enough to believe any man livingwould get over what I have to tell him, and care for me afterwards inthe same way?"
He turned, with tell-tale words on his tongue. But the expression ofher face intimidated him. He had only to look at her to know that, ifhe spoke of himself at this moment, she would laugh him to scorn.
But the beloved face acted on him in its own way; his sense of injuryweakened. "Louise," he said in an altered tone; "whatever you say tothe contrary, in a matter like this, I can't advise you. For I don'tunderstand--and never should.--But of one thing I'm as sure as I amthat the sun will rise to-morrow, and that is, that you won't do it. Doyou honestly think you could go on living, day after day, with a manyou don't sincerely care for?--of whom the most you can say is thathe's not repugnant to you? You little know what it would mean!--And youmay reason as you will; I answer for you; and I say no, and again no.It isn't in you to do it. You are not mean and petty enough. You can'thide your feelings, try as you will.--No, you couldn't deceive someone, by pretending to care for him, for months on end. You would bemiserably unhappy; and then--then I know what would happen. You wouldbe candid--candid about everything--when it was too late."
There was no mistaking the sincerity of his words. But Louise wasboundlessly irritated, and made no further effort to check herresentment.
"You have an utterly false and ridiculous idea of me, and of everythingbelonging to me."
"I haven't spent all this time with you for nothing. I know you betterthan you know yourself. I believe in you, Louise. And I know I amright. And some day you'll know it, too."
These words only incensed her the more.
"What you know--or think you know--is nothing to me. If you hadlistened to me patiently, as I asked you to, instead of losing yourtemper, and taking what I said as a personal affront, then, yes, then Ishould have told you something else besides. How, when I came back, afortnight ago, I was quite resolved to marry this man, if he asked memarry him and cut myself off for ever from my old life and its hatefulmemories.--And why not? I'm still young. I still have a right topleasure--and change--and excitement.--And in all these days, I didn't
once hesitate--not till the letter came yesterday--and then not tillnight. It wasn't like me; for when once I have made up my mind, I nevergo back. So I determined to ask you--ask you to help me to decide. Foryou had always been kind to me.--But this is what I get for doing it."Her anger flared up anew. "You have treated me abominably, to-day,Maurice; and I shan't forget it. All your ridiculous notions aboutright and wrong don't matter a straw. What does matter is, that when Iask for help, you should behave as if--as if I were going to commit acrime. Your opinion is nothing to me. If I decide to marry the man, Ishall do it, no matter what you say."
"I'm sure you will."
"And if I don't, let me tell you this: it won't be because of anythingyou've said to-day. Not from any high-flown notions of honesty, orgenerosity, as you would like to make yourself believe; but merelybecause I haven't the energy in me. I couldn't keep it up. I want to bequiet, to have an easy life. The fact that some one else had to suffer,too, wouldn't matter to me, in the least. It's myself I think of, firstand foremost, and as long as I live it will always be myself."
Her voice belied her words; he expected each moment that she wouldburst out crying. However, she continued to walk on, with her headerect; and she did not take back one of the unkind things she had said.
They parted without being reconciled. Maurice stood and watched hermount the staircase, in the vain hope that she would turn, beforereaching the top.
He did not see how the fine May afternoon declined, and passed intoevening; how the high stacks of cloud were broken up at sunset, andshredded into small flakes and strips of cloud, which, saturated withgold, vanished in their turn: how the shadows in the corners turnedfrom blue to black; nor did he note the mists that rose like steam fromthe ground, intensifying the acrid smell of garlic, with which thewoods abounded. Screened by the thicket, he sat on his accustomed scat,and gave himself up to being miserable.
For some time he was conscious only of how deeply he had beenwounded--just as one suffers from the bruise after the blow. At themoment, he had been stunned into a kind of quiescence; now his nervesthrobbed and tingled. But, little by little, a vivid recollection ofwhat had actually occurred returned to sting him: and certain detailsstood out fixed and unforgettable. Yet, in reliving the hours justpast, he felt no regret at the fact that they had quarrelled. Whatfirst smote him was an unspeakable amazement at Louise. The knowledgethat, for weeks on end, she had been contemplating marriage, was beyondhis belief. Hardly recovered from the throes of a suffering believedincurable, and while he was still going about her with gloved hands, asit were, she was ready to throw herself into the arms of the firstlikely man she met. He could not help himself: in this connection,every little trait in her that was uncongenial to him, started up withappalling distinctness. Hitherto, he had put it down to his ownsensitiveness; he was over-nice. But for the most part, he had forgivenher on account of all she had come through; for he believed that thisgrief had swept destructively through her nature, leaving a jaggedwound, which only time could heal. Now, as if to prove to him what afool he was, she showed him that he had been mistaken in this also; shecould recover her equilibrium, while he still hedged her round withsolicitude--recover herself, and transfer her affection to anotherperson. Good God! Was it so easy, a matter of so little moment, to growfond of one who was almost a stranger to her?--for, in spite of whatshe said to the contrary, he was persuaded that she had a strongerfeeling for this man than she had been willing to admit: this riperman, with his experienced way of treating women. Was, then, his ownidea of her wholly false? Was there, after all, something in her naturethat he could not, would not, understand? He denied it fiercely, almostbefore he had formulated the question: no matter what her actions were,or what words she said, deep down in her was an intense will for good,a spring of noble impulse. It was only that she had never had a properchance. But he denied it to a vision of her face: the haunting eyeswhich, at first sight, had destroyed his peace of mind; the dead blackhair against the ivory-coloured skin. It was in these things that thetruth lay, not in the blind promptings of her inclination.
For the first time, the idea of marriage took definite shape in hismind. For all he knew, it might have been lying dormant there, allalong; but he would doubtless have remained unconscious of it, forweeks to come, had it not been for the events of the afternoon. Now,however, Louise had made it plain that his feelings for her were of anexaggerated delicacy; plain that she herself had no such scruples. Heneed hesitate no longer. But marry! ... marriage! ... he marryLouise!--at the thought of it, he laughed. That he, Maurice Guest,should, for an instant, put himself on a par with her American suitor!The latter, rich, leisured, able to satisfy her caprices, surround herwith luxury: himself, younger than she by several years, withoutprospects, with nothing to offer her but a limitless devotion. He triedto imagine himself saying: "Louise, will you marry me?" and the wordsstuck in his throat; for he saw the amused astonishment of her eyes.And not merely at the presumption he would be guilty of; what was asclear to him as day was that she did not really care for him; not as hecared for her; not with the faintest hint of a warmer feeling. If hehad never grasped this before, he did so now, to the full. Sittingthere, he affirmed to himself that she did not even like him. She wasgrateful to him, of course, for his help and friendship; but that wasall. Beyond this, he would not have been surprised to learn from herown lips that she actually disliked him: for there was somethingirreconcilable about their two natures. And never, for a moment, hadshe considered him in the light of an eligible lover--oh, how thatstung! Here was she, with an attraction for him which nothing couldweaken; and in him was not the smallest lineament, of body or of mind,to wake a response in her. He was powerless to increase her happinessby a hair's breadth. Her nerves would never answer to the inflection ofhis voice, or the touch of his hand. How could such things be? Whatanomaly was here?
To-day, her face rose before him unsought--the sweet, dark face withthe expression of slight melancholy that it wore in repose, as he lovedit best. It was with him when, stiff and tired, he emerged from hisseclusion, and walked home through the trails of mist that hung,breast-high, on the meadow-land. It was with him under thestreet-lamps, and, to its accompanying presence, the strong convictiongrew in him that evasion on his part was no longer possible. Sooner orlater, come what might, the words he had faltered over, even tohimself, would have to be spoken.
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