Night and Day
her mind to follow what Ralph was saying. He was telling her that he
had taken a cottage in Norfolk, and she was saying that she knew, or
did not know, that particular neighborhood. But after a moment’s
attention her mind flew to Rodney, and she had an unusual, indeed
unprecedented, sense that they were in touch and shared each other’s
thoughts. If only Ralph were not there, she would at once give way to
her desire to take William’s hand, then to bend his head upon her
shoulder, for this was what she wanted to do more than anything at the
moment, unless, indeed, she wished more than anything to be alone—yes,
that was what she wanted. She was sick to death of these discussions;
she shivered at the effort to reveal her feelings. She had forgotten to
answer. William was speaking now.
“But what will you find to do in the country?” she asked at random,
striking into a conversation which she had only half heard, in such a
way as to make both Rodney and Denham look at her with a little
surprise. But directly she took up the conversation, it was William’s
turn to fall silent. He at once forgot to listen to what they were
saying, although he interposed nervously at intervals, “Yes, yes, yes.”
As the minutes passed, Ralph’s presence became more and more
intolerable to him, since there was so much that he must say to
Katharine; the moment he could not talk to her, terrible doubts,
unanswerable questions accumulated, which he must lay before Katharine,
for she alone could help him now. Unless he could see her alone, it
would be impossible for him ever to sleep, or to know what he had said
in a moment of madness, which was not altogether mad, or was it mad? He
nodded his head, and said, nervously, “Yes, yes,” and looked at
Katharine, and thought how beautiful she looked; there was no one in
the world that he admired more. There was an emotion in her face which
lent it an expression he had never seen there. Then, as he was turning
over means by which he could speak to her alone, she rose, and he was
taken by surprise, for he had counted on the fact that she would
outstay Denham. His only chance, then, of saying something to her in
private, was to take her downstairs and walk with her to the street.
While he hesitated, however, overcome with the difficulty of putting
one simple thought into words when all his thoughts were scattered
about, and all were too strong for utterance, he was struck silent by
something that was still more unexpected. Denham got up from his chair,
looked at Katharine, and said:
“I’m going, too. Shall we go together?”
And before William could see any way of detaining him—or would it be
better to detain Katharine?—he had taken his hat, stick, and was
holding the door open for Katharine to pass out. The most that William
could do was to stand at the head of the stairs and say good-night. He
could not offer to go with them. He could not insist that she should
stay. He watched her descend, rather slowly, owing to the dusk of the
staircase, and he had a last sight of Denham’s head and of Katharine’s
head near together, against the panels, when suddenly a pang of acute
jealousy overcame him, and had he not remained conscious of the
slippers upon his feet, he would have run after them or cried out. As
it was he could not move from the spot. At the turn of the staircase
Katharine turned to look back, trusting to this last glance to seal
their compact of good friendship. Instead of returning her silent
greeting, William grinned back at her a cold stare of sarcasm or of
rage.
She stopped dead for a moment, and then descended slowly into the
court. She looked to the right and to the left, and once up into the
sky. She was only conscious of Denham as a block upon her thoughts. She
measured the distance that must be traversed before she would be alone.
But when they came to the Strand no cabs were to be seen, and Denham
broke the silence by saying:
“There seem to be no cabs. Shall we walk on a little?”
“Very well,” she agreed, paying no attention to him.
Aware of her preoccupation, or absorbed in his own thoughts, Ralph said
nothing further; and in silence they walked some distance along the
Strand. Ralph was doing his best to put his thoughts into such order
that one came before the rest, and the determination that when he spoke
he should speak worthily, made him put off the moment of speaking till
he had found the exact words and even the place that best suited him.
The Strand was too busy. There was too much risk, also, of finding an
empty cab. Without a word of explanation he turned to the left, down
one of the side streets leading to the river. On no account must they
part until something of the very greatest importance had happened. He
knew perfectly well what he wished to say, and had arranged not only
the substance, but the order in which he was to say it. Now, however,
that he was alone with her, not only did he find the difficulty of
speaking almost insurmountable, but he was aware that he was angry with
her for thus disturbing him, and casting, as it was so easy for a
person of her advantages to do, these phantoms and pitfalls across his
path. He was determined that he would question her as severely as he
would question himself; and make them both, once and for all, either
justify her dominance or renounce it. But the longer they walked thus
alone, the more he was disturbed by the sense of her actual presence.
Her skirt blew; the feathers in her hat waved; sometimes he saw her a
step or two ahead of him, or had to wait for her to catch him up.
The silence was prolonged, and at length drew her attention to him.
First she was annoyed that there was no cab to free her from his
company; then she recalled vaguely something that Mary had said to make
her think ill of him; she could not remember what, but the
recollection, combined with his masterful ways—why did he walk so fast
down this side street?—made her more and more conscious of a person of
marked, though disagreeable, force by her side. She stopped and,
looking round her for a cab, sighted one in the distance. He was thus
precipitated into speech.
“Should you mind if we walked a little farther?” he asked. “There’s
something I want to say to you.”
“Very well,” she replied, guessing that his request had something to do
with Mary Datchet.
“It’s quieter by the river,” he said, and instantly he crossed over. “I
want to ask you merely this,” he began. But he paused so long that she
could see his head against the sky; the slope of his thin cheek and his
large, strong nose were clearly marked against it. While he paused,
words that were quite different from those he intended to use presented
themselves.
“I’ve made you my standard ever since I saw you. I’ve dreamt about you;
I’ve thought of nothing but you; you represent to me the only reality
in the world.”
His words, and the queer strained voice in which he spoke them, made it
appear as if he addressed some person who was not the woman beside him,
but some one far away.
“And now things have come to such a pass that, unless I can speak to
you openly, I believe I shall go mad. I think of you as the most
beautiful, the truest thing in the world,” he continued, filled with a
sense of exaltation, and feeling that he had no need now to choose his
words with pedantic accuracy, for what he wanted to say was suddenly
become plain to him.
“I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river; to me you’re
everything that exists; the reality of everything. Life, I tell you,
would be impossible without you. And now I want—”
She had heard him so far with a feeling that she had dropped some
material word which made sense of the rest. She could hear no more of
this unintelligible rambling without checking him. She felt that she
was overhearing what was meant for another.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “You’re saying things that you don’t
mean.”
“I mean every word I say,” he replied, emphatically. He turned his head
towards her. She recovered the words she was searching for while he
spoke. “Ralph Denham is in love with you.” They came back to her in
Mary Datchet’s voice. Her anger blazed up in her.
“I saw Mary Datchet this afternoon,” she exclaimed.
He made a movement as if he were surprised or taken aback, but answered
in a moment:
“She told you that I had asked her to marry me, I suppose?”
“No!” Katharine exclaimed, in surprise.
“I did though. It was the day I saw you at Lincoln,” he continued. “I
had meant to ask her to marry me, and then I looked out of the window
and saw you. After that I didn’t want to ask any one to marry me. But I
did it; and she knew I was lying, and refused me. I thought then, and
still think, that she cares for me. I behaved very badly. I don’t
defend myself.”
“No,” said Katharine, “I should hope not. There’s no defence that I can
think of. If any conduct is wrong, that is.” She spoke with an energy
that was directed even more against herself than against him. “It seems
to me,” she continued, with the same energy, “that people are bound to
be honest. There’s no excuse for such behavior.” She could now see
plainly before her eyes the expression on Mary Datchet’s face.
After a short pause, he said:
“I am not telling you that I am in love with you. I am not in love with
you.”
“I didn’t think that,” she replied, conscious of some bewilderment.
“I have not spoken a word to you that I do not mean,” he added.
“Tell me then what it is that you mean,” she said at length.
As if obeying a common instinct, they both stopped and, bending
slightly over the balustrade of the river, looked into the flowing
water.
“You say that we’ve got to be honest,” Ralph began. “Very well. I will
try to tell you the facts; but I warn you, you’ll think me mad. It’s a
fact, though, that since I first saw you four or five months ago I have
made you, in an utterly absurd way, I expect, my ideal. I’m almost
ashamed to tell you what lengths I’ve gone to. It’s become the thing
that matters most in my life.” He checked himself. “Without knowing
you, except that you’re beautiful, and all that, I’ve come to believe
that we’re in some sort of agreement; that we’re after something
together; that we see something.... I’ve got into the habit of
imagining you; I’m always thinking what you’d say or do; I walk along
the street talking to you; I dream of you. It’s merely a bad habit, a
schoolboy habit, day-dreaming; it’s a common experience; half one’s
friends do the same; well, those are the facts.”
Simultaneously, they both walked on very slowly.
“If you were to know me you would feel none of this,” she said. “We
don’t know each other—we’ve always been—interrupted.... Were you going
to tell me this that day my aunts came?” she asked, recollecting the
whole scene.
He bowed his head.
“The day you told me of your engagement,” he said.
She thought, with a start, that she was no longer engaged.
“I deny that I should cease to feel this if I knew you,” he went on. “I
should feel it more reasonably—that’s all. I shouldn’t talk the kind of
nonsense I’ve talked to-night.... But it wasn’t nonsense. It was the
truth,” he said doggedly. “It’s the important thing. You can force me
to talk as if this feeling for you were an hallucination, but all our
feelings are that. The best of them are half illusions. Still,” he
added, as if arguing to himself, “if it weren’t as real a feeling as
I’m capable of, I shouldn’t be changing my life on your account.”
“What do you mean?” she inquired.
“I told you. I’m taking a cottage. I’m giving up my profession.”
“On my account?” she asked, in amazement.
“Yes, on your account,” he replied. He explained his meaning no
further.
“But I don’t know you or your circumstances,” she said at last, as he
remained silent.