lilian knew the letter by heart now, she had read it through and through so often. she had received it early that morning, when, as usual, she ran downstairs at the postman's knock, so as to take that precious letter, that came daily, from the floor where it lay as it had been dropped through the slit in the door. of late, the sisters and brother had noticed the hurry to capture the first post, and there had been a little good-humoured chaffing over the breakfast-table, where they all sat together—the father and mother took their breakfast upstairs in bed, in keeping with their slatternly lives.
"going to be a blushing bride soon, lily?" said harry, with a wink to edith.
"don't be silly!" lilian said, crumbling her letter in her pocket.
"what's he like? is it that nobleman who came here a few weeks ago? if so, i don't think much of his taste in ties!"
"it's better than your taste in socks," retorted lilian.
"aha!—a hit, a palpable hit. guessed it at once. pass the butter, edie."
"do tell us all about it," florence urged.
"the family wants to know," pleaded harry.
"lilian—are you really...."
her hands closed over the letter which she had just read. she turned her head away and pretended to be busy at the coffee-pot. they were all joking among themselves, and they did not notice the tears glisten in her eyes.
"there's nothing to tell," she said, in a hard voice.
[188]
"oh, we don't believe that!" harry said. "young ladies wot gets letters in masculiferous handwritings every morning...."
she rose abruptly and looked at the clock. then—wonderful lilian!—she laughed and threw them all off the scent. "you children are too talkative," she said, with pretended loftiness. "i mustn't stop chattering with you or i shall miss the eight-forty." she put on her gloves with precision, and took up her little handbag, and adjusted her hat, just as if nothing had happened to disturb the ordinary course of her life; and, then, with the usual kiss all round, she let herself out of the house.
oh, she kept herself well in hand throughout the journey to town—nobody knew, and nobody must know. it was only a secret between herself and her heart. she looked out with dry eyes over the dismal plain of chimney-pots with which the train ran level, the cowls spinning in the wind ... the chimney-pots stretched row upon row, far away, until, with a hint of the open sea, adventure and wide freedom, the masts and rigging and brown sails arose from the ships lying in the docks. but when she came to the office she rushed upstairs, and in the little room where they hung their cloaks and hats, all her pent-up emotions broke loose with a torrent of tears. she wanted to empty her eyes of tears so that there should be none left, and she wept without control, silently, until she could weep no more. it was just like a short, sharp storm on a day that is oppressive and heavy; the air is all the cooler and sweeter for it, fresh breezes play gently over the streets, the world itself seems eased after its outburst.
she could smile again. she bathed her red eyes in the cold water of the basin, and performed some magic with a powder-puff. nobody would have guessed, as she sat tap-tapping at her typewriter, with the sunshine[189] touching her hair with its golden fingers, that a thunderstorm had shaken her nature a few minutes earlier. it was all over now; only the letter remained, and she knew the letter by heart, she had read it so often.
a difficult letter to write! well, not really, for that which comes from the heart is easy to write. it is insincerity which presents difficulties, and in this business humphrey had not been insincere. he had not made any cold calculations as to the future; he had not weighed the pros and cons of it all. after the letter was written and posted, the vision of her reproachful face haunted his dreams, and he felt that he had lost something irretrievable—something of himself that had gone from him, never to return.
he was only considering himself. he saw the sudden possibilities of the future which ferrol had opened for him; the true proportions in which he had painted that picture of the days to come. the fear of these responsibilities attacked him and made him a coward.
he saw, at once, that he could not marry lilian, and he told her so in a tempestuous, passionate letter, with ill-considered phrases jumbled all together, treading on one another's heels, as fast as the ideas tumbled about in his mind.
"i cannot do it, lilian, dear," he began. "we should never be happy together. i can see that. i don't know what you will think of me; you cannot think any worse of me than i think of myself. i feel a blackguard; i feel as if some one had given me a beautiful, priceless vase, and i had hurled it to the floor and smashed it. it is not that i love you any the less, but i cannot ask you to share this life of mine. when i first knew you, i thought it would be beautiful if we could be married—everything seemed so easy to accomplish. but now i see that years must pass before i win my way, and that marriage for[190] us would be an unhappy, uphill affair. forgive me, forgive me, lilian. i cannot tell you all my thoughts on paper. but meet me just once more in the old restaurant in the strand, where i can explain to you all that i want to say, and plead for your forgiveness. oh, my sweet lilian, you will understand and help me, i know.
"humphrey."
this was the letter, written on the impulse of the moment, which humphrey sent to her. incredible that it should be dropped in the ordinary way into a pillar-box, to lie for hours with hundreds of other letters, to pass through many hands until it finally came into the hands of the postman at battersea park, who delivered it, without any emotion, with a score of bills and receipts and circulars.
well, it was done, and, while humphrey was waiting for his work in the reporters' room of the day, lilian's mind was busy with the new development of affairs. now, she could review everything calmly, she felt in her heart that humphrey was right, but there was the sense of wounded pride with her. he had thrown her over! he did not even ask her to wait for him—yes! she would have waited—he was hasty to unburden himself and win his freedom again. yet she knew that she could not wait—she was older than he—she would be too old in ten years' time. the flower of her life would be full for a few years, and then she knew he would see that her glory was waning.... all this was no surprise to her. instinctively she seemed to have known that this would be the outcome of her love affair. strange! how she accepted it without any more demur than the natural outburst of tears—and what were those tears, after all, but tears of self-pity, as she looked upon herself and saw that she was poor and patient and loveless?
they met in that same italian restaurant in the[191] strand to which humphrey had first taken her on that day, months ago, when the glamour was upon him. the proprietor knew them for more or less regular customers, and they always had the upstairs room, which was invariably empty.
this dreadful business of the waiter taking his hat and stick, setting the table in order, offering the menus, and recommending things, with a greasy smile, and knowing, dark eyes! they had to mask their feelings, and to play the old part, and pretend that they were going to have lunch.
she noticed that humphrey's face was pale, the lines about his mouth less soft than usual. his eyes were strained, and he looked at her wistfully, not quite sure of his ground, wondering whether there would be a scene.
she could read him thoroughly. she knew that he really felt mean and uncomfortable, that she had but to use her woman-wit to recapture him at once—snare him so completely that never could he escape again. she knew that the very sight of her weakened him in his resolve, a kiss on the lips, and her fingers stroking his hair and face, he was hers, and the world well lost for him.
but that was not lilian's way. a strange, deep feeling of pity was in her heart as she marked the pallor of his face. she would have mothered him, but never cajoled him. "he is only a boy," she thought sorrowfully, "with a boy's destructiveness. this, that he thinks is an overwhelming tragedy, will be only a mere incident in a few years' time." and she smiled at her thoughts.
her smile awoke only the faintest echoes of dying memories within him: her smile that had once thrilled him, and sent his heart beating faster, and made his throat so curiously parched—incredible that such things had happened once!
[192]
"you are not angry," he said, timidly, with a touch of tragedy in his voice.
"angry?" she echoed. (he feared she was going to make light of the whole affair, and trembled at the idea of her mocking him: he might have known that that also was not lilian's way.) "angry," she repeated. "no, humphrey. i'm not angry."
"there's no excuse," he began, hopelessly, "i've got nothing to say for myself.... it seems to me ... it seems best that it should be ... for both of us, i mean."
"i think it's better for me," she said, softly. "there's no good making a tragedy of it. things always turn out for the best."
he fidgeted uneasily. "i was thinking it over last night.... oh, my head aches with thinking.... you see, what can we do, if we married. everything's up against us ... it's all fighting and risks, and uncertainty. i don't mind for myself" (and humphrey really believed this, for the moment), "it's you that i'm thinking of ... it wouldn't be fair. i could ask you to wait..." he did not finish.
now, really, humphrey's arrogance must be taught a lesson. behold, lilian gathering her forces together to crush him—ask her to wait, indeed! as if he were her last chance. and then something in his eyes checked her, something wistful and intensely pathetic. splendidly, lilian spared him. he was so easy to crush ... perhaps she still liked him a little, in spite of everything.
"no," she said. "there's no need to do that. we'll each go our own ways."
the waiter, after discreet knocking at the door, came between them with plates of food and clatter of knives and forks. they regarded him silently, and when he was gone, they made a feeble pretence of eating.
"i ought to have known better," she said, returning[193] to the business again with a wry smile. "i ought to have known it couldn't have lasted."
"it isn't that i love you any the less," he said, unconsciously quoting a phrase in his letter. "i don't know how to explain my attitude.... i love you just the same ... but, somehow...."
"don't, don't explain," she interrupted. "i understand. of course it's impossible if you think like that. and, of course, humphrey, there's no need to talk of love...." she laughed a little, and then, really, she could not spare him any more. "oh, what a boy you are!"
he flushed hotly. "i know you've always looked upon me as a boy," he said. "you think i'm a child ... but it takes a man to do what i'm doing ... it takes courage to face it out ... it hurts."
"oh, you are a boy," she said, with a little hysterical laugh. "of course you're only a boy." she pushed her plate away from her. "don't you see what you've done—you've broken up everything."
and she put her head on her arms outstretched on the table, and sobbed and sobbed again.
he watched her shoulders tremble with her sobs, and heard her accusing words repeat themselves in a pitiful refrain in his ears. at that moment he touched, it seemed, the lowest depths of meanness. he felt awkward and foolish.... she was crying, and he could do nothing. "lilian ... lilian," he pleaded, touching her hand that was flat on the table. "don't—i didn't mean to." heavens! if she did not stop, he would snatch her to him, and kiss her hotly, and let ferrol and the world and all its success go by him for ever.
the waiter saved the situation. his knock came as a warning, and when he entered the room with more plates and a greasier smile, he found the lady at the[194] window flinging it open widely and complaining of the heat, the gentleman looking moodily before him, and the food barely touched.
"you no like the fricassee, sare?" he said, turning the rejected food with his fork.
"it's all right," humphrey said, in a voice that the waiter knew to mean "get out." "no appetite to-day."
lilian turned from the window, as the door closed behind him. her eyes and lips were struggling for mastery over her emotions, and the lips conquered with a wan, watery smile. she placed her hand on humphrey's shoulder. "there," she said, wiping her eyes, destroying the tension with a prosy sniff. "it's all over—i didn't mean to be so silly."
the miserable meal went on in silence. there was nothing more to be said. he was thinking of all this pitiful love-affair of his, how it ran unevenly through the fabric of work and hopes, beginning at first with a brilliant pattern—a splash of the golden sunrise—and gradually becoming worn, until now all the threads were twisted and frayed. after this, they would part, never to meet again on the old terms, never to recapture the thrill of early love. odd, how she who had lain so close to his heart, enfolded in his arms, would have to pass him in the street henceforth, perhaps with only a nod, perhaps without any recognition at all. and nobody would know, nobody would guess of their shipwrecked love.
"i'm glad i never told mother," she said once, voicing her thoughts. she took a little package from her pocket: it held the few trinkets he had given her, wrapped up in tissue-paper—a brooch or two, a thin gold necklace with a heart dangling from it, and his own signet ring.
"no ... no ..." he said; "for god's sake, keep those. i should be happier if you kept them."
she shook her head gently. "i could not keep[195] them," she said. "they were little tokens of your love ... they belong to you now."
there was a pause. the clock chimed two. the disillusion was complete, all the fine draperies of love had been wrenched away—they were so flimsy after all—and behind them reality stood, sordid and ashamed. she tried to strike a note of cheerful fatalism.
"well, what must be, must be," she said, reaching for her cloak. he sprang to his feet to help her, remembering how, in other days, his hand had touched her cheek, and he had urged her lips towards him, that he might kiss her. how calm and self-possessed she was now. how magnificently she mastered the situation—a false move from her and the moments would become chaotic. he was uneasy, awkward and embarrassed ... one moment, ready to snatch her to his arms and begin all over again; the next, alertly conscious that he was unencumbered, that henceforth there was no other interest in his life but work—free!
now she was ready to go.
"i won't come down with you," he said, "i'll say good-bye now." he could not face a parting in the street. he watched her gather her things together, her bag, her umbrella, her gloves ... she smiled at him, and now the smile was a riddle: he could not guess her thoughts: contempt or pity?
suddenly she bent down towards him, stooped over him, with her face aglow with a divine expression, virginal and tender, the light of sacrifice in her eyes, the sweet pain of martyrdom on her lips; she bent towards him and kissed him lightly on the forehead.
"good-bye, humphie dear."
she had never spoken with a voice like that before, she had never shown how much she loved him, and all the misunderstandings, the torment, the doubts and[196] uncertainties were washed away as his thoughts gushed forth in a great appreciation of his loss.
the next moment she had gone.
he was alone in the room, with her good-bye ringing in his ears. idly he fingered a little packet of tissue-paper, opening it and laying bare the little pieces of metal that were all that remained to him of his love.
he touched the presents that he had given to lilian—each one held memories for him.... the gold signet ring had belonged to his father.... if only daniel quain had been there, with his world-wisdom and philosophy....
tears, humphrey? surely, not tears! think how splendidly free you are now; think of the moment of triumph when you can go to ferrol and tell him that you are no longer hampered; see how straight the path that leads to conquest.
