It was the hour of the day that Julian liked least. Until four o'clock in the afternoon his mind was protected by blinkers; he saw the road ahead of him, but the unmerciful vastness of the world was hidden from him. He was thankful that he could not see it, because it was possessed by Stella.
He could keep her out of his work; but there was no other subject she left untouched, no prospect that was not penetrated with her presence, no moment of his consciousness that she did not ruthlessly share.
He knew when he left her that he must be prepared for a sharp wrench and an unforgetable loss; what he had not foreseen was that the wrench would be continuous, and that he would be confronted by her presence at every turn.
Women's faces had haunted him before, and he had known what it was to be maddened by the sudden cessation of an intense relationship; but that was different. He could not remember Stella's face; he had no visual impression of her physical presence; he had simply lost the center of his thoughts. He felt as if he were living in a nightmare in which one tries to cross the ocean without a ticket.
He was perpetually starting lines of thought which were not destined to arrive. For the first few weeks it was almost easier; he felt the immediate relief which comes from all decisive action, and he was able to believe that he was angry with Stella. She had obeyed him implicitly by not writing, and his mother never mentioned her except for that worst moment of all when she gave him Stella's words, without comment. "She would like to take the money, but she cannot do it." This fed his anger.
"If I'd been that fellow Travers, I suppose she'd have taken it right enough," he said to himself, bitterly, and without the slightest conviction. He said nothing at all to his mother. Julian knew why Stella had not taken the money. It was because she had not consented to what he had done; he had forced her will. Of all her remembered words, the ones that remained most steadily in his mind were: "You are not only sacrificing yourself; you are sacrificing me. I give you no such right."
That was her infernal woman's casuistry. He had a perfect right to save her. He was doing what a man of honor ought to do, freeing a woman he loved from an incalculable burden. It was no use Stella's saying she ought to have a choice,—pity had loaded her dice,—and it was sheer nonsense to accuse him of pride. He hadn't any. He'd consented to take her till he found she had a decent marriage at her feet. He couldn't have done anything else then but give her up. The greatest scoundrel unhung wouldn't have done anything else. It relieved Julian to compare himself to this illusory and self-righteous personage.
As to facing Stella with it, which he supposed was her fantastic claim, it only showed what a child she was and how little Stella knew about the world or men. There were things you couldn't tell a woman. Stella was too confoundedly innocent.
Why should he put them both to a scene of absolute torture? Surely he had endured enough. He wasn't a coward, but to meet her eyes and go against her was rather more than he could undertake, knocked about as he was by every kind of beastly helplessness. He fell back upon self-pity as upon an ally; it helped him to obscure Stella's point of view. She ought to have realized what it would make him suffer; and she didn't, or she would have taken the money. He did well, he assured himself, to be angry; everything in life had failed him. Stella had failed him. But at this point his prevailing sanity shook him into laughter. He could still laugh at the idea of Stella's having failed him.
You do not fail people because you refuse to release them from acting up to the standard you had expected of them; you fail them when you expect less of them than they can give you. When Julian had faced this fact squarely he ceased to beat about the bush of his vanity. He confessed to himself that he was a coward not to have had it out with Stella. But he acquiesced in this spiritual defeat; he assured himself that there were situations in life when for the sake of what you loved you had to be a coward. Of course it was for Stella's sake; a man, he argued, doesn't lie down on a rack because he likes it.
He wished he could have gone on being angry with Stella, because when he stopped being angry he became frightened.
He was haunted by the fear of Stella's poverty. He didn't know anything about poverty except that it was disagreeable and a long way off. He had a general theory that people who were very poor were either used to it or might have helped it; but this general theory broke like a bubble at the touch of a special instance.
The worst of it was that Stella had not really told him anything about her life. He knew that her father was a well-known Egyptologist, that her mother had various odd ethical beliefs, and he knew all that he wanted to know about Eurydice. But of Stella's actual life, of its burdens and its cares, what had she told him? That there weren't any bells in the house and that the clocks didn't go.
This showed bad management and explained her unpunctuality, but it explained nothing more. It did not tell Julian how poor she was, or if she was properly looked after when she came home from work.
If she married Travers, she would have about nine hundred a year. Julian had made investigations into the income of metropolitan town clerks.
He supposed that people could just manage on this restricted sum, with economy; but there seemed no reliable statistics about the incomes of famous Egyptologists. Why hadn't he asked Stella? She ought to have told him without being asked. He tried being angry with her for her secretiveness, but it hurt him, so he gave it up. He knew she would have told him if he had asked her.
Julian made himself a nuisance at the office for which he worked on the subject of pay for woman clerks. It relieved him a little, but not much.
Logically he ought to have felt only his own pain, which he could have stood; he had made Stella safe by it. But he had deserted her; he couldn't get this out of his head. He kept saying to himself, "If she's in any trouble, why doesn't she go to Travers?" But he couldn't believe that Stella would ever go to Travers.
The lighting restrictions—it was November, and the evening thoroughfares were as dark as tunnels—unnerved him. Stella might get run over; she was certain to be hopelessly absent-minded in traffic, and would always be the last person to get on to a crowded bus.
It was six months since he had broken off their engagement. Julian did not think it could possibly remind Stella of him if he sent her, addressed by a shop assistant, a flash-light lamp for carrying about the streets. She wouldn't send back a thing as small as a torch-lamp, even if she did dislike anonymous presents. He was justified in this conjecture. Stella kept the lamp, but she never had a moment's doubt as to whom it came from; if it had had "Julian" engraved on it she couldn't have been surer.
Julian always drove to his club at four o'clock, so that he didn't have to take his tea alone. He didn't wish to talk to anybody, but he liked being disturbed. Then he played bridge till dinner, dined at the club, and went back to his rooms, where he worked till midnight. This made everything quite possible except when he couldn't sleep.
He sat in an alcove, by a large, polished window of the club. It was still light enough to see the faces of the passers-by, to watch the motor-buses lurching through the traffic like steam tugs on a river, and the shadows creeping up from Westminster till they filled the green park with the chill gravity of evening.
A taxi drew up opposite to the club, and a man got out of it. There was nothing particularly noticeable about the man except that he was very neatly dressed. Julian took an instant and most unreasonable dislike to him. He said under his breath, "Why isn't the fellow in khaki?"
The man paid the driver what was presumably, from the scowl he received in return, his exact fare. Then he prepared to enter the club. He did not look in the least like any of the men who belonged to Julian's club. A moment later the waiter brought to Julian a card with "Mr. Leslie Travers" engraved upon it.
"Confound his impudence," was Julian's immediate thought. "Why on earth should I see the fellow?" Then he realized that he was being angry simply because Mr. Travers had probably seen Stella.
Julian instantly rejected the idea that Stella had sent Mr. Travers to see him; she wouldn't have done that. He wasn't in any way obliged to receive him; still, there was just the off chance that he might hear something about Stella if he did. Julian would rather have heard something about Stella from a condemned murderer; but as Providence had not provided him with this source of information, he decided to see the town clerk instead. You could say what you liked to a man if he happened to annoy you, and Julian rather hoped that Mr. Travers would give him this opportunity.
Mr. Travers entered briskly and without embarrassment. His official position had caused him to feel on rather more than an equality with the people he was likely to meet. He did not think that Sir Julian Verny was his equal.
Mr. Travers considered all members of the aristocracy loafers. Even when they worked, they did it, as it were, on their luck. They had had none of the inconveniences and resulting competence of having climbed from the bottom of the ladder to the top by their own unaided efforts.
There were three or four other men in the room when he entered it, but Mr. Travers picked out Julian in an instant. Their eyes met, and neither of them looked away from the other. Julian said stiffly: "Sit down, won't you? What will you take—a whisky and soda?"
"Thanks," said Mr. Travers, drawing up a chair opposite Julian and placing his hat and gloves carefully on the floor beside him. "I do not drink alcohol in between meals, but I should like a little aërated water."
Julian stared at him fixedly. This was the man Eurydice had compared with Napoleon, to the latter's disadvantage.
Mr. Travers refused a cigar, and sat in an arm-chair as if there were a desk in front of him. It annoyed Julian even to look at him.
"I have no doubt," said Mr. Travers, "that you are wondering why I ventured to ask you for this interview."
"I'm afraid I am, rather," Julian observed, with hostile politeness. "I know your name, of course."
"Exactly," said Mr. Travers, as if Julian had presented him with a valuable concession greatly to his advantage. "I had counted upon that fact to approach you directly and without correspondence. One should avoid black and white, I think, when it is possible, in dealing with personal matters."
"I am not aware," said Julian, coldly, "that there are any personal matters between us to discuss."
"I dare say not," replied Mr. Travers, blandly, placing the tips of his fingers slowly together. "You may have observed, Sir Julian, that coincidences bring very unlikely people together at times. I admit that they have done so in this instance."
"What for?" asked Julian, succinctly. He found that he disliked Mr. Travers quite as much as he intended to dislike him, and he despised him more.
"An injustice has been brought to my notice," said Mr. Travers, slowly and impressively. He was not in the least flurried by Julian's hostile manner, which he considered was due to an insufficient business education; it only made him more careful as to his own. "I could not overlook it, and as it directly concerns you, Sir Julian, I am prepared to make a statement to you on the subject."
"I'm sure I'm much obliged to you," said Julian; "but I trust you will make the statement as short and as little personal as possible."
"Speed," Mr. Travers said reprovingly, "is by no means an assistance in elucidating personal problems; and I may add, Sir Julian, that it is at least as painful for me as for you, to touch upon personal matters with a stranger."
"The fact remains," said Julian, impatiently, "that you're doing it, and I'm not. Go on!"
Mr. Travers frowned. Town clerks are not as a rule ordered to go on. Even their mayors treat them with municipal hesitancy. Still, he went on. Julian's eyes held him as in a vice.
"You have probably heard my name," Mr. Travers began, "from the elder Miss Waring." Julian nodded. "She was for two years and a half my secretary. I may say that she was the most efficient secretary I have ever had. There have been, I think, few instances in any office where the work between a man and woman was more impersonal or more satisfactory. It is due to the elder Miss Waring that I should tell you this. It was in fact entirely due to her, for I found myself unable to continue it. There was a lapse on my part. Miss Waring was consideration itself in her way of meeting this—er—lapse; but she unconditionally refused me."
Julian drew a quick breath, and turned his eyes away from Mr. Travers.
"At the same time," Mr. Travers continued, "she gave me to understand, in order, I fancy, to palliate my error of judgment, that her affections were engaged elsewhere."
Julian could not speak. His pride had him by the throat. He could not tell Mr. Travers to go on now, although he felt as if his life depended on it.
"There are one or two points which I put together, at a later date," Mr. Travers continued, after a slight pause, "and by which I was able to connect Miss Waring's statement with her subsequent actions. She is, if I may say so, a woman who acts logically. You were the man upon whom her affections were placed, Sir Julian, and that was her only reason for accepting your proposal of marriage."
Julian stared straight in front of him. It seemed to him as if he heard again the music of Chaliapine—the unconquerable music of souls that have outlasted their defeat. He lost the sound of Mr. Travers's punctilious, carefully lowered voice. When he heard it again, Mr. Travers was saying:
"It came to my knowledge through an interview with the younger Miss Waring, who has also become one of our staff, that she had regrettably misinformed you as to her sister's point of view. The younger Miss Waring acts at times impetuously and without judgment, but she had no intention whatever of harming her sister. She has been deeply anxious about her for the last few months, and she at length communicated her anxiety to me."
"Anxious," exclaimed Julian, sharply. "What the devil's she anxious about?"
"Her sister's state of health is not at all what it should be," Mr. Travers said gravely. "She looks weak and thin, and she occasionally forgets things. This is a most unusual and serious sign in a woman of her capacity."
"Damn her capacity!" said Julian savagely. "Why on earth couldn't you stop her working?"
"It is not in my province to stop people earning their daily bread," said Mr. Travers, coldly, "and I have never discussed this or any other private question with the elder Miss Waring since her return. When she came back to the town hall she refused to displace her sister, who had undertaken her former work and went into the surveyor's office."
"All right, all right," said Julian, hastily. "I dare say you couldn't have helped it; but how on earth did you find out if you've never talked to Miss Waring, what had happened?"
"I investigated the matter," said Mr. Travers, "with the younger Miss Waring. She confessed to me, under some slight pressure on my part, her very mistaken conclusions, and the action she had based upon them. I sent her at once, without mentioning what course of action I had decided to take myself, to her sister."
"You shouldn't have done that," said Julian, with the singular injustice Mr. Travers had previously noted and disliked in members of the upper classes. "There wasn't any need to give Eurydice away to her; I could have managed without that."
"You forget," said Mr. Travers, steadily, "the younger Miss Waring had forfeited her sister's confidence; it would have been impossible to avoid clearing up the situation by bringing all the facts to light. It will not, I feel sure, cause permanent ill feeling between the two sisters."
Julian gave a long, curious sigh. His relief was so intense that he could hardly believe in it; but he could believe, not without reluctance, in the hand that had set him free. It had taken a town clerk to show him where he stood.
"It would be difficult," he began—"By Jove! it's impossible to express thanks for this kind of thing! You won't expect it, perhaps, and I know of course, you didn't do it for me. For all that, I'm not ungrateful. I—well—I think you're more of a man than I am, Travers."
"Not at all, Sir Julian," said Mr. Travers, who privately felt surprised that there should be any doubt upon the matter. "Any one would have done precisely the same who had the good fortune to know the elder Miss Waring."
"Perhaps they would," said Julian, smiling, "or, you might add, the misfortune to come across the erratic proceedings of the younger one."
Mr. Travers looked graver still.
"There I cannot agree with you," he said quietly. "Perhaps I should have mentioned the matter before, but it scarcely seemed germane to the occasion; I am about to marry Miss Eurydice."
A vivid memory of Eurydice shot through Julian's mind. He saw her advancing down the grass path arrayed in the purple garment, with the scarlet hat and the dangling pomegranates; and the thought of her in conjunction with the town clerk was too much for him. Laughter seized him uncontrollably and shook him. He flung back his head and roared with laughter, and the graver and more disapproving Mr. Travers looked, the more helplessly and shamelessly Julian laughed.
"I'm most frightfully sorry," he gasped, "but I can't help it. Are you sure you're going to marry her? I mean,mustyou?"
Mr. Travers took his hat and gloves carefully in his hand.
"This is not a subject I care to discuss with you, Sir Julian," he said, with dignity, "nor is your tone a suitable one in which to refer to a lady. A man of my type does not shilly-shally on the question of matrimony; either he is affianced or he isnot. I have already told you that I am. You may have some excuse for misjudging the younger Miss Waring; but there can be no excuse whatever for your flippant manner of referring to our marriage. It is most uncalled for. I might say offensive."
A spasm of returning laughter threatened Julian again, but he succeeded in controlling it.
"My dear Travers," he said, holding out his hand, "please don't go away with a grievance. I am thoroughly ashamed of myself as it is, and more grateful to you than I can possibly express. You'll forgive me for not getting up, won't you? And try to overlook my bad manners."
It was the first time during the interview that Mr. Travers realized Julian's disabilities, but they did not make him feel more lenient.
Mr. Travers liked an invalid to behave as if he were an invalid, and he thought that a man in Julian's position should not indulge in unseemly mirth.
"Pray don't get up," he said coldly. "I am bound to accept your apology, of course, though I must confess I think your laughter very ill timed."
Julian took this rebuke with extraordinary humility. He insisted on giving Mr. Travers an unnecessarily cordial hand-shake, and invited him to drop in again at some hour when he would have a drink.
Mr. Travers waived aside this suggestion, he did not wish to continue Julian's acquaintance and he disapproved of Julian's club. The large luxurious lounges, the silent obsequious servants and the sprinkling of indolent men swallowed up in soft arm-chairs, bore out Mr. Travers's opinion of the higher classes. They were drones—whether they were in khaki or not.
Mr. Travers sighed heavily as he crossed the threshold. "She was a perfect business woman," he said to himself bitterly, "nipped in the bud."
For the first time since Mr. Travers had known her, he found himself doubting the judgment of the elder Miss Waring.
Julian's first impulse was to drive to the town hall and carry Stella off. He was debarred from doing so only by a secret fear that she might refuse to come. He was a little afraid of this first meeting with Stella. She might haul him over the coals as much as she liked; but he wanted to stage-manage the position of the coals.
He decided after a few moments of reflection to ring her up on the telephone. The porter at the other end said that Miss Waring was still at work, and seemed to think that this settled the question of any further effort on his part. Julian speedily undeceived him. He used language to the town hall porter which would have lifted every separate hair from Mr. Travers's head. It did not have this effect upon the porter. He was a man who appreciated language, and he understood that there was an expert at the other end of the line. It even spurred him into a successful search for Stella.
"That you, Stella?" Julian asked, "Do you know who's speaking to you?"
There was a pause before she answered a little unsteadily:
"Yes, Julian."
"Well," said Julian, with an anxiety he could hardly keep out of his voice, "I want to see you for a few minutes if you can spare the time. Will you come to the Carlton to tea? I suppose I mustn't ask you to my rooms."
"I can't do either," replied Stella. "I'm too busy. Can't you wait till Saturday?"
"Impossible," Julian replied firmly. "May I come and fetch you in a taxi? I suppose you don't dine and sleep at the town hall, do you?"
"No, you mustn't do that," said Stella, quickly; "but you can come to the Cottage Dairy Company, which is just opposite here, if you like. I shall go there for a cup of tea at five o'clock. I can spare you half an hour, perhaps."
"Oh, you will, will you?" said Julian, grimly. "I suppose I must be thankful for what I can get. Five sharp, then, at the what-you-may-call-'em."
Stella put up the receiver, but he thought before she did so that he heard her laugh.
Julian had never been to the Cottage Dairy Company before. It was a very nice, clean, useful little shop, and there was no necessity for him to take such an intense dislike to it. The rooms are usually full, and for reasons of space the tables are placed close together. The tables are marble-topped and generally clean. There is not more smell of inferior food than is customary in the cheaper restaurants of London.
Julian arrived at five minutes to the hour, and he turned the place literally upside down. It did no good, because Cottage Dairy Companies are democratic, and do not turn upside down to advantage.
He only succeeded in upsetting a manageress and several waitresses, and terrifying an unfortunate shop-girl who was occupying the only table in the room at which Julian could consent to sit by standing over her until she had finished her tea, half of which she left in consequence.
Stella was ten minutes late; by the time she arrived Julian had driven away the shop-girl, had the table cleared, and frozen every one in the neighborhood who cast longing glances at the empty place in front of him. He was consumed with fury at the thought that in all probability Stella had had two meals a day for six months in what he most unfairly characterized as a "loathsome, stinking hole."
As a matter of fact, Stella had not been able to afford the Cottage Dairy Company. She had had her meals at the People's Restaurant, which is a little cheaper and not quite so nice.
Julian's anger failed him when he saw Stella's face. She looked ill. He could not speak at first, and Stella made no attempt whatever to help him. She merely dropped her umbrella at his feet, sat down opposite him, and trembled.
"How dare you come to this infernal place?" Julian asked her at last, with readjusted annoyance, "and why didn't you tell me you were ill?" Then he ordered tea from a hovering waitress. "If you have anything decent to eat, you can bring it," he said savagely.
Stella smiled deprecatingly at the outraged waitress before she answered Julian.
"I'm not ill," she said gently, "and I couldn't very well tell you anything, could I, when I didn't know where you were?"
"Of course, if you make a point of eating and drinking poison," said Julian, bitterly, "you aren't likely to be very well. I suppose you could have told my mother, but no doubt that didn't occur to you. You simply wished—" He stopped abruptly at the approach of the waitress.
Stella did not try to pour out the tea; she showed no proper spirit under Julian's unjust remarks. She only put her elbows on the table and looked at him.
"There, drink that," he said, "if you can. It's the last chance you'll get of this particular brand. They call it China, and it looks like dust out of a rubbish-heap. I don't know what you call that thing on the plate in front of you, but I suppose it's meant to eat. So you may as well try to eat it."
"Food," said Stella, with the ghost of her old fugitive smile, "isn't everything, Julian."
"It's all you'll get me to talk about in a place like this," said Julian, firmly. "I wonder you didn't suggest our meeting in one of those shelters on the Strand! Do you realize that there's a Hindu two yards to your right, a family of Belgian refugees behind us, and the most indescribable women hemming us in on every side? How can you expect us to talk here?"
"But you and I are here," said Stella, quietly. "Julian, how could you believe what Eurydice told you?"
Julian lowered his eyes.
"Must I tell you now?" he asked gravely. "I'd rather not."
"Yes, I think you must," said Stella, relentlessly, "You needn't tell me much, but you must say enough for me to go on with. If you don't, I can't talk at all; I can only be afraid."
Julian kept his eyes on a tea-stained spot of marble. There was no confidence in his voice now; it was not even very steady as he answered her.
"I made a mistake," he said. "You weren't there. I wanted you to have everything there was. I can't explain. I ought to have let you choose, but if you'd chosen wrong I should have felt such a cur. I can't say any more here. Please, Stella!"
She was quick to let him off.
"I oughtn't to have left you so soon," she said penitently; "that wasquitemy fault."
Julian made no answer. He drew an imaginary pattern on the table with a fork; he couldn't think why they'd given him a fork unless it was a prevision that he would need something to fidget with. It helped him to recover his assurance.
"I suppose you know," he said reflectively, contemplating the unsuspicious Hindu on his right, "that I'm never going to let you out of my sight again?"
"I dare say I shall like being alone sometimes," replied Stella; "but I don't want you to go calmly off and arrange things that break us both to pieces. I'd never see you again rather than stand that!"
"Now," said Julian, "you've roused the Belgians; they're awfully interested. I'll never go off again, though you're not very accurate; it was you that went off first. I only arranged things, badly I admit, when I was left alone. I wasn't so awfully calm. As far as that goes, I've been calmer than I am now. Have you had enough tea?"
"You know it's you I mind about," said Stella, under her breath.
"You mustn't say that kind of thing in a tea-shop," said Julian, severely. "You're very nearly crying, and though I'd simply love to have you cry, I believe it's against the regulations. And there's a fat lady oozing parcels to my left who thinks it's all my fault, and wants to tell me so."
"I'm not crying," said Stella, fiercely. "I'm going back to work. I don't believe you care about anything but teasing."
"I don't believe I do," agreed Julian, with twinkling eyes; "but I haven't teased any one for six months, you know, Stella. How much may I tip the waitress? Let's make it something handsome; I've enjoyed my tea. I'll take you across to the town hall."
"It's only just the other side of the road," Stella objected.
"Still, I'd like you to get into this taxi," said Julian, hailing one from the door.
Stella looked at him searchingly. "I should be really angry if you tried to carry me off," she warned him.
"My dear Stella," said Julian, meeting her eyes imperturbably, "I haven't the nerve to try such an experiment. I'm far too much afraid of you. Get in, won't you? The man'll give me a hand." He turned to the driver. "Drive wherever you like for a quarter of an hour," he explained, "and then stop at the town hall."
The taxi swung into the darkened thoroughfare, and Julian caught Stella in his arms and kissed her as if he could never let her go.
"Not very clever of you," he murmured, "not to guess why I wanted a taxi."
Stella clung to him speechlessly. She did not know what to say; she only knew that he was there and that the desperate loneliness of the empty world was gone.
She wanted to speak of the things that she believed in, she wanted not to forget to reassure him, in this great subdual of her heart; but she did not have to make the effort. It was Julian who spoke of these things first.
He spoke hurriedly, with little pauses for breath, as if he were running.
"I know now," he said, "I've been a fool and worse. I saw it as soon as I looked at you; it broke me all up. How could I tell you'd mind losing a man like me? I'm glad it's dark; I'm glad you can't see me. I'm ashamed. Stella, the fact is, I gave you up because I couldn't stick it; my nerve gave way."
"I shouldn't have left you so soon; it was all my fault for leaving you," Stella murmured.
"That rather gives the show away, doesn't it," asked Julian "not to be able to stand being left?"
"You weren't thinking only of yourself," Stella urged defensively.
"Wasn't I?" said Julian. "I kept telling myself I was behaving decently when I was only being grand. Isn't that thinking of yourself?"
"But on the downs," urged Stella, "you weren't like that, darling."
"You were on the downs, remember," said Julian. "I got your point of view then—to give in, anyhow, to love. It wasn't easy, but it made it more possible that if I didn't marry you, you only had hard work and a dull life. It seemed different when I heard about that fellow Travers. You see, that cut me like a knife. I kept thinking—well, you know what a man like me keeps thinking—at least I don't know that you do. It was my business to fight it through alone."
"No it isn't," Stella protested quickly. "We haven't businesses that aren't each other's."
"Well," admitted Julian, "I couldn't bear thinking I'd cheated you out of my own values; so I let yours slide. I knew, if I gave you the choice, you'd stick to me; but I couldn't trust you not to make a mistake. That's where my nerve broke down."
"Ah, but I didn't know," whispered Stella; "I didn't know enough how to show you I loved you. If you'd seen, you wouldn't have broken down. I was afraid to try. Now I can. All these six months have eaten up my not knowing how." She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. "You see, I do know how!"
He held her close, without speaking; then he murmured: "And knowing how doesn't make you afraid?"
"It's the only thing that doesn't," said Stella, lifting her eyes to his.
The taxi stopped before the door of the town hall.
"And have I got to let you go now?" Julian asked gently.
"I shall never really go," Stella explained; "but you can let me get out and tidy up the surveyor's papers, and then be free for you to-morrow."
Julian opened the door for her. She stood for a moment under the arc of light beneath the lamp-post looking back at him.
The love between them held them like a cord. Julian had never felt so little aware of his helplessness; but he wondered, as he gazed into her eyes, if Stella realized the bitterness of all that they had lost.
She neither stirred nor spoke. She held his eyes without faltering; she gave him back knowledge for knowledge, love for love; and still there was no bitterness. At last he knew that she had seen all that was in his heart; and then for a moment, if but for a moment, Julian forgot what they had lost; he remembered only what they had found.
When Stella reëntered the town hall the porter was still sitting at his desk near the door, but every one else had gone.
"Oh, I hope I have not kept you, Humphreys," Stella said apologetically. "I had no idea it was so late. I'll be as quick as I can."
"Mr. Travers is still in 'is room," Humphreys admitted gloomily; "'e came back an hour ago. Gawd knows how long 'e'll be at it. There's been a tri-bunal and wot not this afternoon. Talk abaht mud in the trenches! 'Alf the gutters of Lunnon 'as been dribbling through this 'ere 'all. I've asked for an extra char, an', what's more, I mean ter 'ave 'er. War or no war, I'll 'ave a woman under me."
The surveyor's office was empty. Stella's papers were just as she had left them, but her whole life lay in between.
She would never copy the surveyor's plans again or do the office accounts or look through the correspondence. She would not hover in the drafty passages and listen to the grumbling Humphreys nor stand outside glass doors and help bewildered fellow-clerks over their blunders before they went in to face a merciless authority.
She would probably never see green baize again. She tried to fix her mind on the accounts, but through the columns of figures ran the wind from the downs. The half-darkened, empty room filled itself with Amberley.
She tried to imagine her life with Julian. It would be unlike anything she had lived before; it would require of her all she had to give. The town hall had not done this. It had taken the outer surfaces of her mind, her time, and much of her youth: but her inner self had been free.
It was not free now; it had entered that dual communion of love. It was one with Julian, and yet not one; because she knew that though he filled every entrance to her heart, though her mind companioned his mind, and her life rested on him, yet she was still herself. She would be for Julian the Stella of Amberley, but she would not cease to be the Stella of the town hall.
She would not part with her experiences; poverty, drudgery, the endless petty readjustments to the ways of others should belong to her as much as joy. Privilege should neither hold nor enchain her, and she would never let anything go.
She would keep her people, her old interests, Mr. Travers, even the surveyor, if he wished to be kept. Stella mightn't be able to impart them to Julian, but she could give him all he wanted and still have something to spare. Julian himself would profit by her alien interests; he would get tired of a woman who hadn't anything to spare. Stella was perfectly happy, but she could still see over the verge of her happiness. Joy had come to her with a shock of surprise which would have puzzled Julian. He had the strength of attack, which is always startled when it cannot overcome opposition. Julian never coöperated with destiny, he always fought it. Sometimes he overcame it; but when it overcame him, he could not resign himself to defeat. Stella took unhappiness more easily; in her heart, even now, she believed in it. She believed that the balance of life is against joy, that destiny and fate prey upon it, overcloud it, and sometimes destroy it; and she believed that human beings can readjust this balance. She believed in a success which is independent of life, an invisible and permanent success.
She did not think of this for herself, it never occurred to her that she possessed it; but she believed in its existence, and she wanted it, and sought for it, in every soul she knew. She wanted it most for Julian, but she did not think it could be got for him to-morrow. She did not expect to get it for him, though she would have given all she possessed to help him to obtain it.
She only hoped that he would win it for himself, and that she would not be a hindrance to his winning it; that was as far as Stella's hopes carried her before she returned to the accounts.
When she had finished the accounts, she took them to the town clerk's room.
Mr. Travers was sitting as usual at his desk, but he did not appear to be writing. Perhaps he was also doing his accounts.
"I'm afraid," Stella said apologetically, "I'm very late with these papers, Mr. Travers. I was detained longer than I had intended."
"I expected you to be late," said Mr. Travers, quietly. "In fact, I should not have been surprised if you had not returned at all. It occurred to me that you might not come back to the town hall again."
"I had to finish my work," said Stella, gently, "and I wanted to see you; but after this, if you and Mr. Upjohn can find some one else to take my place, I shall not return. I know I ought not to leave you in the lurch like this without proper notice; I should have liked to have given you at least another week to find some one to take my place, but I am afraid I must leave at once."
"I think I can make a temporary arrangement to tide us over," Mr. Travers replied thoughtfully. "Your leaving us was bound to be a loss in any case."
They were silent for a moment. Mr. Travers still sat at his desk, and Stella stood beside him with the papers in her hand.
"I hope you will not think I took too much upon myself, Miss Waring," said Mr. Travers at last, "in going to see Sir Julian Verny this afternoon. It seemed to me a man's job, if I may say so, and not a woman's. I thought your sister had done enough in letting you know herself how gravely she had misunderstood us all; and if I had notified you of my intention, I feared that you might not have seen your way to ratify it."
"I am very glad indeed you spared Eurydice," said Stella; "I would not have let her go to Julian. I would have gone myself; but I am glad I did not have to do it. You spared us both."
"That," said Mr. Travers, "was what I had intended."
Stella put the papers on the desk; then she said hesitatingly:
"Mr. Travers, may I ask you something?"
"Yes, Miss Waring; I am always at your disposal," replied Mr. Travers, clearing his throat. "You are not an exacting questioner."
"I hope you will not think me so," said Stella, gently; "but are you sure—will you be quite happy with Eurydice?"
Mr. Travers met her eyes. She did not think she had ever seen him look as he looked now; his eyes were off their guard. It was perhaps the only time in his life when Mr. Travers wished any one to know exactly what he felt.
"You will remember, Miss Waring," he said, "that I told you once before that I am a lonely man. I have not won affection from people. I think I have obtained your sister's regard, and I am proud to have done so. I suppose, too, that all men have the desire to protect some one. I do not know much about feelings in general, but I should suppose that the desire for protectionisa masculine instinct?"
Stella nodded. She wished to give Mr. Travers all the instincts that he wanted, and if he preferred to think them solely masculine, she had not the least objection.
"I see that you agree with me," said Mr. Travers, with satisfaction, "and you will therefore be able to understand my point of view. I have a very real regard for Miss Eurydice. Her work is of great, though unequal, value, and I should like to see her happy and comfortable and, if I may say so, safe. I do not think that the life of women who work in public offices, unless they are peculiarly gifted by nature, is safe. I may be old-fashioned, Miss Waring, but I still maintain that woman's sphere is the home."
"I am glad you feel like that about Eurydice," said Stella, softly.
She paused for a moment. She wanted to thank him, but she knew that she must thank him only for some little thing. The greater things she must leave entirely alone. He trusted her to do this; he was trusting her with all he had. She must protect him from her gratitude.
"Before I leave the town hall, Mr. Travers," she said, "I want to thank you for what I have learned here. That is really one of the reasons I came back to-night. You have been such a help to me as a business woman. I am not going to give it up. I shall keep all that you have taught me, and take it into my new life with me. It has been an education to work in your office under your rule."
"I am glad you have felt it to be so, Miss Waring," said Mr. Travers, with grave satisfaction. "I have devoted what talents I possess to the running of this town hall, under the auspices of the mayor, of course. I am very much gratified if my methods have been of any service to you. Our relationship has certainly not been a one-sided benefit. I took occasion to say to Sir Julian this afternoon that I had never had a more efficient secretary."
"I am so glad you told Julian that," said Stella, smiling. "My work with him was only make-believe."
"There is a leniency about your dealings with people," Mr. Travers continued, ignoring her reference to Julian, "which sometimes needs restraint, Miss Waring. The world, I fear, cannot be run upon lenient principles. Nevertheless, in some cases I am not prepared to say that your system has not got merits of its own. I recognize that personal leniency modifies certain problems even of business life. I should be apprehensive of seeing it carried too far; but up to a certain point," said Mr. Travers, rising to his feet and holding out his hand to Stella to close the interview, "I am prepared to accept your theory."
[Transcriber's Note: One illustration missing. Extensive research could not find another source.]