Part 73 (1/2)

He felt her shrink from the direct question.

”Why press the point, Roy? It needn't make any real difference--need it--between you and me?”

Her counter-question was still more direct, more searching.

”Perhaps not--now,” he said. ”It might ... make a lot ...

afterwards----”

At that critical juncture their talk was interrupted by a peon with a note that required immediate attention: and Roy, left alone, felt increasingly disillusioned and dismayed.

Later on, to his relief, Rose suggested a ride. She seemed suddenly in a more elusive mood than he had experienced since their engagement. She did not refer again to his novel, or to the th.o.r.n.y topic of India; and their parting embrace was chilled by a shadow of constraint.

”_How_ would it be--afterwards?” he wondered, riding back to the Club, at a foot's pace, feeling tired and feverish and gravely puzzled as to whether it might not--on all counts--be the greater wrong to make a fetish of a bond so rashly forged.

To-day, very distinctly he was aware of the inner tug he had been trying to ignore. And to-day it was more imperative; less easily stilled. Could it be ... veritably, his mother, trying to reach him--and failing, for the first time?

That thought prompted the test question--if _she_ were alive, how would he feel about bringing Rose home as daughter-in-law, as mother of her grandson ... the gift of gifts? If she were alive, could Rose herself have faced the conjunction? And to him she was still verily alive--or had been, till his infatuate pa.s.sion had blinded him to everything but one face, one form, one desire.

That night there came to him--on the verge of sleep--the old thrilling sensation that she was there--yearning to him across an impa.s.sable barrier. And this time he knew--with a bitter certainty--that the barrier was within himself. Every nerve in him craved--as he had not craved this long while--the unmistakable _sense_ of her that seemed gone past recall. Desperately, he strained every faculty to penetrate the resistant medium that withheld her from him--in vain.

Wearied out, with disappointment and futile effort, he fell asleep--praying for a dream visitation to revive his shaken faith. None came; and conviction seized him that none would come, until....

One could not, simultaneously, live on intimate terms with earth and heaven. And Rose was earth in its most alluring guise. More: she had awakened in him sensations and needs that, at the moment, she alone could satisfy. But if it amounted to a choice; for him, there could be no question....

Next day and the day after, a sharp return of fever kept him in bed: and a touch of his father in him tempted him to write, sooner than face the strain of a final scene. But moral cowardice was not among his failings; also unquestionably--if irrationally--he wanted to see her, to hold her in his arms once again....

On the third morning he sent her a note saying he was better; he would be round for tea; and received a verbal answer. Miss Sahib sent her salaam. She would be at home.

So, about half-past three, he rode out to the house on Elysium Hill, wondering how--and, at moments, whether--he was going to pull it through....

Her smile of welcome almost unmanned him. He simply did not feel fit for the strain. It would be so much easier and more restful to yield to her spell.

”I'm so sorry. Idiotic of me,” was all he said; and went forward to take her in his arms.

But she, without a word, laid both hands on him, holding him back.

”_Rose!_ What's the matter?” he cried, genuinely upset. Nothing undermines a resolve like finding it forestalled.

”Simply--it's all over. We're beaten, Roy,” she said in a queer, repressed voice. ”We can't go on with this. And--you know it.”

”But--darling!” He took her by the arms.

”No ... _no_!” The pa.s.sionate protest was addressed to herself as much as to him. ”Listen, Roy. I've never hated saying anything more--but it's true. You said, last time,--'Why pretend?' And that struck home. I knew I had been pretending hard--because I wanted to--for more than a week.

You made me realise ... one couldn't go on at it all one's married life.--But, my dear, what a wretch I am! You're not fit....”

”Oh, I'm just wobbly ... stupid,” he muttered, half dazed, as she pressed him down into a corner of the Chesterfield.

”Poor old boy. When you've had some tea, you'll be able to face things.”