Part 2 (1/2)

Our day's run became the merest shadow of a formality. The office of Head Forester lapsed into an absolute sinecure. Love was with us--triumphant, and no longer to be skirted round by me; fresh, electric, glorious in James.

We talked--we must have talked. We moved. Our limbs performed their ordinary, daily movements. But a golden haze hangs over that second period. When, by the strongest effort of will, I can let my mind stand by those perfect moments, I seem to hear our voices, low and measured.

And there are silences, fond in themselves and yet more fondly interrupted by unspoken messages from our eyes. What we really said, what we actually did, where precisely we two went, I do not know. We were together, and the blur of love was about us. Always the blur. It is not that memory cannot conjure up the scene again. It is not that the scene is clouded by the ill-proportion of a dream. No. It is because the dream is brought to me by will and not by sleep. The blur recurs because the blur was there. A love vast as ours is penalised, as it were, by this blur, which is the hall-mark of infinity.

In mighty distances, whether from earth to heaven, whether from 5245 Gerrard to 137 Glasgow, there is always that awful, that disintegrating blur.

A third period succeeded. I may call it the affectionately practical period. Instantly the blur vanishes. We were at our proper distance from the essence of things, and though infinity is something one yearns for pa.s.sionately, one's normal condition has its meed of comfort. I remember once hearing a man in a Government office say that the pleasantest moment of his annual holiday was when his train rolled back into Paddington Station. And he was a man, too, of a naturally lazy disposition.

It was about the middle of this third period, during a mushroom-trapping ramble, that the idea occurred to us, first to me, then--after reflection--to James, that mother ought to be informed how matters stood between us.

We went into the house, hand-in-hand, and interviewed her.

She was in the bow-window, reading a translation of _The Deipnosophists_ of Athenaeus.

”Good morning,” she said, looking at her watch. ”It is a little past our usual breakfast time, Margie, I think?”

”We have been looking for mushrooms, mother.”

”Every investigation, says Athenaeus, which is guided by principles of Nature fixes its ultimate aim entirely on gratifying the stomach. Have you found any mushrooms?”

”Heaps, Mrs. Goodwin,” said James.

”Mother,” I said, ”we want to tell you something.”

”The fact is, Mrs. Goodwin----”

”We are engaged.”

My mother liked James.

”Margie,” she once said to me, ”there is good in Mr. Cloyster. He is not for ever offering to pa.s.s me things.” Time had not caused her to modify this opinion. She received our news calmly, and inquired into James's means and prospects. James had forty pounds and some odd silver. I had nothing.

The key-note of my mother's contribution to our conference was, ”Wait.”

”You are both young,” she said.

She then kissed me, smiled contemplatively at James, and resumed her book.

When we were alone, ”My darling,” said James, ”we must wait. Tomorrow I catch the boat for Weymouth. I shall go straight to London. My first ma.n.u.script shall be in an editor's hands on Wednesday morning. I will go, but I will come back.”

I put my arms round his neck.

”My love,” I said, ”I trust you. Go. Always remember that I know you will succeed.”

I kissed him.

”And when you have succeeded, come back.”

CHAPTER 3