"Going to be a blushing bride soon, Lily?" said Harry2, with a wink3 to Edith.
"Don't be silly!" Lilian said, crumbling4 her letter in her pocket.
"What's he like? Is it that nobleman who came here a few weeks ago? If so, I don't think much of his taste in ties!"
"It's better than your taste in socks," retorted Lilian.
"Aha!—a hit, a palpable hit. Guessed it at once. Pass the butter, Edie."
"Do tell us all about it," Florence urged.
"The family wants to know," pleaded Harry.
"Lilian—are you really...."
Her hands closed over the letter which she had just read. She turned her head away and pretended to be busy at the coffee-pot. They were all joking among themselves, and they did not notice the tears glisten6 in her eyes.
"There's nothing to tell," she said, in a hard voice.
[188]
"Oh, we don't believe that!" Harry said. "Young ladies wot gets letters in masculiferous handwritings every morning...."
She rose abruptly7 and looked at the clock. Then—wonderful Lilian!—she laughed and threw them all off the scent8. "You children are too talkative," she said, with pretended loftiness. "I mustn't stop chattering9 with you or I shall miss the eight-forty." She put on her gloves with precision, and took up her little handbag, and adjusted her hat, just as if nothing had happened to disturb the ordinary course of her life; and, then, with the usual kiss all round, she let herself out of the house.
Oh, she kept herself well in hand throughout the journey to town—nobody knew, and nobody must know. It was only a secret between herself and her heart. She looked out with dry eyes over the dismal10 plain of chimney-pots with which the train ran level, the cowls spinning in the wind ... the chimney-pots stretched row upon row, far away, until, with a hint of the open sea, adventure and wide freedom, the masts and rigging and brown sails arose from the ships lying in the docks. But when she came to the office she rushed upstairs, and in the little room where they hung their cloaks and hats, all her pent-up emotions broke loose with a torrent11 of tears. She wanted to empty her eyes of tears so that there should be none left, and she wept without control, silently, until she could weep no more. It was just like a short, sharp storm on a day that is oppressive and heavy; the air is all the cooler and sweeter for it, fresh breezes play gently over the streets, the world itself seems eased after its outburst.
She could smile again. She bathed her red eyes in the cold water of the basin, and performed some magic with a powder-puff. Nobody would have guessed, as she sat tap-tapping at her typewriter, with the sunshine[189] touching12 her hair with its golden fingers, that a thunderstorm had shaken her nature a few minutes earlier. It was all over now; only the letter remained, and she knew the letter by heart, she had read it so often.
A difficult letter to write! Well, not really, for that which comes from the heart is easy to write. It is insincerity which presents difficulties, and in this business Humphrey had not been insincere. He had not made any cold calculations as to the future; he had not weighed the pros13 and cons14 of it all. After the letter was written and posted, the vision of her reproachful face haunted his dreams, and he felt that he had lost something irretrievable—something of himself that had gone from him, never to return.
He was only considering himself. He saw the sudden possibilities of the future which Ferrol had opened for him; the true proportions in which he had painted that picture of the days to come. The fear of these responsibilities attacked him and made him a coward.
He saw, at once, that he could not marry Lilian, and he told her so in a tempestuous15, passionate16 letter, with ill-considered phrases jumbled17 all together, treading on one another's heels, as fast as the ideas tumbled about in his mind.
"I cannot do it, Lilian, dear," he began. "We should never be happy together. I can see that. I don't know what you will think of me; you cannot think any worse of me than I think of myself. I feel a blackguard; I feel as if some one had given me a beautiful, priceless vase, and I had hurled18 it to the floor and smashed it. It is not that I love you any the less, but I cannot ask you to share this life of mine. When I first knew you, I thought it would be beautiful if we could be married—everything seemed so easy to accomplish. But now I see that years must pass before I win my way, and that marriage for[190] us would be an unhappy, uphill affair. Forgive me, forgive me, Lilian. I cannot tell you all my thoughts on paper. But meet me just once more in the old restaurant in the Strand19, where I can explain to you all that I want to say, and plead for your forgiveness. Oh, my sweet Lilian, you will understand and help me, I know.
"Humphrey."
This was the letter, written on the impulse of the moment, which Humphrey sent to her. Incredible that it should be dropped in the ordinary way into a pillar-box, to lie for hours with hundreds of other letters, to pass through many hands until it finally came into the hands of the postman at Battersea Park, who delivered it, without any emotion, with a score of bills and receipts and circulars.
Well, it was done, and, while Humphrey was waiting for his work in the reporters' room of The Day, Lilian's mind was busy with the new development of affairs. Now, she could review everything calmly, she felt in her heart that Humphrey was right, but there was the sense of wounded pride with her. He had thrown her over! He did not even ask her to wait for him—yes! she would have waited—he was hasty to unburden himself and win his freedom again. Yet she knew that she could not wait—she was older than he—she would be too old in ten years' time. The flower of her life would be full for a few years, and then she knew he would see that her glory was waning20.... All this was no surprise to her. Instinctively21 she seemed to have known that this would be the outcome of her love affair. Strange! how she accepted it without any more demur22 than the natural outburst of tears—and what were those tears, after all, but tears of self-pity, as she looked upon herself and saw that she was poor and patient and loveless?
They met in that same Italian restaurant in the[191] Strand to which Humphrey had first taken her on that day, months ago, when the glamour23 was upon him. The proprietor24 knew them for more or less regular customers, and they always had the upstairs room, which was invariably empty.
This dreadful business of the waiter taking his hat and stick, setting the table in order, offering the menus, and recommending things, with a greasy25 smile, and knowing, dark eyes! They had to mask their feelings, and to play the old part, and pretend that they were going to have lunch.
She noticed that Humphrey's face was pale, the lines about his mouth less soft than usual. His eyes were strained, and he looked at her wistfully, not quite sure of his ground, wondering whether there would be a scene.
She could read him thoroughly26. She knew that he really felt mean and uncomfortable, that she had but to use her woman-wit to recapture him at once—snare him so completely that never could he escape again. She knew that the very sight of her weakened him in his resolve, a kiss on the lips, and her fingers stroking his hair and face, he was hers, and the world well lost for him.
But that was not Lilian's way. A strange, deep feeling of pity was in her heart as she marked the pallor of his face. She would have mothered him, but never cajoled him. "He is only a boy," she thought sorrowfully, "with a boy's destructiveness. This, that he thinks is an overwhelming tragedy, will be only a mere27 incident in a few years' time." And she smiled at her thoughts.
Her smile awoke only the faintest echoes of dying memories within him: her smile that had once thrilled him, and sent his heart beating faster, and made his throat so curiously28 parched—incredible that such things had happened once!
[192]
"You are not angry," he said, timidly, with a touch of tragedy in his voice.
"Angry?" she echoed. (He feared she was going to make light of the whole affair, and trembled at the idea of her mocking him: he might have known that that also was not Lilian's way.) "Angry," she repeated. "No, Humphrey. I'm not angry."
"There's no excuse," he began, hopelessly, "I've got nothing to say for myself.... It seems to me ... it seems best that it should be ... for both of us, I mean."
"I think it's better for me," she said, softly. "There's no good making a tragedy of it. Things always turn out for the best."
He fidgeted uneasily. "I was thinking it over last night.... Oh, my head aches with thinking.... You see, what can we do, if we married. Everything's up against us ... it's all fighting and risks, and uncertainty29. I don't mind for myself" (and Humphrey really believed this, for the moment), "it's you that I'm thinking of ... it wouldn't be fair. I could ask you to wait..." he did not finish.
Now, really, Humphrey's arrogance30 must be taught a lesson. Behold31, Lilian gathering32 her forces together to crush him—ask her to wait, indeed! as if he were her last chance. And then something in his eyes checked her, something wistful and intensely pathetic. Splendidly, Lilian spared him. He was so easy to crush ... perhaps she still liked him a little, in spite of everything.
"No," she said. "There's no need to do that. We'll each go our own ways."
The waiter, after discreet33 knocking at the door, came between them with plates of food and clatter34 of knives and forks. They regarded him silently, and when he was gone, they made a feeble pretence35 of eating.
"I ought to have known better," she said, returning[193] to the business again with a wry36 smile. "I ought to have known it couldn't have lasted."
"It isn't that I love you any the less," he said, unconsciously quoting a phrase in his letter. "I don't know how to explain my attitude.... I love you just the same ... but, somehow...."
"Don't, don't explain," she interrupted. "I understand. Of course it's impossible if you think like that. And, of course, Humphrey, there's no need to talk of love...." She laughed a little, and then, really, she could not spare him any more. "Oh, what a boy you are!"
He flushed hotly. "I know you've always looked upon me as a boy," he said. "You think I'm a child ... but it takes a man to do what I'm doing ... it takes courage to face it out ... it hurts."
"Oh, you are a boy," she said, with a little hysterical37 laugh. "Of course you're only a boy." She pushed her plate away from her. "Don't you see what you've done—you've broken up everything."
And she put her head on her arms outstretched on the table, and sobbed38 and sobbed again.
He watched her shoulders tremble with her sobs39, and heard her accusing words repeat themselves in a pitiful refrain in his ears. At that moment he touched, it seemed, the lowest depths of meanness. He felt awkward and foolish.... She was crying, and he could do nothing. "Lilian ... Lilian," he pleaded, touching her hand that was flat on the table. "Don't—I didn't mean to." Heavens! if she did not stop, he would snatch her to him, and kiss her hotly, and let Ferrol and the world and all its success go by him for ever.
The waiter saved the situation. His knock came as a warning, and when he entered the room with more plates and a greasier40 smile, he found the lady at the[194] window flinging it open widely and complaining of the heat, the gentleman looking moodily41 before him, and the food barely touched.
"You no like the fricassee, sare?" he said, turning the rejected food with his fork.
"It's all right," Humphrey said, in a voice that the waiter knew to mean "Get out." "No appetite to-day."
Lilian turned from the window, as the door closed behind him. Her eyes and lips were struggling for mastery over her emotions, and the lips conquered with a wan5, watery42 smile. She placed her hand on Humphrey's shoulder. "There," she said, wiping her eyes, destroying the tension with a prosy sniff43. "It's all over—I didn't mean to be so silly."
The miserable44 meal went on in silence. There was nothing more to be said. He was thinking of all this pitiful love-affair of his, how it ran unevenly45 through the fabric46 of work and hopes, beginning at first with a brilliant pattern—a splash of the golden sunrise—and gradually becoming worn, until now all the threads were twisted and frayed47. After this, they would part, never to meet again on the old terms, never to recapture the thrill of early love. Odd, how she who had lain so close to his heart, enfolded in his arms, would have to pass him in the street henceforth, perhaps with only a nod, perhaps without any recognition at all. And nobody would know, nobody would guess of their shipwrecked love.
"I'm glad I never told mother," she said once, voicing her thoughts. She took a little package from her pocket: it held the few trinkets he had given her, wrapped up in tissue-paper—a brooch or two, a thin gold necklace with a heart dangling49 from it, and his own signet ring.
"No ... no ..." he said; "for God's sake, keep those. I should be happier if you kept them."
She shook her head gently. "I could not keep[195] them," she said. "They were little tokens of your love ... they belong to you now."
There was a pause. The clock chimed two. The disillusion50 was complete, all the fine draperies of love had been wrenched51 away—they were so flimsy after all—and behind them reality stood, sordid52 and ashamed. She tried to strike a note of cheerful fatalism.
"Well, what must be, must be," she said, reaching for her cloak. He sprang to his feet to help her, remembering how, in other days, his hand had touched her cheek, and he had urged her lips towards him, that he might kiss her. How calm and self-possessed she was now. How magnificently she mastered the situation—a false move from her and the moments would become chaotic53. He was uneasy, awkward and embarrassed ... one moment, ready to snatch her to his arms and begin all over again; the next, alertly conscious that he was unencumbered, that henceforth there was no other interest in his life but work—free!
Now she was ready to go.
"I won't come down with you," he said, "I'll say good-bye now." He could not face a parting in the street. He watched her gather her things together, her bag, her umbrella, her gloves ... she smiled at him, and now the smile was a riddle54: he could not guess her thoughts: contempt or pity?
Suddenly she bent55 down towards him, stooped over him, with her face aglow56 with a divine expression, virginal and tender, the light of sacrifice in her eyes, the sweet pain of martyrdom on her lips; she bent towards him and kissed him lightly on the forehead.
"Good-bye, Humphie dear."
She had never spoken with a voice like that before, she had never shown how much she loved him, and all the misunderstandings, the torment57, the doubts and[196] uncertainties58 were washed away as his thoughts gushed59 forth48 in a great appreciation60 of his loss.
The next moment she had gone.
He was alone in the room, with her good-bye ringing in his ears. Idly he fingered a little packet of tissue-paper, opening it and laying bare the little pieces of metal that were all that remained to him of his love.
He touched the presents that he had given to Lilian—each one held memories for him.... The gold signet ring had belonged to his father.... If only Daniel Quain had been there, with his world-wisdom and philosophy....
Tears, Humphrey? Surely, not tears! Think how splendidly free you are now; think of the moment of triumph when you can go to Ferrol and tell him that you are no longer hampered61; see how straight the path that leads to conquest.
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1
slit
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| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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glisten
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| vi.（光洁或湿润表面等）闪闪发光，闪闪发亮 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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pros
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| abbr.prosecuting 起诉；prosecutor 起诉人；professionals 自由职业者；proscenium （舞台）前部n.赞成的意见( pro的名词复数 )；赞成的理由；抵偿物；交换物 | |
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cons
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| n.欺骗，骗局( con的名词复数 )v.诈骗，哄骗( con的第三人称单数 ) | |
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tempestuous
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| adj.狂暴的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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jumbled
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| adj.混乱的；杂乱的 | |
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hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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waning
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| adj.（月亮）渐亏的，逐渐减弱或变小的n.月亏v.衰落( wane的现在分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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demur
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| v．表示异议，反对 | |
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glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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wry
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| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
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hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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40
greasier
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| adj.脂肪的( greasy的比较级 )；（人或其行为）圆滑的；油腻的；（指人、举止）谄媚的 | |
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41
moodily
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| adv.喜怒无常地；情绪多变地；心情不稳地；易生气地 | |
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42
watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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43
sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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44
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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unevenly
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| adv.不均匀的 | |
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fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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47
frayed
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| adj.磨损的v.（使布、绳等）磨损，磨破( fray的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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49
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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50
disillusion
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| vt.使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭 | |
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51
wrenched
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| v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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52
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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53
chaotic
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| adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的 | |
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54
riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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55
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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56
aglow
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| adj.发亮的；发红的；adv.发亮地 | |
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57
torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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58
uncertainties
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| 无把握( uncertainty的名词复数 )； 不确定； 变化不定； 无把握、不确定的事物 | |
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59
gushed
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| v.喷，涌( gush的过去式和过去分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话 | |
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60
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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61
hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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