Part 15 (1/2)

'I wonder--' he began, then changed the sentence--'I wonder what it will be like. I have a curious desire to see it--I know that.'

He heard her laugh under her breath a little. What came over them both in that moment he couldn't say. There was a sense of tumult in him somewhere, a hint of pain, of menace too. Her laughter, slight as it was, jarred upon him. She was not feeling quite what he felt--this flashed, then vanished.

'You don't sound enthusiastic,' she said calmly.

'I am, though. Only--I had a feeling----' He broke off. The truth was he couldn't describe that feeling even to himself.

'Tom, dear, my dear one--' she began, then stopped. She also stopped an impulsive movement towards him. She drew back her sentence and her arms.

And Tom, aware of a rising pa.s.sion in him he might be unable to control, turned his face away a moment. Something clutched at his heart as with cruel pincers. A chill followed close upon the s.h.i.+ver. He felt a moment of keen shame, yet knew not exactly why he felt it.

'I am a sentimental a.s.s!' he exclaimed abruptly with a natural laugh.

His voice was tender. He turned again to her. 'I believe I've never properly grown up.' And before he could restrain himself he drew her towards him, seized her hand and kissed it like a boy. It was that kiss, combined with her blocked sentence and uncompleted gesture, rather than any more pa.s.sionate expression of their love for one another, that he remembered throughout the empty months to follow.

But there was another reason, too, why he remembered it. For she wore a silk dress, and the arm against his ear produced a momentary rustling that brought back the noise in the Zakopane bedroom when the frozen branch had sc.r.a.ped the outside wall. And with the Sound, absent now so long, the old strange uneasiness revived acutely. For that caressing gesture, that kiss, that phrase of love that blocked its own final utterance brought back the strange rich pain.

In the act of giving them, even while he felt her touch and held her within his arms--she evaded him and went far away into another place where he could not follow her. And he knew for the first time a singular emotion that seemed like a faint, distant jealousy that stirred in him, yet a spiritual jealousy . . . as of some one he had never even seen.

They lingered a moment in the garden to enjoy the quiet stars and see the moon go down below the pine-wood. The tense mood of half an hour ago in the motor-car had evaporated of its own accord apparently.

A conversation that followed emphasised this elusive emotion in him, because it somehow increased the remoteness of the part of her he could not claim. She mentioned that she was taking Mrs. Haughstone with her to Egypt in November; it again exasperated him; such unselfishness he could not understand. The invitation came, moreover, upon what Tom felt was a climax of shameless behaviour. For Madame Jaretzka had helped the family with money that, to save their pride, was to be considered lent.

The husband had written gus.h.i.+ng letters of thanks and promises that--Tom had seen these letters--could hardly have deceived a schoolgirl.

Yet a recent legacy, which rendered a part repayment possible, had been purposely concealed, with the result that yet more money had been 'lent'

to tide them over non-existent or invented difficulties.

And now, on the top of this, Madame Jaretzka not only refused to divulge that the legacy was known to her, but even proposed an expensive two months' holiday to the woman who was tricking her.

Tom objected strongly for two reasons; he thought it foolish kindness, and he did not want her.

'You're too good to the woman, far too good,' he said. But his annoyance was only increased by the firmness of the att.i.tude that met him.

'No, Tom; you're wrong. They'll find out in time that I know, and see themselves as they are.'

'You forgive everything to everybody,' he observed critically. 'It's too much.'

She turned round upon him. Her att.i.tude was a rebuke, and feeling rebuked he did not like it. For though she did not quote 'until seventy times seven,' she lived it.

'When she sees herself sly and treacherous like that, she'll understand,'

came the answer, 'she'll get her own forgiveness.'

'Her own forgiveness!'

'The only real kind. If I forgive, it doesn't alter her. But if she understands and feels shame and makes up her mind not to repeat--that's forgiving herself. She really changes then.'

Tom gasped inwardly. This was a level of behaviour where he found the air somewhat rarified. He saw the truth of it, but had no answer ready.

'Remorse and regret,' she went on, 'only make one ineffective in the present. It's looking backwards, instead of looking forwards.'

He felt something very big in her as she said it, holding his eyes firmly with her own. To have the love of such a woman was, indeed, a joy and wonder. It was a keen happiness to feel that he, Tom Kelverdon, had obtained it. His admiration for himself, and his deep, admiring love for her rose side by side. He did not recognise the flattery of self in this att.i.tude. The simplicity in her baffled him.