Part 19 (1/2)

Lucy looked at him. ”You _did_ know, didn't you? All this time, I mean?

I didn't tell you, because I never tell you things, of course. You always know them. And this particularly. You _did_ know it, Peter? But when you came in you looked ... you looked as if you didn't.”

”I was stupid,” said Peter. ”I ought to have known.”

Looking back, he saw that he certainly ought. He certainly must have, only that his vision had been blocked by a certain deeply-rooted idea, that was as old as his growth. He had a.s.sumed, without words. He had thought that she too had a.s.sumed; neither had ever required words to elucidate their ideas one to the other; they had kept words for the other things, the jolly, delightful things of the foreground.

”How long?” asked Peter, drinking his tea to warm him, for, though it was so hot outside, he felt very cold in here.

She told him. ”Oh, since the beginning, I think. I thought you knew, Peter.... We didn't say anything about it till quite lately. Only we both knew.”

She came and sat on the rug by his side, and slipped her hand into his.

”Are you glad, Peter? Please, Peter, be glad.”

”I will presently,” said Peter, with one of his fainter smiles. ”Let me just get used to it, and I will.”

She whispered, stroking his hand, ”We've always had such fun, Peter, we three. Haven't we? Let's go on having it.”

”Yes,” said Peter. ”Let's.”

He was vague still, and a little dizzy, but he could smile at her now.

After all, wasn't it splendid? Denis and Lucy--the two people he loved best in the world; so immeasurably best that beside them everyone else was no cla.s.s at all.

He sat very still on the coal-scuttle, making a fresh discovery about himself. He had known before that he had a selfish disposition, though he had never thought about it particularly; but he hadn't known that it was in him to grudge Denis anything--Denis, who was consciously more to him than anyone else in the world. Lucy was different; she was rooted in the very fibre of his being; it wasn't so much that he consciously loved her as that she was his other self. Well, hadn't he long since given to Denis, to use as he would, all the self he had?

But the wrench made him wince, and left him chilly and grown old.

”It's perfectly splendid for both of you,” said Peter, himself again at last. ”And it was extraordinarily stupid of me not to see it before.... Do you think Denis really meant I could go and see him?

I think I will.”

”'Course he did. 'Course you will. Go to-morrow. But now it's going to be just you and me and tea. And honey sandwiches--oh, Peter!” Her eyes danced at him, because it was such a nice world. He came off the coal-scuttle and made himself comfortable in a low chair near the honey sandwiches.

”Will you and Denis try always to have them when I come to tea with you?

I do love them so. Have you arranged when it is to be, by the way?”

”No. Father won't want it to be for ages--he won't like it to be at all, of course, because Denis isn't poor or miserable or revolutionary. But Felicity has done so nicely for him in that way (Lawrence is getting into horrid rows in Poland, you know) that I think I've a _right_ to someone happy and clean, don't you?... And Denis wants it to be soon. So I suppose it will be soon.”

”Sure to be,” Peter agreed.

The room was full of roses; their sweetness was exuberant, intoxicating; not like Lucy, who usually had small, pale, faint flowers.

”Isn't it funny,” she said, ”how one thinks one can't be any happier, and then suddenly something happens inside one, and one sees everything new.

I used to think things couldn't be brighter and s.h.i.+ne more--but now they glitter like the sun, all new.”

”I expect so,” said Peter.

Then she had a little stab of remorse; for Peter had been turned out of the place of glittering things, and moved in a grey and dusty world among things no one could like.

”'Tis so _stupid_ that your work is like that,” she said, with puckered forehead. ”I wish you could find something nice to do, Peter dear.”