Mrs. Morton sat by the drawing-room fire, listening for the sound of wheels. The wind was high and as it dashed among the trees it made a roaring as of many chariots. Three times already she had laid down her crotchet and picked it up again, and now, wrapping a little shawl about her shoulders, she went to the window and watched for a blot on the whiteness of the drive that followed the side of the lawn for a little way before it curved out of sight.
The grass before the house sloped to a glimmer of water, and was edged by clustered trees; on the other side of the lake more trees stood black against the fading light, and close to the house there was a group of elms in which the rooks were busy. The branches of all the trees were swaying, flinging themselves this way and that, dipping towards the earth and springing up again in defiance of their humility, shaking their heads in denial, lowering them in contrite affirmation. The noise they made was like that of the sea, but, because it was rarer, it was more foreboding. The roaring of the sea, now loud, now soft, is as unceasing as its ebb and flow, but the trees only cry out when the wind whips them, and their voice is full of lamentation.
Mrs. Morton did not like the wind. She loved her home best when the summer sun shone on it, and the trees were clothed in green to hide their nakedness, when the flower-beds were bright with colour, and she could stroll beside them under the shade of her parasol. The gaunt energy of leafless trees, their moans and wailings, were akin to the sight and sound of a soul laid bare, and this tall, white-haired lady with the passive face disliked them according to her dread of the primitive and unruly.
She shuddered as she waited for Theresa. This was no fit day for Basil to bring home his betrothed; there was no bridal softness in the air and, with a carelessness unlike him, he had driven to meet her in the dog-cart. She had protested, for the wind was cold, but he had smiled, told her Theresa loved the wind, and repeated his inconsiderate order. She would be cold when she arrived.
Mrs. Morton looked round the white-panelled room with its shining floor and furniture, and she looked approvingly, for the lamps were warmly shaded, the fire was bright, and the tea-table and comfortable chairs were drawn close to the hearth.
Again she strained her eyes into the dusk, and when they had cleared themselves of the reflected lamplight and the dim picture of herself on the other side of the window, she saw the dog-cart moving quickly.
She was at the hall door, as she had planned, at the moment when Morton reined in the horse and the groom sprang to its head, and she saw the startling dexterity of Theresa's leap to the ground.
She heard her son's reproachful tones. "You might have hurt yourself."
And Theresa's answer, clear and gay: "No I mightn't. I can calculate a jump to an inch."
Morton laughed, and led the small figure up the steps.
"Mother, here is Theresa," he said.
She was embraced, but, in the half light, Mrs. Morton could not see her face. She felt the cold firmness of her cheeks, and she kissed them through strands of wind-blown hair.
With a processional solemnity, they passed into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Morton, Basil and a maid helped to free her of her wraps.
"You must be very cold, dear. Come to the fire."
"I'm not cold, thank you. I loved it. I felt as if we were another wind, we went so fast."
"I wanted Basil to take the brougham," Mrs. Morton murmured. She had pictured herself settling Theresa in a chair, putting a cushion to her back, holding one of her hands, perhaps; but Theresa was standing very straight—her back seemed unusually strong—and she was smiling faintly, while her hands were occupied in the swift removal of her gloves. There seemed no point at which she could be conveniently caressed, and Mrs. Morton sank into the chair beside the tea-table.
"You will be glad of tea," she said. "Basil, won't you make Theresa sit down? She looks so tired. Now, dear, you would like some hot toast."
Theresa was in an uncertain temper, and if she had not been very eager for buttered toast, she would have refused it as a form of contradiction; but the sight of it shining in the hearth overcame annoyance with desire. She foresaw, however, a quick starvation if Mrs. Morton continued to accompany offers of food with these firmly uttered statements.
"You had a tiring journey?" There was just a redeeming tilt at the end of the sentence, and Theresa condescended to consider it a question.
"No thank you. I liked watching the country."
"But in winter time it is all so sad."
"But this is spring—almost! And I saw some lambs—the first. They're early here." And as she spoke she saw the green cleanliness of the earth when the snow has melted into it, and lambs, like little forgotten patches of that snow, leaping about the hills.
She went on quickly. "And there were pigs. I like them. They're so greedy, and they don't pretend to care for anything except their—except what they eat."
The subject of pigs was not encouraged. Basil was handing her more toast, as though he wished it were a kingdom, and she knew he was too much engaged with the joy of her presence to listen to her babblings. It was right that he should be happy at seeing her in the home they were to share, yet, in that moment, he lost something with which she once had dowered him. She eyed him critically. He was good to look at, and beauty always softened her; but his strongest appeal for her had been his distance, and here, among the teacups with his mother, he was too near, he almost seemed domestic. She realized the cold cruelty of her phase, she hoped it would not last, but she could do nothing to be rid of it. She was forced to her callous scrutiny, she was entirely shorn of any sense of possession, and while her mind told her she would recover her old sensations, her heart was like a dead thing in her breast. She knew the reason, for it lay on that heart which it had struck, and when she stirred she felt the sharp edge of Alexander's letter.
She moved now, quickly.
"She wants a cushion," Mrs. Morton cooed, but Basil was already propping Theresa's back.
She smiled at him, from the lips, trying to feel the kindness that lay crushed.
"You're lovely," he said, under cover of Mrs. Morton's manipulation of the tea things.
She gave her emphatic half-shake of the head. She knew the wind had nipped her, that her hair fell in wisps about her face, and his loving blindness made her disloyalty the blacker. She would not be disloyal, but she questioned her love for him, she faced the possibility of resigning him, and at once she had an impulse to thrust herself into his arms. Instead, she put her hand in his and held it fast, and, like a gentle tide, she felt the return of tenderness.
Alone in the pretty room prepared for her, and still with that determined loyalty upon her, she made to throw Alexander's letter in the fire; yet to do that, she argued, was to admit its power, and it had no power for anything but a disturbance that would pass. It came too late. A little while ago—she did not follow the thought, but she knew its path. She shut her eyes to it.
She loved Basil. She could not picture life without him. After herself she belonged to him. She was proud to be his. He was good, and true, and for all her self-esteem she wondered how he came to love her.
After dinner, as they all sat in the drawing-room Theresa gazed at Mrs. Morton in a kind of wonder. She sat in her chair, crotcheting slowly, with frequent reference to an instruction book, and counting her stitches half aloud between her amiable sentences. In uttering commonplaces, she had a dignity which forced the listener to reach deeply or loftily for truth, and return from that vain pilgrimage with a sensation of having been robbed by the wayside. When she announced that their nearest neighbours, the Warings, were to have tea with them on the following day, Theresa waited anxiously for the something more implied in those pregnant tones. But Mrs. Morton serenely counted stitches. At length, "You will like the Warings," she said.
Theresa stared into the fire. She was prepared to hate anyone thus introduced. She was not far from hating Mrs. Morton. Her lips tightened, her idle hands pressed each other closely. Had this placid person ever been in love? Was she so obtuse that she could not feel the fret of Theresa's spirit? Did she not know that solitude is the great need of lovers, or realize that Basil had not yet so much as kissed her? The presence of the groom had prevented confidences on the drive, and in the house Mrs. Morton had shadowed her in excess of welcome. She looked at Basil, who was looking at her, and raised her eyebrows wearily. He raised his own, and they smiled in the delightful comradeship of annoyance shared. She wanted to talk to him, to make amends for the wickedness of her thoughts, and here they sat, all three, and her tongue was tied. She longed to tear the crotchet from Mrs. Morton's plump white hands; she felt the old anger of her childhood rising to her throat, and she pressed her hand to it and forced it back.
"Basil, Theresa's throat is sore. You shouldn't have driven her in the dog-cart on such a day. You shall have some sugared lemon, dear. Ring the bell, Basil."
"Not for that, please! I haven't a sore throat. I—just happened to touch myself there—oh, really!" There was a laughing anguish in her voice. Was she to be handcuffed as well as starved?
"Don't be afraid of giving trouble, dear."
"Theresa always tells the truth, Mother."
"Oh, of course! Very well. But she looked as if she had a sudden pain."
"I'm afraid it is a habit."
"That reminds me of an old lady I knew when I was young. I thought she had St. Vitus's dance, until her maid told me that she wore all her valuable jewellery on her—under her dress, and she was constantly touching herself to make sure it was all there."
"What were you hiding, Theresa?"
She lifted her chin to show him the pretty lines of her bare neck.
"Ah, your own beauty," he added softly.
"Something else," she said.
"Tell me."
She shook her head. "You must find out."
Mrs. Morton's voice penetrated this happy murmur.
"You crotchet, Theresa?"
Morton had to shake the hand he held. "Theresa, Mother asks you if you crotchet."
"Oh! No, I don't. That's very pretty."
"It is for you."
"Is it?"
"Yes, a tray cloth."
"Thank you. How clever of you!"
"I'll teach you if you would care to learn."
"I don't think I could. I've got such stiff fingers for things like that. They're good enough for typing. Basil, did I tell you about that last woman of mine?"
It was during the recital of this tale that Mrs. Morton left the room. Theresa stopped and looked at the closing door.
"Was I saying anything wrong?" she asked. "I am so used to talking frankly to Mr. Smith and Jack, that I forget other people may not like it. Was I?"
"No, dear, but the whole thing is rather disagreeable to her."
"But how?"
"Well, you see——"
"Is it that she doesn't like you to marry a woman who has earned her own living?"
"That, of course, was rather a shock. Darling, try to understand her attitude. She has old-fashioned notions of womanhood. She thinks you should not have been allowed to do the work you did, and I own that it seems unnatural to me, too. But you are wonderful, Theresa. You are the exceptional woman who can do these things. You are unscathed."
She stood up and fell into that attitude in which he had first seen her.
"I am not unscathed," she said. "If you drop down into hell, even another person's hell, you come back—scorched. And I have the marks." She turned to him quiveringly. "Basil, have you ever suffered?"
"I think so. My father was killed—I found him. And I—he was a great deal to me."
"Death!" She flung back her head. "Oh yes, yes, yes; death is so much worse, and so much better, than people fancy. But have you felt your own heart shrivelling to a thing like a dried nut? Have you carried that about with you as—as some people do? And have you heard stories told by women whose eyes are dry because they have no tears left? I have. I have. Oh, shocking stories of sin, of things no girl should know the name of!" She spoke more quietly. "It's quite possible that I know more than you do of the world's evil, for you are the kind of person who never looks in the gutters: you keep your head high, but I look everywhere. And I want to see the gutter dirt: it's part of life, and the sun shines on that as well as on the flowers in the gardens. But I don't like it. You're not to think I like it. But you are to think I am very proud of having done that work. I suppose Mrs. Morton has not told your friends I am a working woman?"
"She did not wish them to know. You must not think us snobs, Theresa, but in a place like this there are so many prejudices, and we do not want you to be hurt by them."
"I can't be hurt by foolishness, and I won't be in the conspiracy. And why should your mother feel like that? She is Mr. Smith's sister, and their father educated himself, and then made sweets. From her point of view isn't that as bad, worse even, than my honourable calling?"
"You see, you are a woman, Theresa."
"Are we never to go unveiled and free?"
He smiled gently. "Moreover, when my mother married my father she considered herself a member of his family rather than of her own."
"Oh!"
"Some women do, you know."
"Oh! Don't hope for that from me, Basil. I won't be welded into anybody's family or anybody's nature."
"Darling,"—his arms were round her—"I never want you to be anything but yourself."
She leaned back.
"But is it a self you like? Are you satisfied with it? You know"—she touched his chin lightly with her forefinger—"we're going to have a lot of trouble."
"If we are together——"
"Because we are together. Oh, I can smell it afar off. I did directly I came into the house."
"Don't you like it?" he asked, and released her gently.
"The house is beautiful—but we're not going to be alone in it, are we? Oh, I'm not complaining, but I rather wish we were going to have a semi-detached villa, and a maid like Bessie. Yet I hate housework! I'm afraid—I'm dreadfully afraid—I shall get annoyed." Her head was on one side, she twisted her fingers among his.
"Theresa, you will be considerate of my mother."
"Don't, don't, don't! If you put questions in the form of statements I shall go mad."
There was patience in his look, but he redeemed it with a laugh. "I beg your pardon. Theresa, will you be considerate of my mother?"
"I'll try."
"I thought you prided yourself on your tact."
"I do. I have it highly developed, but the devil sometimes steals it."
"You are a little childish."
"Very!"
"And my mother is dear to me."
"So was mine to me. She was—sweet, my mother was, but that didn't prevent my getting angry with her. I wish I didn't get so angry. Do you understand that you're engaged to a volcano, an active one?"
"I'm beginning to."
"And I'm in eruption now. Be careful."
"I love my volcano."
"She'll hurt you, often. Destroy you altogether, perhaps. Basil, I want to tell you something. There'll be times when I shall nearly hate you."
"Why?"
"I don't know. It's just me. I'm cruel. But love me always, and I'll come back to you."
"I can't help loving you, dear," he said, and kissed her hair.
"But do you trust me?"
"Darling, of course!"
She made herself more comfortable in his arms. "Then I'll be worthy, if I can. Take care of me."
She was happy that night when she went to bed, and, sitting by the fire with her softly slippered feet close to the blaze, she could take Alexander's letter from its place, and hold it easily in a hand on which Basil's diamonds sparkled.
Only that morning the letter had been dropped into the hall as she stood there in her travelling coat, with the veil that swathed her little hat pushed up so that she might drink the hot milk Bessie offered.
"That'll be for the master," Bessie said. "No, it's for you, Miss Terry. Now, drink the milk. I won't have people telling me you're thin. Of course, you're thin! You tell 'im I've given you hot milk every morning this last week."
"All right, Bessie, all right. He knows you take care of me."
"So 'e ought."
She had held the letter in her pocket, stroking it with her thumb; and then Grace and the baby had come in to say good-bye, and not until she was in the train had she been able to read what Alexander wrote. Then she read it many times. "Will you not be here to see it flush the hills? And the streams so fierce and heavy that it takes your breath away." She wanted to be there. She thought she felt the cold spray on her face. She felt the air: passing through it was to be new-made. Her steps were buoyant, her eyes were washed and clean. She heard the water, she heard the larches singing, and her heart cried in her breast. She would dream to-night, and she longed for the darkness and feared it. She would see the lakeside and the black precipice, the water would be whispering at her feet, and she would be waiting, waiting. It was a long time since she had been there.
But Alexander's letter roused her to more than this sickness of longing that she dared not analyse too closely. "I've been waiting for that book of yours," he said. There would never be a book. And he was looking for it. She was hurt and shamed as by a promise broken to a child. Talking freely on that wonderful one day of theirs, she had told him what she meant to do, and he had given her that plunging look of response. How had she dared to talk like that, and then do nothing? She knew the answer. And now it was too late. She was to be a county lady. She had come to an age when she was no longer sure that she had the power she had always wanted; but she ought to have put it to the test, for she had told Alexander what she was going to do; she had told Alexander. The words came with such force that her lips framed them. She had told Alexander. She had another tale for him now. "Oh yes," she said, "you shall have a letter," and she quickly wrote it, sitting there with the firelight on her bare arms and her quick, thin hands.
"Dear Alexander,"Thank you for your letter. It was like seeing the place. I didn't begin the book. I lost faith, and I'll never get it back. I'm weak, but perhaps it is a good thing and has saved the spilling of much ink. It was a young ambition of mine, and you know what Father is! So I'm going to be married instead, for that's a profession we all think we are fit for! I shall see you at Easter. It will be two years then."Theresa."
"Dear Alexander,
"Thank you for your letter. It was like seeing the place. I didn't begin the book. I lost faith, and I'll never get it back. I'm weak, but perhaps it is a good thing and has saved the spilling of much ink. It was a young ambition of mine, and you know what Father is! So I'm going to be married instead, for that's a profession we all think we are fit for! I shall see you at Easter. It will be two years then.
"Theresa."
She felt like a penitent who has relieved her soul of sin and planted a dart in the breast of her confessor.
As Theresa entered the drawing-room on the following afternoon, she felt the imminence of ceremony. Mrs. Morton had cast aside her crotchet and sat, in satin and old lace, awaiting the coming of her guests; and the room, softly and rosily shaded, seemed to Theresa like a temple raised to the social cult, with the tea-table for altar and Mrs. Morton for ministrant.
She closed the door with a decorous quiet and advanced, her mouth curved into the faint smile that had some mobile quality though the lips were still.
"I thought you would be late," said Mrs. Morton.
"I did my hair three times. I wanted to look nice."
"You look charming, dear. I hope you are not feeling nervous."
"Oh no!"
"I expect you are—a little. I remember my own introduction to the friends of Basil's father. It was in this room. It was a very anxious moment for me. One naturally wants to please, and I was very shy as a girl."
"You were younger than I am, perhaps."
"Only eighteen."
"Ah, I'm twenty-five. That makes a lot of difference." The picture of a maiden hearkening to the wisdom of the matron, she stood before Mrs. Morton with her hands behind her back, her head bent to look and listen.
"But you are not married, dear." Mrs. Morton was finding it unexpectedly easy to talk to Theresa. "And until a girl is married——"
"Yet I sometimes feel as though I have been married several times," she said.
The words suggested a shocking fertility of imagination.
"My dear, what do you mean?"
Theresa laughed. "Just that. One knows so much one hasn't actually experienced."
"I hope not!"
"But I can't help it," she urged. "It's how I happen to be made."
Mrs. Morton moved uneasily. "I'm afraid I don't know what you mean. I suppose I am very old-fashioned." She was disappointed at the very moment when she thought she was beginning to understand her son's love for this pale, quick girl with the watchful eyes, whose glances half-alarmed her. She was glad when the door was opened. "Ah, here's Basil."
Theresa turned to him. "Basil," she said, "have you ever been in a balloon?"
"No."
"But you can imagine what it's like, can't you?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Of course you can." She was eager, persuasive. "You would have a feeling of having no inside, wouldn't you, and no feet? And you would feel like a little speck of dust, and because you were so small, it wouldn't seem to matter if you fell out into that enormous empty space? Would it?"
He humoured her, smiling as he took in the radiance of her hair, the slimness of the green-clad body, the thin feet in their bronze-coloured shoes.
"Very likely," he said.
"You see!" she exclaimed, laughing. "Basil knows all about something he hasn't experienced. Why shouldn't I?" Her lips changed their curve. "Is it because I am a woman?" Her little taunt was for him: she had forgotten his mother, on whose face there were small evidences of distress.
"What is it now, dear?" he murmured, and led her to the window. "Come and look at the trees against the sky."
She went meekly, for the sake of the hand holding her; but she was shaken by inward laughter. Like a child she was being drawn out of mischief and enticed to look out of the window at the pretty sky.
And later, when the guests had arrived, when Mr. and Mrs. Waring talked to her kindly and ponderously, and the three Misses Waring in the glow of their healthy young beauty asked who was her favourite author and if she liked the country, she knew that Mrs. Morton watched her nervously. She was annoyed by that suspicion of her manners, but stronger than her annoyance was her determination to please, not, like Mrs. Morton, for her lover's sake, but for her own. Her one sure talent cried loudly to be used, and as she listened to it, she felt a stir of physical pleasure in her breast. She, who had drawn the truth from unwilling lips, and brought back long-forgotten laughter, had no doubt of making what effect she chose on these amiable strangers.
Sitting in a low chair, with folded hands on her knee, and looking younger than she was, she listened, smiled, and answered quietly while she studied the faces ringing her. She saw Mr. and Mrs. Waring deciding that she was a nice little thing, not pretty, not clever, but possessed of the vague niceness necessary for the complete young lady. That was not sufficient tribute for Theresa, and she awaited the opportunity to make Mr. Waring laugh. It came, she seized it with some audacity, and the old gentleman's guffaw acknowledged her. Her lifted brows wondered at his amusement, but her mouth betrayed her.
A pale flush of excitement was in her cheeks. Mrs. Waring and her daughters were smiling politely, while the head of the family leaned back in his chair to laugh, and, between his cackles, he repeated the joke to Morton. Morton, too, smiled politely; the humour did not reach him and, a little ashamed of his guest's clamour, he drew him on to agricultural matters; but those stiff smiles were Theresa's triumph, for the joke had been aimed at Mr. Waring alone, and it had hit the mark.
The two matrons fell into talk, and, still wearing that gentle look of surprise, Theresa turned to the three young women: she seemed to ask for conversational help, and they gave it in the form of questions. Did she ride? No, she wished she did. She thought Basil was going to teach her.
"He rides perfectly." The second Miss Waring looked across the room to where he sat, and in that shy glance Theresa read renunciation, maidenly and empty of all bitterness.
"I expect you all do," she said.
"No, my sisters don't care for it. I love it."
"Basil taught her when she was small. She can ride anything," said the eldest sister proudly. "They hunt together."
"We haven't lately, Rose," the other said, and blushed.
Theresa leaned forward coaxingly. "Oh, do go next time and let me see you both!" she cried. "It's splendid to see people doing things really well."
"Oh, do you think so?" The second Miss Waring controlled a smile.
Was she fond of gardening? This question was from the youngest beauty. No, she didn't know anything about it. They only had a patch of rough grass at home, and an apple-tree. There was a pause. It was Rose who returned to the subject of books.
"I expect you are a great reader?"
"Oh, more or less."
"I adore reading. And poetry. Whose poetry do you like best?"
"I don't know," said Theresa slowly.
She had assured them all of their superiority: they liked her; Mrs. Morton forgot to be nervous, Basil was glad to see her in that group of girls.
Other visitors came and went. Two elderly sisters, adorned with large brooches and pendulous ear-rings, seated themselves before Theresa and told her anecdotes of Morton's childhood. Their voices defied her to rob him of his early virtues, and their looks prophesied her pernicious influence. She liked these ladies with their pleasant acidity: there was resistance in them; but it was with the arrival of Conrad Vincent that enjoyment brightened her eyes and loosed her tongue. He came in slowly and greeted his friends without haste, but when he stood before Theresa she felt the hurry of his mind. Behind the lazy glances of his eyes she saw the racing thoughts and warmed to him. He sat beside her, she turned to him as though at last she could greet a comrade, and the group broke up, leaving them alone.
"Do you know," Morton said, when his guests had gone, "you talked to Vincent for a whole hour?"
"Was it so long? It went in a flash. He is a good talker—provocative. I enjoyed it very much."
"You seemed to do so."
"Do you mind?"
"No dear; but——"
"Was I rude?"
"Not rude."
"What then?"
"You rather ignored the others."
"I really did my best, but when Mr. Vincent came I forgot them. I like him. I hope he'll come again. I should like to marry him for dull days when I've nothing to do, and you for all the rest."
"Don't, Theresa. I can't bear to hear you flippant about our love."
"It's the result of talking to him and of listening to the others. I wish Mr. Smith could have heard them. Did you hear the conversation about the thriftlessness of the agricultural labourer? They had the decency not to mention his wage. It was the eldest Miss Waring who was so eloquent. It seems she has been telling Jim somebody's wife how to spend her money! I wonder how much her own weekly bill of luxuries would come to."
"She is a charming girl."
"Yes, her complexion has been formed on fresh air, good food, pleasant exercise, and an easy conscience. I'm sure she's nice. I wonder what Mrs. Jim's complexion is like. And is she charming on a few shillings a week? Basil, while, in my professional manner, I was laughing at that ignorant young woman, I was searching my own conscience, and I thought, 'Can I—can I be going to live in this beautiful place while Mrs. Jim is so hungry?' And I don't think I can."
"What do you mean, Theresa? Is this—is this my dismissal?"
"Not unless you make it that. Basil, I wish you would come out into the world. You are a good man: ever so much better than these dear souls who hunt, and ride, and shoot, and prop up the country. You tower above them. The nice hard lines of your face proclaim you! I wish you earned your living."
"I think I do. No one can call me idle."
"No, you are very busy."
"And I employ a large number of men."
Her lips twitched. "I know. You are one of the props. But you have so much more than you need. Wouldn't you like to do something with it? Will you let me be another Simon Smith?"
"I think his system of charity is pernicious!"
"What's yours? Don't you give jellies to your Mrs. Jims?"
"Yes."
"It is just the same thing."
"We shall never agree on these subjects, Theresa."
"No; they will be fruitful in discussion. Don't you want me to talk to you?"
"Certainly."
"You're angry, aren't you?"
"I hope not."
"Yes, you are! Look how good-tempered I am." Her eyes were alight with battle, her lips only parted for speech, and her hands were restless. Now she clasped them and swayed back and forward as she spoke. "I should like to have four—no, five—hundred a year, and do good things with the rest of your income. Perhaps to-morrow I would rather have those pearls you want to give me, but I don't think so. Pearls do not become me! And to-day I want to build model cottages. We could let this house——"
"Theresa! Let us end this nonsense. We have lived here for generations."
She laughed softly. "I know, but somebody has to begin doing something else. And your workmen have lived in pigsties for generations."
"My workmen——! You don't know what you are talking about! The women of this house have never interfered in outside matters."
She banged her fist on the little tea-table. "Don't talk to me as though I belonged to a harem!"
"Don't be absurd, Theresa." He was very handsome when he was angry.
"I'm not absurd. If you say I'm not fit to know about your affairs—yes, and to interfere with them—I'm, I'm a chattel."
He smiled. "Nothing so peaceful," he assured her.
"If you wanted insignificance——"
"I didn't. I wanted you."
"I don't believe you knew what you were getting," she said, and left him.
When she came downstairs for dinner, she found him awaiting her in the hall.
"Well?" she said. Her eyes were very bright; she laughed at him. "Have you forgiven me for the harem?"
"Oh, hang the harem! Come into the smoking-room."
She touched him on the arm. "Basil," she said, "you nearly swore. I wish—I wish you would really do it."
"I've no doubt there will be plenty of opportunity."
"Oh, I like you!" she cried. "I like you!"
He looked down at her. "That's not enough."
He saw her eyes darken, her mouth grow tremulous, but she controlled her lips and fortified herself against this new insistence. "Then you must give me everything."
"I will. Theresa, forgive me. I've lived too long without you. And if you will come round the estate with me to-morrow, I'll show you where and how my people live."
"Bless you! Thank you. I really want to help, and, of course I'll come." She gave him his reward. "Don't let us quarrel, because—I love you."
He caught her hands. "Do you? Do you?"
"Am I not proving it? I'm thrusting myself into a very uncomfortable place because of you. If you are not very nice I shan't be able to endure it. Mrs. Morton tells me you all dine regularly with each other once a month! This is a dreadful welding of opposites! But love—love is supposed to be a strong cement."
"And I love you more than ever, Theresa, more every day." He kissed her with a violence that hurt her lips. They parted painfully, and she looked up at him with a tiny crease between her brows, before she thrust her face into his coat, burrowing there, holding fearfully to his arm.
"Keep me," she said. "Keep me."
He had no words tender enough for her. The appeal swelled his love to a flood too full for turbulence, and he stroked her hair, drew her to his knee and rocked her there, so that she felt secure and was comforted like a child.
"But can you keep me?" she said, sitting up with a jerk. "Do you think you can?"
"I mean to."
"But you won't if you lock me outside yourself. I don't feel that you have quite opened your doors." She hesitated, and spoke. "Basil, I sometimes think there's an enemy of yours after me, and I'm hammering for you to let me in, and you're not quick enough."
He laughed. "Who is this enemy?"
"Ah, do you think I dare turn round and face him? Open your doors, open your doors?"
"They're wide," he said, and spread his arms.
"But it's rather a narrow wideness," she said, as she put her head on his shoulder. "One might easily miss it in a hurry."
They were quiet for a little while, then Theresa spoke dreamily. "I wish they wouldn't sound the dinner-gong. I never want to move again. Didn't I dress quickly? It was to get back to you. Basil, I like you in this mood."
"I'm not in a mood, dear. I'm always like this when you will let me be."
"No," she said positively, "you are different. You were an indulgent potentate. Now you are a friend. You can't deceive me."
"I don't want to deceive you, but it is you who have changed."
"Oh, I hope not!" she said heartily.
He laughed: she was teaching him to do that, and the friendly sound mingled with the loud summons of the gong.
She screwed up her eyes in merriment. "I really believe you are beginning to appreciate me," she said, and hand in hand they went across the hall.
"I am going to show Theresa the plans of the estate, Mother," he said, during the progress of the stately meal.
"Certainly, dear. You will like that, Theresa."
"I am not at all sure that I shall," she said clearly.
"Then don't worry her, Basil, if she doesn't want to see them."
"But I do! And if I didn't I would!"
"Well, don't get tired, dear. I'm afraid it will make your back ache."
"Oh, my back! That was suppled long ago, by a typewriter."
"Poor little Theresa," Mrs. Morton murmured, for the servants had left the room.
Theresa cracked a nut as though it had been the lady's head. She cast a hot glance at Morton, who was delicately peeling an apple. He looked softly at her. In his eyes there was the tenderness of a pity more understanding and deeper than his mother's: it was pity for all the laborious, independent women in a hard world.
The lift of Theresa's head was a signal that Mrs. Morton was growing to fear.
"You needn't be sorry for me. You're sorry and half ashamed. Why? Why? Why?" She held in her voice, and spoke with a breaking strain in it. "And I resent being pitied. Why, as soon as I knew anything, I was trying to decide what I should be when I grew up."
Mrs. Morton was propitiatory. "It was very sweet and brave of you, my dear."
"No, it was just as natural as eating. And if I were the wife of Croesus, my daughters should have professions."
She had a vision of those daughters: they were bright and eager, and they were her own, and for a moment the sight of them matured her impulsive and intolerant youth. She warmed to them: she felt a spreading as of wings, a softening of all her being, and her hands and lips were quieted and strong.
She laughed as water laughs, trickling through the moss. She smiled from one end of the table to the other. "I'm sorry I get so vehement," she said. "I can't help it. I hope I wasn't rude."
An apology from Theresa was almost more alarming than a scolding. "No, no, dear, I quite understand," Mrs. Morton said in haste, while Basil smiled slowly, a little stiffly, conquering uneasiness with love.
In the smoking-room, Theresa sat down emphatically and spoke with great decision.
"I'm horrid to your mother," she said.
"You are not very nice."
"She raises the devil in me!"
"Theresa!"
"It's true. I wanted to throw the wine-glasses about, I wanted to dance on the table. She always makes me feel like that. What am I to do? How are we to live peaceably together?"
"My mother never quarrels with anyone."
"If she only would! Doesn't she worry you?"
"Not at all."
"Not when she tells you what you think?"
"Why should I mind that?"
"Oh, I can't explain! I'm afraid you're rather like her!" She looked up at a portrait on the wall. "I like your father. He knows just how I feel, and he would have liked me. Are you angry with me?"
He passed a hand across his eyes. "No, dear."
"Are you ashamed?"
"No, darling."
"What is it, then?"
"I love you."
"Does it hurt so much?" she whispered softly.
"Sometimes."
"Oh, dear. Would you like to do without me?"
"Theresa! Theresa!"
"Basil," she said, "if you'll love me very much, I'll try to cultivate patience, though I look upon it as a sin. And I hate the intrusion of qualities that will make me different. That's not self-satisfaction—it's love of an old friend!"
He returned to his old thought. "Theresa, what have you been doing with yourself all these years? You talk like a child."
"I've been making up stories. That doesn't give you time to grow up. Does it matter? Shall I try to grow?" She looked at him with serious eyes, but there was a betraying twist to her lips. "My one anxiety is to oblige."
He made a gesture of deprecation, bewilderment and love, and she jumped up with an energy that spurned her foolishness.
"Let's get to work," she said. "Where are the plans?"
She was deft, alert and quick. He told her how his money was invested, and she nodded. On paper he showed her the extent of his land, pointed out the farms, told her of the tenants and what rent they paid, the fields and what crops they bore, he talked of woods and forestry, and she listened, making no comments, biding her time.
"You are wonderful, Theresa," he said. "You understand everything."
"Don't say that," she said gravely. "Why shouldn't I? Will you take me to see all these places and these people, especially the people? I want to talk to them."
He hesitated. "You will be discreet, won't you, darling? Don't misunderstand me——"
She waved him into silence. "Do you think I don't know how to talk to people?" She straightened her back. "I was Mr. Smith's secretary for two years."
It puzzled him that she should still think this her greatest claim to honour.
That was the beginning of their happy time. Morton taught Theresa to ride and, mounted on a steady grey animal while he bestrode one more mettlesome, she went with him into every corner of his land, and began to understand his pride of possession. He was a good landlord, and there was nothing he did not oversee, little of which she could complain, and she said so frankly; but she startled him with a question as they rode out one morning, waving farewell to a Mrs. Morton who was beginning to find herself neglected by young people unnaturally busy over cottages and plans.
"Basil, were you going to give me a wedding present?"
"Of course."
"Then may I choose it?"
"I wanted to give you a surprise."
"No, no, let me choose."
"Tell me, then."
"I don't want diamonds, or pearls, or gold. I want lead—I think it's lead. Perhaps it's iron. Yes, I think it is. I want you to take water into those old cottages on the peppermint land."
"Where do you mean, dear?"
"I mean the land Mrs. Morton bought, not the hereditary domain! Wasn't it bought with peppermint, and sticks of bright pink rock, and yards of liquorice? I like to think of ragged little children putting their dirty faces against dirty window panes, and gloating over masses of your grandfather's sweets. Don't you?"
"I'm afraid I have often wished he had made money, if he had to make it, in a different way."
"That's because you have more false pride than imagination. Why, he has made a fairy feast for children! Think of the dark winter streets, wet, perhaps, and the lamps just lighted and bright reflections in the pavements, and children staring at pyramids of sweetness. It's lovely—magical, like being a perpetual Father Christmas. So when I call it the peppermint land, I do not sneer, and you'll lay on the water, won't you?"
"There's a well quite near, darling."
"It's across a field."
"A small field."
"Quite big enough."
"Theresa, you know I treat my tenants like human beings, but you want to pamper them."
"No I don't. I know it's the tendency, but I don't. Oh, my good soul, if you had ever done any housework, you would know the value of water! Have you ever done any? Have you ever so much as washed up a dish? No; I thought not. I have. And I've scrubbed floors—don't shudder; it's good exercise—and I've cooked; but I have not had several children to look after at the same time, and that's what many of these women have to do. I know it's pastoral and patriarchal to go to the well, but it's not so pleasant to come back with two heavy pails. And it has to be done a good many times a day if there's to be cleanliness. I'm not a stickler for too much cleaning, but I saw a woman the other day carrying pails when she wasn't fit to lift a weight. She rested four times between the well and the house. I reached her in time to prevent her going on a second journey. It was when you were seeing about those young trees."
"The larches?"
"Yes." She frowned. She had avoided naming them, and now he stabbed her with their remembered scent.
"Did you—what did you say to her?"
"I told her she wasn't to do it. No; I didn't complain about the landlord! But she wanted the water for washing, so I fetched it myself."
"Theresa!"
"There, you see! And I'm a strong young woman. Imagine—oh, try to imagine me in her position!"
"I'll do it."
She leaned to touch his hand. "Thank you. You only need to see things. 'The bride presented the bridegroom with a pair of spectacles, and the bridegroom's gift to the bride was a ton of iron piping!'" She shook her reins. "Shall we gallop? I wish this old omnibus were a bit friskier. He gives me nothing to do. Can't I be promoted to something else?"
"I have been seeing about a splendid chestnut," he said slyly, "but that was to be part of your wedding-present."
"Ah well, it's better to be a ministering angel than a fiery horsewoman, and the rushing of the water in those pipes will be sweeter to me than the sound of clattering hoofs. A-ha! Oh, do give this old beast a good knock with your whip!"
She was happy. Mrs. Morton continued to ruffle the smoothness of life, but she could do no more, and she was allowed few opportunities of attempting it, for on most evenings she sat alone in the drawing-room, and in the daytime Basil and Theresa were far afield. This was not the daughter-in-law she had desired. Where were the afternoon calls, the drives with Theresa by her side and Basil opposite, the pleasant hours after dinner, with a little music, a little talk, a little work? Theresa could not even play the piano, her hands were idle, and Mrs. Morton was really glad when she did not talk, for she feared what she might say; but the sound of her voice coming across the wide hall when the smoking-room door was open, her sharp exclamations and her laughter gave the elder woman a new sense of isolation. In some subtle way the house seemed to be no longer hers. Theresa, who had been the stranger, had taken a possession stronger than that of keys and command, and whereas the girl had once stood out glaringly against the sober, peaceful background of the house, it had now become but an appendage of herself. The quick thud of her feet as she ran down the stairs, her manner of opening doors, the whistling call with which she summoned Basil—these, by the vividness of her strength, had overcome the old stillness, the old ordered atmosphere.
And, indeed, the place had become a home to Theresa. Her irritability was soothed by Morton's loyal companionship. They were friends as well as lovers; she was breaking down his fences, and she loved power. She knew she was changing his attitude in a hundred little ways. She was moulding him to the kind of man with whom it was possible to live, and daily she liked him better. But she had another cause for happiness. She was still making up her stories, and as she wandered about the house she was accompanied by little illusive figures with sunny heads. They went before her in the passages, they ran up and down the stairs and scampered across the broad polished floors, and for her, too, the silence and decorum of the house were banished. And the garden was inhabited. There were more voices than those of the rooks among the elms and she saw happy people by the lakeside. She saw herself among them, dabbling with the water, racing across the lawn or climbing trees, and she surprised herself with the positive belief that this life was far better than one of fame. She felt that through her means some joyous spirit of childhood had burst its bonds and broken into these separate fragments which were to be her children, and the thought brightened her eyes and her voice. It solaced her for the tiny disappointments that pricked, but were too small to have a name, almost too small to be felt.
She waved her hand towards an upper window, one afternoon as they rode down the drive, and he looked sharply at the house and then at her. "To whom are you waving?" he asked.
"To someone you could not see, my good grammarian," she said, and hoped a little fearfully for further questions.
He turned in the saddle and looked back, and for the sake of the strong, easy twist of his body she forgave his lack of curiosity as he said: "Fancies again?"
And she said: "Yes; fancies."
He was content to remain ignorant of them, as he had often been before. He had no desire to enter into that very real part of her existence, and she blocked out her disappointment with a quick word of another nature.
"I like you best in your riding things." She was never tired of summing up the things she liked in him.
He smiled and let his eyes run over her trim, green figure, the thick plaits of hair under the little hat. She nodded.
"I know what you are thinking. You are congratulating yourself that I'm quite presentable, in spite of my intolerable past."
"Will you never stop teasing me about that? As if I'm not as proud of it as you are!"
"Then I have taught you how to be."
"I'm willing to acknowledge my teacher. But I wasn't thinking that. You look so fair and free—like the breath of the morning."
"Oh ho! Aren't we being nice to each other? And who is having fancies now? Basil"—she could never let a wound fester in her—"Basil, I wish you'd want me to tell you everything."
"But I do. What is it you want to say?"
She controlled the petulance of her lips. "Would you like me to have secrets?"
"I can't imagine your having them."
Under her gauntlets the muscles of her hands were tightened. The promise of possession had very slightly changed his attitude towards her, and she resented his security. She was not willing that he should have no doubts, even had there been no cause for them. She wanted the old uncertainty, the old waiting on her moods. He grew more loving, more demonstrative, but he was less her servant, and she stretched against the bonds; but if he were so little eager to know the utmost of her, so impervious to jealousy or to hints, then she could in honesty keep her cherished silence. She changed the subject. They were happiest when their talk was clear of personalities. Discussions about tenants, the wisdom of giving help there or refusing it here, and information from Morton about crops and the raising of cattle, drew them into a closer comradeship. But to-day Theresa's questions were half-hearted, and had Morton been less enthusiastic he would have noticed that she did not listen.
The day was of a new-washed clearness, but it seemed to her that someone had smudged it with a dirty hand; and in her breast was the vague longing that was like a hole there, while the clamorous voices, stilled for a little while, were taking deep breaths as if they would test their powers.
She blamed herself, she blamed her restlessness, but she looked frowningly at Morton, and while she owned her fault she could put the burden of some of it on his back. It seemed to Theresa that he loved the surface of her and would not look into the depths, that a principle of his life was to avoid looking into depths; and as she had been eager to know the evil of the world and the turmoil and the stain of it, and below that the great serenity, so she longed for a like capacity to see into his soul, to show him all, or nearly all, of hers. He baulked her constantly, and the more successfully, by his very ignorance of her need. Other barriers she had broken down, but here she failed.
She put an abrupt question as they rode home.
"Had you ever been in love before you saw me?"
"Never until I saw you, and now—for always."
He took for granted her own singleness of affection. He was benign, smiling a little, and content. Little flushes of colour came and went in her cheeks. She straightened herself, and then drooped in the saddle.
"You are tired," he said tenderly.
"No." And with a jerk she added: "I am cross."
That, too, he accepted without question. There was no doubt that he was very patient. He watched her as he rode close to assure her of his care, and when he helped her to dismount he held her for an instant, in spite of the groom; but, making no response, she hurried to her room and to her secret treasure there.
She was unpleasant all that evening and very much ashamed of herself, but she could not shake the blackness from her, though she tried. She heard in Morton's voice a distressing likeness to his mother's, and the way he handled his knife and fork seemed to her sufficient excuse for murder. At table she felt like a naughty schoolgirl, and she went early to bed; but as she sat beside her fire the remembrance of Basil standing, puzzled, in the hall as she went up the stairs, smote her with the shame she would have felt if she had hurt a child. She was not fit to have children—she, who had no self-control. She was capricious, vain, exacting. She asked more than she was willing to give, yet she was willing to give more than Basil asked. She knew she was endangered by his complaisance, and she wanted to be loyal. She would be loyal. She stared at the fire through mist and strands of hair, and slowly the mist gathered itself into drops that fell with a little crack on her silken petticoat. She was cold, though the flames were bright. She was not conscious of the room. All round her there was a dark loneliness like nothing she had ever seen or tasted. It was not the lonely terror of the sea, nor the great cleansing solitude of the mountains, but something formless, perilous. Now, everything was obscure, but she had a fear that if she could not save herself she would emerge into a clearness that would be terrible and enduring—a prison from which she could never escape, whose walls were formed of what was ignoble in herself.
How long she sat there she could not tell. Now she did not cry, and thought had left her; yet, in some dim way, she had made her resolution, and news of it was carried to her mind.
She combed out her hair steadily and plaited it; she put on her lavender dressing-gown, and the shoes that matched it, and she bathed her face. It was white, and seemed to have fallen thinner in that hour, for she had touched a deeper tragedy than her mother's death. She must be honest, but such an honesty tore the heart from her.
She unlocked the little box where she kept no other thing than Alexander's letter. She took it out and held it fast between her palms, but she did not read it. She raised the upper hand, and laid her cheek in its place.
"I ought not to have kept you," she said, and gave a little moan. "But it's not because you're a man, Alexander; it's because you are a spirit. You and Father are the only ones I've known. Must I resign you to keep the other things? You see, Alexander, I do want the other things—a home, and love, and—other things. But oh, there's no need to tell you, for you know—you know."
She opened her door softly. The landing lights were out, no light came from the hall, but as she followed the staircase curve she saw a golden streak under the door of the smoking-room. A little nearer, and she smelt tobacco. She entered, and saw Morton deep in a leather-covered chair. He sprang to his feet.
She appeared to him like a sprite. She was pale and small, she seemed to be overweighted by her hair, and the movements of her dressing-gown revealed white ankles and white arms. The tender little hollow of her neck was plain to him, and though he had seen it that very night it had seemed a more modest thing than this between the close folds of her gown.
She shut the door. "Basil. I want to talk to you."
"Not now, dear." He put the cigar on the mantelpiece, and held his hands behind his back. "You must go to bed now. It's after twelve. Haven't you been to sleep?"
"No; I've been thinking." She looked at him with wide, strained eyes. He had never seen her so simple and so frail. "There's something I must tell you."
"Is it so very important?"
Her voice quivered. "You may not think so."
"Can't it wait? Darling, you mustn't sit here with me at this hour of night with all the house asleep."
"For me, there's no one in the house but you, and you are awake." She put out her left hand, but dropped it when he did not take it. She went on, with the hand at her throat. "There's a great gap in my life I've never told you of. I don't feel honest. I want to tell you everything to-night, and go on clear."
"Are you sure you're not asleep now, Theresa darling?" He drew nearer, and she leaned against him.
"Basil, help me."
He held her off. "Not now. You must go back. You are over-tired, dear. You've not been well all day."
"It's my soul that's sick," she said.
"It will be better in the morning. Hush! Did you hear something?" He opened the door and listened. "Mother sleeps so lightly. Go back, Theresa. Good-night, darling—good-night. Why, your eyes are heavy with sleep."
"No," she said, and she had the look of someone starved—"no, that's with crying."
He seized her hand and drew her limp figure to him. "Why, my sweet—why? Because we didn't have a happy day? Darling, I'll think no more of it. And you shall tell me everything in the morning. Only go now. You mustn't wander about like this at night."
She was leaning against the door. Her lips twitched with an emotion which was no longer one of distress.
"What are you afraid of?" she said.
He hesitated. "Your—good name," he answered.
She lifted her hands and dropped them, and for a moment he thought something terrible was going to happen, for her eyes closed sharply, and in her pale face her opened mouth was like a blot.
"Oh!" she cried. "Oh! oh! oh!" She laughed weakly, uncontrollably. She dropped into a chair, while the tears rolled down her cheeks and her body was shaken with her mirth.
He stared at her stonily and turned away to look into the fire. The sound of her laughter shocked him, for it had entirely gone beyond her keeping, but gradually it grew quieter and he thought he heard in it the break of sobs. He looked at her. She was leaning her head on her hand and crying softly, but as he turned she smiled and began to shake again.
"Why don't you laugh, too?" she said. "You are so funny."
"I can see nothing to laugh at. Go to bed at once. You are overwrought."
"I am in the best of health," she said. "Oh dear, I wish I could stop laughing! But I'll go to bed."
"And you'll talk to me in the morning?"
"Yes, I'll talk to you in the morning." That was an answer he had not expected, and he would have kissed her, but she turned her face aside. He noticed that she had a little roll of paper in her right hand.
An immense and palpable calm surrounded her as she undressed, and when she stretched herself between the sheets she fell at once into an untroubled sleep. For a little while the firelight licked the walls, danced on the chair where her clothes were tumbled and leapt to the ceiling to look down on her in the bed, lying pale and flaccid with her cheek on Alexander's letter. Then the fire's heart called back the flames, and they were gathered into a red and tranquil glow which faded, while the dropping coals slowly ticked out their life. But that noise had ceased and the room was entirely dark when Theresa woke and sat up.
She thought there was someone in the room, but she was not afraid. She listened, leaning on her hands.
"What is it?" she whispered.
The room was quiet, but its stillness was heavy as with a presence. She looked behind her; only the wall was there.
"What is it?" she repeated.
There was something she had to do, and even while she strove to discover it she had slipped from bed and pattered across the floor. She ran with a swift sureness down the stairs and through the hall. The locks and bolts of the front-door yielded to her fever, and then the night air smote her and the cold of the steps shocked her feet.
"What am I doing?" she asked.
What little wind there was moaned stealthily among the elms, and on the house-wall the ivy-leaves scratched each other. The lawn stretched before her like water of an unimagined blackness.
"I must have been asleep," she murmured, looking at the night for confirmation, but its waiting patience made her no answer. She thought all the trees had faces that looked kindly on her. She was not afraid of the night, yet it was imminent and sorrowful with doom. Something was going to happen.
"I had to do something," she said in a strange voice, and closed the door. Her fingers were weak now, and slow. Her strength had gone and she was very cold. She stood shivering in the hall, trying to solve this mystery. Had she been warned in some way? Was the house on fire? She sniffed earnestly. There were no signs anywhere of danger or disturbance, and she turned to climb the stairs. Half-way up she began to run. Where was her letter? She had forgotten her letter. Someone had stolen it, and, stealing it, had waked her. But she found it, crumpled, in the bed.
"I don't understand," she said, and lay long awake, conquering the cold of her body and the puzzle of her mind.
When the morning came through the windows, she was lying deep in the bed, as though she were rooted to it and she was conscious of a fatigue she had not known before. It was her habit to spring from bed with the first opening of her eyes, but this morning she had to be reminded of coming battle before she could be roused, and then the adventurous spirit that welcomed any new experience, and would have dreadful ones rather than none, took command over her tired frame.
She had an enigmatical smile for Morton at the breakfast table, and afterwards, when he would have smoked a pipe before the fire, she was imperative.
"Come into the garden quickly," she said.
"He would like to read the newspaper first, dear. He always likes to read the paper and have a pipe."
She clapped her hands together. "He must come into the garden with me."
He glanced at her feet. "Put your shoes on first, darling."
"And you would like my woolly shawl."
"My slippers are thick, and I don't want a shawl, or anything, thank you. I'm burning. Are you coming, Basil? Can't you see—can't you see that you must come?"
She ran out before him and on to the lawn, and the wind caught her hair and buffeted her so that she had to lean against it to find rest. She watched his slow approach, and as soon as he was close to her she said clearly, loudly, because of the wind: "I can't marry you."
"What?" He took her by the arm and stooped. "What did you say?"
She freed herself. "I can't marry you."
He heard. "Can we get out of the wind?" he said.
She made a gesture that told him to lead on, and she followed him to a dusty summer-house. The sudden quiet of the place was like a blow and there was a singing in her ears.
"It's dirty, I'm afraid."
"I don't want to sit down. Did you hear what I said, Basil?"
"You don't want to sit down?"
"No. I can't marry you."
He saw no ring on her hand. "Why?" he breathed. He was shocked into the use of his imagination. "Is it—it isn't Vincent?"
"Vincent?" She had to frown before she could remember him. "Oh no, no, no!"
"Why?" he asked again, and his voice seemed to hold back the word as it was uttered.
"I don't know. I'm very fond of you." She smiled with a touch of drollery. "I think I love you, as one loves some people, but not—one's lover. I thought I did, except when I heard voices."
He frowned, uncertain of her sanity. He shook his head.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Theresa. What have I done?"
"Nothing. But I've known secretly all the time—nearly all the time—that in saying I would marry you I fell below myself. Not"—she smiled again—"because I think you are unworthy, but just because you are not—the man for me. I made you into him for a little while, but truth is stronger than my will. It's possible that a very good man may do one more harm than a very bad one. But I'm not thinking of my safety. It's just my necessity, and I don't know what is going to follow. I can't explain. There are no words, for, you see, it's something that belongs to the wordless things. I ought to have found out before. I might have, if I had been quite honest."
The word had a memory for him. "Was this what you came to say last night?"
"No."
"What was it?"
"I can't tell you now."
"I think I have a right to know."
"You had last night; not now."
He showed her a terrible, drawn face. "Theresa, forgive me for last night. Let us begin again. We are so different—but I want to learn from you. Let us begin again."
"We can't." She twisted her hands together, and shook them with the faint shaking of her body.
"A little thing like that—Theresa, I love you."
"I know." She stood silent, with head bowed, but she lifted it with a thought. "You've never wanted the best of me, Basil. And—I can't give it to you. There's a dam, somewhere. And I've never been true to you. Ah, you see, you don't understand. Isn't that proof enough? I thought I loved you, but all my life I've been playing parts, half consciously. There has only been one day—only one—when I did not think about myself."
"When was that?" It was the first time she had seen him curious.
She smiled waveringly, as though she would soon cry.
"It was before I met you. Will you let me finish? I want to tell you. It's not your fault. It's something in myself. Don't think I'm blaming you. You've never seen me, Basil. You've seen a woman who likes being spoilt, who likes being loved, who knows how to get what she wants, and yet contrives to do it with a kind of fiendish decency, for I haven't a blatant fashion of alluring. And you've seen the other woman who likes power. Perhaps it is the same woman on her more intellectual side. Yes, power! When I look back, I see that it is a distorted kind of power I've wanted. And to know one's self loved is to have power. You see how I was tempted, yet I did not know that I was falling. Now I know—and there's an end to it. I have to ask your pardon for making you the victim, and to—to thank you for all your sweetness—too much sweetness."
She was like a bit of smiling steel, he thought—a sword, sorry to have to wound, yet bound to do it. He had no hope of mastering her, though he saw pity dragged from her heart into her eyes. He was haggard. She had been right to call him victim.
"But why after last night?" he asked.
"It had to be some time, hadn't it? Before marriage, or after it."
"But why last night? There's something you're not telling me."