paul had gone on bravely with his life. he knew that when sara had gone out of his studio into the summer night she had taken something away with her, the something that was the best part of himself. but with what remained to him he had set himself to face the lonely months ahead of him. each morning as he woke he told himself that he would work for her. it was the only thing that made work possible to him.
his joy in art had been sufficient for him until he met her. her coming had increased it ten-thousandfold, as it had increased his whole joy in life and in beauty, giving it a meaning he had never before realized. and when she went she had taken it away, leaving him with nothing but the husk.
in spite of his courage, loneliness at times seemed as if it must overwhelm him, for now it was unlike his former loneliness. before, he had not known what it was to have the perfect companionship of a woman. now he had known it and lost it. and the years before him stretched very grey. he tried to see a gleam of gold in the future, but it was too far off for him to perceive it by sight; he could only tell himself in faith that one day it would dawn through the greyness. but however strong the spirit may be to have faith, the flesh after all is human and weak, and his loneliness pressed hard upon him. during the last weeks, too, he had had only one commission—an uninteresting one, which he had nevertheless accepted. he would now, as he had said, have painted anyone however commonplace. but the work had not taken him in any degree out of himself.
on the afternoon of the fourteenth of october he was sitting alone in his studio. it had been a bad day for him—one of the days that come to all artists when hand and brain alike refuse to work, when inspiration is lacking, and it seems as if her light had departed for ever.
he looked round the room. there was rather a neglected appearance about it. he had given up his man as an extravagance he could not possibly afford, and he was on the look-out for a tenant for his studio, meaning to move into something much smaller. yet, in spite of the neglected look of the studio, paul himself was as well groomed as ever. personal cleanliness was an ingrained characteristic of him. it belonged to him as much as it belonged to the french aristocrats who manicured their nails while waiting in the bastille for the tumbrils that would take them to the scaffold and the embrace of the guillotine.
after a time he got up from his chair, and taking the kettle from the stove, he made some tea. as he did so he thought of the many times sara had had tea with him since the day in battersea park.
everything he did or thought reminded him of her. the tiniest and most trivial details recalled her—even a thing as insignificant as the crack in the table. he remembered seeing her run her finger along it one day when she had been sitting in the chair opposite to him, which chair was now empty. the tea-cups reminded him. he had bought them specially for her. before that he had only possessed two cracked ones and a tumbler. even one of the cracked ones was precious, because from it she had drunk a cup of coffee the day pippa had lunched with him and he had decided to re-paint her dress.
“my god!” said paul to himself, “joy was so near me, and now i must pass, at the best, years of my life alone.”
he looked across at the vases on the bookshelf. they had never held flowers since the day thirteen weeks ago when they had been full of crimson roses. they and the blue vase on the mantelpiece, to the colour of which pippa had likened sara, were covered with dust. paul felt suddenly as if, in spite of his efforts, dust were settling on his heart.
and then all at once he heard a slight sound. it was a woman’s step in the courtyard. paul caught hold of the arm of his chair and gripped it hard. his face had gone quite white.
the door opened.
“paul,” said a voice.
the next moment she was in his arms and he was sobbing like a child.
“don’t, dear heart, don’t,” said sara, her voice shaking.
he put her in a chair and sat down by the table.
“you shouldn’t have come,” he said brokenly.
she went over to him and knelt beside him.
“but, dearest, listen,” she said, taking both his hands, “i have come to tell you of joy.”
paul stared at her half bewildered. “what do you mean?” he said.
“listen,” she said. “it’s all so wonderful i can hardly believe it myself. but it’s all true—true—true!”
“tell me, quickly,” said paul, putting his arms round her.
and as many weeks ago he had had to tell her bad news, so she now told him news of joy. she told him everything, all miss mason’s quaint and excellent reasons for their acceptance of this happiness with no thought of false pride to intervene.
“you will accept, paul?” said sara, as she finished.
again the man’s eyes were full of tears. “beloved, i must. my love for you would sweep away all pride. but i think with a gift offered in that [pg 303]way one need have none. my god, it’s wonderful!”
and so she still knelt beside him, and he held her in a kind of dumb ecstasy, as if he feared to move and find it was only a dream. and the music of the heart which had long held such a throb of pain now rose loud and glorious, filling the whole studio.
“beloved,” said paul at last, “let us go together and find aunt olive.”
so they went out into the purple dusk, in which a light wind was scattering the last few golden leaves from the trees, letting them float gently to the courtyard.
and the little faun saw them coming, and the tune he played to welcome them was the sweetest, purest tune of love.
