Part 24 (1/2)

”No!” Her voice rang through the room. ”I won't let you say that, Jasper. I'll tell you the truth now. And take it or leave it as you will. You won't be able to get away from it. Not if I tell you the truth, Jasper. There'll be no getting away from it!”

”Truth--; about what?”

”You and your genius. I wouldn't have told you but it's no good going on like this. I thought there was some hope for you; I couldn't think any human being would be as self-satisfied, as disgustingly material as you are. Why, if you have a soul, but you haven't, and I thought--G.o.d, how I hoped!”

He started to speak. He could not find his voice.

She went on presently in that quiet, monotonous voice which had been hers for so many years.

”You left me alone; I wouldn't have complained; I wouldn't complain now if you had some excuse for it. It all made me different. There's no use in telling you how; you couldn't understand. But I got to feeling things I'd never felt before; and then I saw things. And after a while I found I could bring those things to me. And that night, the first night we moved in here--”

He interrupted her in spite of himself.

”What of that night? What?”

”That night when you were standing there at the window I got down on my knees and prayed. I brought something to you that night. And you called the genius yours.” She broke off and was silent for a second. ”I brought it to you because I wanted you to be great. I thought with all that energy of yours for writing that if it could work through you, you'd be big. But you were too small for it! You tried to make it a thing of your own. And I've held on to it. For six years I've kept it here with you; and now it's going. I'm letting it go back again. You're too small; you can't ever be anything but just--you!”

He walked over to his desk, and sank down into the arm chair.

”I don't--know--what--you're--talking--about.”

”You do! And if you don't, why do you look out of the window there every night? Why d'you wait for it to come, before you start to write?”

His exclamation was involuntary.

”The shadow!”

”Yes. Its shadow--; from this room where I kept it--casting--over--there--its--shadow.”

So that was what she meant. The superst.i.tion-fostered thing that epitomized his genius to himself. The shadow that he had come to look upon as a sign of luck. But it was nonsense. It wasn't possible; not such rot as that. It was his mind; the big creative mind of him that wrote.

”Have you said all you're going to say?”

For a second her gaze met his and then the heavy lids came down again over those strange green eyes, hiding all expression.

”Yes, Jasper.”

He looked out of the window. His eyes stared through the night beyond the two shadowy, drooping willow trees on either side of the wicker gate and over at the house opposite. He caught his breath. The yellow light from the lamp on his desk played across the clear blank of the window blind across the way. The shadow had gone.

”Ellen--” His voice was hoa.r.s.e. ”Ellen!”

”What is it?”

”It's not there, Ellen--; six years; now--; why, Ellen--”

She went and sat down in the chair beside the desk.

”Yes.”