Chapter 8

He seemed to have reached out and touched the very summit of life in that swift moment of supreme excellence. His whole being vibrated with the splendour of living. He felt as he had felt that night when those three grand chords struck by Dyotkin had stirred the depths of his soul....

And then his moment faded away into the irrevocable past, as she disengaged herself with a gentle, graceful movement, and they stood facing each other in silence. He saw her eyes, inexpressibly mild and soft, droop downwards, as she bent her head; he marked the colour mounting up her cheeks, flushing faintly the whiteness of her neck, and her fingers straying nervously in the thin, golden loop of the chain that fell across her bosom.

The wonder of his emotions dazed him. All that he could realize was that, in the space of a second, their relations had been absolutely changed. Henceforth, she appeared to him in another aspect. Quite suddenly and swiftly they had become isolated from all the countless millions in the world by the sorcery of a kiss. It seemed unreal and absurd to him. He wanted to laugh.

"You had better sit down," she said in a low voice, that had a note of appeal in it. "I hear Ellen coming.... It will not do to let her notice anything...."

Astonishing, he thought, how tranquil and undisturbed she could remain. She could talk to Ellen as if nothing at all had happened; she could hand him sandwiches and prattle about little things as long as Ellen[263] was in the room, and even when the door closed on Ellen she seemed loath to let him speak.

But he stopped her, emboldened by the privilege of his love. He went over to her and, placing his hands on each side of her face, drew her forehead towards his kiss, and looked at her with sparkling, victorious eyes.

"You have made me happier than I have ever been," he said. "I will be very grateful and good to you."

Her eyes met his searchingly. "You will, really?" she asked.

"Really," he said, and he kissed her again.

Now they could talk—he had so much to say. With her acceptance of his pledge, her smiling "Really," and his reply, he became normal again. His thoughts descended from their eminence and came back to their matter-of-fact, everyday plane.

"Tell me," he said, with a lover's vanity, "when did you first know that I loved you?"

"I don't know ..." she said. "Perhaps to-night."

"Only to-night!" he echoed, disappointed. "Oh, I have loved you long before this. I think it began when we went to the forest together that day with the children.... I shall be able to help you with your work," he cried, buoyantly, "or will you drop it now?"

She laughed merrily. "How you hurry things on!" she said. "Give me time to think, like a good boy. We're not going to be married to-morrow, are we?"

"No ... no," he protested, "I didn't mean that. Let's have a really long, lovely engagement. Give me months in which I can do all sorts of things for you; we'll see things together that I've never seen before—museums and picture-galleries. Do you know, there's hundreds of things in London I've never seen."

"Why not?"

"I put off the seeing until I go there with my love."

The consummate joy of the hour infected him. He[264] walked up and down the room promising great things ... vanity and egotism tinged his talk.

"I shall get on, you know. I shall do something great in Fleet Street, one day. There's no knowing where I shall stop. And then there are the books I mean to write. Oh yes! Kenneth's sown the seeds of book-writing in me. And plays ... plays are the things to make money with...."

"You won't need money," she said, kindly. "I have enough for both of us."

"Dearest," he answered. (It seemed the most natural thing in the world, now, that he should call her "dearest.") "You must not say that.... You won't mind waiting, just a little, will you? Until I feel I can come to you and say that I do not need your money.... I can't explain it ... I should never be happy if I took a penny from you."

She took his hand and caressed it. "I like you all the better for that, Humphrey." (He noticed that she did not use the word "love.")

He saw the future splendid, and roseate. He thought, with a smile, of Ferrol. Ferrol could not check him now. He had made his own identity, he was conscious of his own will to achieve that which he set out to do. Besides, there was such a difference between Lilian and Elizabeth.

He emerged from the house, a new being in a new world, living in the amazement of the last hour.