CHAPTER XVII
In spite of this drop, if not just by reason of it, she felt as if
Lady Bradeen, all but named out, had popped straight up; and she
practically betrayed her consciousness by waiting a little before
she rejoined: "Cleverer than who?"
"Well, if I wasn't afraid you'd think I swagger, I should say--than
anybody! If you leave your place there, where shall you go?" he
more gravely asked.
"Oh too far for you ever to find me!"
"I'd find you anywhere."
The tone of this was so still more serious that she had but her one
acknowledgement. "I'd do anything for you--I'd do anything for
you," she repeated. She had already, she felt, said it all; so
what did anything more, anything less, matter? That was the very
reason indeed why she could, with a lighter note, ease him
generously of any awkwardness produced by solemnity, either his own
or hers. "Of course it must be nice for you to be able to think
there are people all about who feel in such a way."
In immediate appreciation of this, however, he only smoked without
looking at her. "But you don't want to give up your present work?"
he at last threw out. "I mean you WILL stay in the post-office?"
"Oh yes; I think I've a genius for that."
"Rather! No one can touch you." With this he turned more to her
again. "But you can get, with a move, greater advantages?"
"I can get in the suburbs cheaper lodgings. I live with my mother.
We need some space. There's a particular place that has other
inducements."
He just hesitated. "Where is it?"
"Oh quite out of YOUR way. You'd never have time."
"But I tell you I'd go anywhere. Don't you believe it?"
"Yes, for once or twice. But you'd soon see it wouldn't do for
you."
He smoked and considered; seemed to stretch himself a little and,
with his legs out, surrender himself comfortably. "Well, well,
well--I believe everything you say. I take it from you--anything
you like--in the most extraordinary way." It struck her certainly-
-and almost without bitterness--that the way in which she was
already, as if she had been an old friend, arranging for him and
preparing the only magnificence she could muster, was quite the
most extraordinary. "Don't, DON'T go!" he presently went on. "I
shall miss you too horribly!"
"So that you just put it to me as a definite request?"--oh how she
tried to divest this of all sound of the hardness of bargaining!
That ought to have been easy enough, for what was she arranging to
get? Before he could answer she had continued: "To be perfectly
fair I should tell you I recognise at Cocker's certain strong
attractions. All you people come. I like all the horrors."
"The horrors?"
"Those you all--you know the set I mean, YOUR set--show me with as
good a conscience as if I had no more feeling than a letter-box."
He looked quite excited at the way she put it. "Oh they don't
know!"
"Don't know I'm not stupid? No, how should they?"
"Yes, how should they?" said the Captain sympathetically. "But
isn't 'horrors' rather strong?"
"What you DO is rather strong!" the girl promptly returned.
"What I do?"
"Your extravagance, your selfishness, your immorality, your
crimes," she pursued, without heeding his expression.
"I SAY!"--her companion showed the queerest stare.
"I like them, as I tell you--I revel in them. But we needn't go
into that," she quietly went on; "for all I get out of it is the
harmless pleasure of knowing. I know, I know, I know!"--she
breathed it ever so gently.
"Yes; that's what has been between us," he answered much more
simply.
She could enjoy his simplicity in silence, and for a moment she did
so. "If I do stay because you want it--and I'm rather capable of
that--there are two or three things I think you ought to remember.
One is, you know, that I'm there sometimes for days and weeks
together without your ever coming."
"Oh I'll come every day!" he honestly cried.
She was on the point, at this, of imitating with her hand his
movement of shortly before; but she checked herself, and there was
no want of effect in her soothing substitute. "How can you? How
can you?" He had, too manifestly, only to look at it there, in the
vulgarly animated gloom, to see that he couldn't; and at this
point, by the mere action of his silence, everything they had so
definitely not named, the whole presence round which they had been
circling, became part of their reference, settled in solidly
between them. It was as if then for a minute they sat and saw it
all in each other's eyes, saw so much that there was no need of a
pretext for sounding it at last. "Your danger, your danger--!"
Her voice indeed trembled with it, and she could only for the
moment again leave it so.
During this moment he leaned back on the bench, meeting her in
silence and with a face that grew more strange. It grew so strange
that after a further instant she got straight up. She stood there
as if their talk were now over, and he just sat and watched her.
It was as if now--owing to the third person they had brought in--
they must be more careful; so that the most he could finally say
was: "That's where it is!"
"That's where it is!" the girl as guardedly replied. He sat still,
and she added: "I won't give you up. Good-bye."
"Good-bye?"--he appealed, but without moving.
"I don't quite see my way, but I won't give you up," she repeated.
"There. Good-bye."
It brought him with a jerk to his feet, tossing away his cigarette.
His poor face was flushed. "See here--see here!"
"No, I won't; but I must leave you now," she went on as if not
hearing him.
"See here--see here!" He tried, from the bench, to take her hand
again.
But that definitely settled it for her: this would, after all, be
as bad as his asking her to supper. "You mustn't come with me--no,
no!"
He sank back, quite blank, as if she had pushed him. "I mayn't see
you home?"
"No, no; let me go." He looked almost as if she had struck him,
but she didn't care; and the manner in which she spoke--it was
literally as if she were angry--had the force of a command. "Stay
where you are!"
"See here--see here!" he nevertheless pleaded.
"I won't give you up!" she cried once more--this time quite with
passion; on which she got away from him as fast as she could and
left him staring after her.
