Chapter XIX

She carried her paralysed thinking to her bedroom. The words, "Never now ... never ... never," were behind her lips. Her jaws parted in the dismay of it. The sight of the mountains drew her through her window on to the loggia. Inevitably her eyes turned towards Henry's window; and quickly, though with assumed unconcern, she withdrew into her room: she had seen him standing on his balcony with hands on its railing, and knew that, with a sidelong look, he was keeping her loggia under view.

She undressed, but very abstractedly, and with long pauses when her hand, holding a garment, dropped to her side. "Never now." Never would there be any fulfilment of her love. Yes--though--there were two ways. Probably neither would happen, but it was a slight relief to picture them. Henry and she could go off together one day, accepting the worldly consequences; or he could come to England once every year, and she could meet him for a week of secret, lawless love (she had told Miss Sims she was ready to do that). Ah, all his actions and words fell into place now, especially that jumbled talk about snapping the world's inhibitions--and timidity holding you back--and not hurting others. But it was proof--it was inflating proof that he loved her.

This sudden thought, which brought happiness that quieted despair, she took into bed with her, that she might close her eyes and examine it. Henry loved her, and she loved him without one lingering doubt, and if at some future day he asked of her anything--any thing--she would give it to him. For the shadowy figure that was his wife, she knew not what she felt; sometimes jealousy and anger, sometimes pity. "Oh, I wouldn't have her suffer as I should, if I were never to have him or see him again." No, the best solution would be the hiding of their love and its secret fulfilment in some snatched weeks every year. Henry was evidently rich, and he would come over to her sometimes. Of course she would do it. And in her case she would injure nobody by giving herself to Henry.

With this vision of the future for consolation she sank into a dream-heated sleep.

Next day, Friday, and their last, on coming downstairs she found that Henry had gone by boat to Lucerne to get money for their departure. It would take him much of the day. So after breakfast she returned to her bedroom, and in a dry despair began her packing. It was manual labour and something to do. But it filled nearly all the morning, for every article was disturbing in its associations, and either she made mistakes that had to be repaired or she lost herself in long musings. When it was finished, except for what would go in to-morrow morning, she let fall the lid of her trunk, and going to the window, looked in the direction of Lucerne, whence Henry's steamer would come.

At lunch Elsie Detmould suggested a last set of tennis. Mr. Clarkson would play and that French girl, Madeleine Louvier. With a quickly donned brightness Daphne answered, "Rather! Only I'll have to play in this dress. I've packed everything else." The word "packed" pierced her.

Out on the tennis court, with its lead-coloured earth, its surrounding nets, and its pathway climbing to the seats under the chestnut and fig trees--all so achingly reminiscent--they arranged their first set--Daphne and Madeleine playing Mr. Clarkson and Elsie. Sometimes Daphne was inattentive and played badly; sometimes she inexplicably lost herself in the game for a few minutes and played well. It was just as she was beginning her service in the fifth game that she heard a crunching on the gravel-drive behind the trees, and, glancing up, saw that Henry had returned. She caught his eyes and, though hers turned away quickly, knew that he had sat down on one of the garden seats.

Self-conscious now, she played erratically, and kept up the formality of joking or even shrieking when she made mistakes or missed easy balls. The sudden sight of him, and then the constant awareness of his presence, had started a dull pain at the thought that this was almost the last time he would be within a few paces of her. As she played and shouted, "Oh, dash!" or teased Mr. Clarkson and Elsie when they were particularly weak, she was really thinking, "Oh, I understand what he meant when he talked about not knowing how to live till the time had passed for living...."

After the seventh game Elsie remembered with dismay something that must be done on this last day, and the set temporarily broke up. Mr. Clarkson offered to pass the meantime by playing against the two girls.

"No," called Daphne, "I'll sit out till Elsie returns." It would be obvious to Henry that this meant she wanted to sit by him, but she didn't care. "I'm awfully tired, really. You two have a single."

"Noh, noh," protested Madeleine.

"Yes, _please_," urged Daphne. "I really mean it. I'd like to sit down a bit."

And, running, she passed through the gate in the surrounding network and climbed the path to the seat where Henry was sitting. He watched her as she ran towards him, and when she arrived picked up her white coat and put it about her shoulders. They sat down together, Daphne staring at the play of Mr. Clarkson and Madeleine, and Henry fiddling with an unread novel that had been beside her coat. He spoke first.

"It was wretched having to go to Lucerne to-day of all days."

"Yes."

"I don't know what I'm going to do about to-morrow.... I don't want to go at all.... Just got fond of--everybody, and the whole place...."

"Yes, it's rotten."

There was a silence during which several times Henry seemed to take in his breath, as if trying to say something for which he had not the courage. Daphne, without knowing why she made the remark, broke in with:

"But you'll be glad when the time comes to go back to your wife."

"Yes...." He allowed no sign to escape him, any more than she had done before Elsie. "You should have heard me airing my German in Lucerne. I was amazed."

"Why? Did you do it frightfully well?"

"Magnificently."

And again that silence that would not deliver itself of something.

"It's a rotten book, that," said she, after watching him turn over its pages.

"Is it? I----"

But the sharp intake of his breath stopped him.

She told him something of the book's plot, and why it was so stupid, pleased, from some obscure motive, at this acting of naturalness. Then she jumped up.

"Here she is."

"Who?"

"Elsie come back."

He caught his breath again and--before he had time to think, stuttered: "Miss--Miss Bruno, may I say something to you? Oh----" He passed his hand quickly over his eyes. "I wanted to say--couldn't I see you alone somewhere? I shall probably never see you again, and I never get a moment alone with you--quite alone, I mean--and I don't know how I'm going to-morrow ... and can't I see you somewhere this evening by yourself?"

She only stared before her at the game.

"I haven't frightened you, have I?" said he. "I--I don't think I quite know all I'm saying. I don't frighten you, do I?"

She turned towards him.

"No."

"I oughtn't to have spoken, I suppose. It's only despair that made me speak."

Then there was a silence more charged than any. He was obviously waiting for her to encourage him, but she was somehow speechless. Partly because her heart was pounding, and partly because when it came to the moment of encouraging him it seemed the first step in a social disobedience for which she was not competent.

Now Elsie was back on the court and calling:

"Come on, Daphne. We're waiting."

"Righto!" cried Daphne, picking up her racket confusedly, while Henry said in despair:

"May I write you a letter and put it in this book--write what I mean? I'll give it to you as soon as you've finished. May I?"

"Yes," said she, swinging her face quickly to his and back again. "Yes, if you like."

Then she hurried down to the court. And as she played there the side of her eye saw Henry writing something. She trembled to know what it was, and played mechanically at the tennis, longing for it to be over. Yet all the while she provided the necessary banter at other people's failures and explosions at her own. At last it was finished, and when they suggested another set she demurred:

"Oh, no. I can't play any more; I'm not as young as you people. I want to go and write some letters before I dress for dinner."

And rather languidly, with head down, she strolled through the network and up to the seat for her coat. Henry rose and gave it to her. The others, agreeing that they had had enough, were coming up.

"And here's your novel," said Henry.

"Oh, thanks."

She took it in a hand that was shaking traitorously. Calling to the other people, "Well, I've got a lot to do, I can't hang about with all you idlers," she walked--almost ran--towards the hotel entrance. In the vestibule and the lift she kept the book near her shoulder. Along the corridor of her floor she hurried to her bedroom with shoulders swinging. In the bedroom, with the door closed, she nervously opened the book, and saw a half-sheet of note-paper on which was written in pencil:

"DEAR,--I must see you for a little while before I go. I simply don't know how I am going in the morning, but I feel if I could have you for an hour or so to myself I could go with greater courage. Dear, there is only one place I can suggest. I would not suggest it if there were any other place or time possible, but there isn't. Trust me, and come to my bedroom after the others have gone to bed. It's the only place where we can be unseen, and you untalked about. Dear, love cannot hurt where it loves. My dear, I have not sought this thing like some silly adventurer looking for a holiday romance--good God, it hurts too much. If I could be quit of it I would. No, though, I wouldn't. I don't know how it came. From the first minute I saw you, I think--with your wonderful little head and your great eyes and your childish clothes. I think I hoped to find you empty of ideas and be cured, but soon I loved your mind and your" (a word had been omitted here) "more than anything else about you. Dear, I do not fully know your ideas about religion and things, but if you see anything in this letter that needs forgiveness, forgive me. I cannot help loving you. If you don't come, I shall understand fully. I hardly know what I am writing about. My love for you fills everything. I can only stare at it. I cannot see before or behind or after it.

"H. D."

She let her hand with the note in it fall to the table-top. For the moment everything was lost in the joy of possessing it. Oh, she would go to him, as he asked. Of course, she would go. Wearied with the strain of it all she lay down upon her bed, holding the note by her side. She floated away on her thoughts, for how long she knew not. She was happy. She could not see beyond that "hour together." All the misery of the next morning's departure was hidden behind it. An hour? It would be no hour, but a long night. How could either, when the hour was over, draw away? Real and awful though she knew her love to be, the romantic aspect of this last hidden union could not wholly fail to please her. To the æsthete that must ever be in her and in Henry it was a fitting climax.

Gradually the fall in the light persuaded her to look at her watch, and she saw that it was seven o'clock. She must rise and dress. It always took her so long to dress when she was lost in thoughts. Slowly, and making many mistakes, she put on one of the "childish dresses," arranged her hair, and clasped a rope of pearls about her neck. Her cheeks had hollowed and her eyes were under-scored with darkness. The tired skin of her face she tried to make good with powder.

When she went down with her father to their table she was able to see, by one of her quick over-shoulder glances, that Henry was already seated with his sister. She had hardly taken her own chair before Elsie came up.

"Are you both coming on the trip round the lake to-night?"

"Certainly not," said Mr. Bruno. "What is it?"

"One of the steamers starts at nine. It's to be illuminated, and there's to be dancing on deck, and refreshments. It's the very thing for a last night. Come and be really childish."

"It sounds as though it would suit my daughter--not me."

"Well, Daphne, then, will you come?"

Daphne was troubled. Did Henry want her to go or to stay behind? Perhaps he would like her to linger in the hotel, emptied by the steamer, and if so, she would be angry with them for having dragged her into their sickly gaieties. But since it was impossible to ask his movements, politeness compelled her to reply:

"Oh, yes, I should love it. When do we start?"

"Nine, and back at eleven. It'll be gorgeous."

The dinner dawdled along to dessert and wine and coffee. And at about half-past eight the quiet air of the lake was shattered by an explosion like a gun's. An exclamation came from Mr. Bruno, and Henry walked up.

"That's a signal," said he, with a smile that comprised father and daughter. "It means that the weather's favourable and the boat will go."

The explosion came a second time as he said it.

He walked to the window and looked towards the Brunnen boat-landing.

"Yes, the steamer's there; looking very fine with its illuminations. Quite a lot of people are going on board all ready. Some seem to be going independently in rowing boats. They are hanging all round it, and lighting up Chinese lanterns." He turned to Daphne. "You're going, aren't you, Miss Bruno?"

"Yes. Are you?"

"I suppose so. But I guess it'll be cold."

"Go then at once and get a coat," said Mr. Bruno to his daughter.

Daphne hurried to the lift and was soon upstairs. She selected the white tennis coat because of its memories. Then she joined the Detmoulds and Mr. Clarkson and Madeleine in hall. The night, as they passed into it, was unencouraging. Flaky clouds had floated over the sky, and the few stars that danced between them were ineffectual. Not yet was the moon above the mountains.

On the little boat-landing men and women of all classes were crowding to the gangway; most were hatless; some of the men were in evening dress of British, German, or French design, and their women had veils or mantillas over their heads; other people were in tweeds or Swiss National costume. On the deck, under the Chinese lanterns hung from the awnings, several couples were already dancing, excited to it by four bandsmen, fancy-dressed as Venetian gondoliers, who were jigging their bodies in conscientious gaiety.

Henry, embarrassed, walked with any one rather than Daphne. Hatless, his hair blowing, he led the party on to the deck. Daphne walked last. There were no unoccupied seats anywhere, so they went and stood against a railing on the farther side and looked at the smaller craft, whose lanterns made a ring round the ship.

"If we can't sit down we may as well dance," said Mr. Clarkson to Daphne. "May I have the pleasure of this waltz?"

There was no escape. She took off her white coat and looked for somewhere to place it. Henry, with set lips, stretched out a hand to receive it. She went off on the arm of Mr. Clarkson, angry with him for dragging her away, and yet glad that Henry had seen her in request. In the waltz she chatted gaily, though always waiting for the moment when their arrival at one corner in the hustled crowd showed her, as her head swung round, Henry leaning against the rail and holding her white coat. The dance finished; but as all the couples clapped, the bandsmen repeated the tune and the merry jigging of their bodies. Her partner seized her again, and she was once more in the dance. Now a slight moving of the floor told her that the boat had started. Cheers came from the shore, and one of the rowing boats shot up a rocket which rained golden fire on the departing steamer.

On her return Henry put the coat round her shoulders, and she thanked him, and, looking up, said:

"Aren't you going to dance?"

"No."

At that moment a Swiss was brought up and introduced to her. He asked her in French for the next dance, and she replied: "_Oui, monsieur_." And with the band's first notes she accepted his arm and walked back to the dancer's deck. Why she danced she could not tell; her body was exhausted and her mind fixedly miserable. Perhaps it was because the awkwardness and silence of Henry made standing beside him so difficult. And dancing was as good as thinking.

When she returned from this second dance he muttered, as if continuing their last conversation:

"I can't vulgarise what I feel for you by dancing with this crowd."

She sat down on a seat now vacant, and her head drooped. Henry stood by with folded arms, saying nothing. The next dance began and the bandsmen sang as they played. Many of the watchers who were not dancing joined in the song. In the voices of women the singing added to itself an extrinsic beauty from the darkness, the water and the foreign tongue. Daphne kept her head down, partly from the ache of exhaustion in neck and shoulders, and partly from fear of meeting Henry's eyes.

"You're looking done for," said Henry suddenly. "Come and get a strong coffee or something. Let's go downstairs to the saloon and get out of this silly jigging crowd."

She got up obediently.

"All right. It _has_ been horribly cold, ever since the boat started moving."

Going in front, he threaded her through the jostling people. They went down the stairs and into the noisy saloon only to find another orchestra playing there while couples danced between the tables.

"Oh, damn!" muttered Henry. "Isn't there a quiet place anywhere?"

He ordered two coffees from the steward and asked Daphne rather fatuously, "Where are we to sit?"

"I don't know," she said. "It's so crowded, isn't it?"

"Foul!"

They wandered among the tables, but nowhere was there a place for them. And before they had decided anything the steward appeared with the two cafés on a tray. Henry took it abruptly from him, and walked out of the saloon right away to the stern of the boat, Daphne following. All the seats that they passed were occupied by foolish couples dallying with flirtation between the dances. Henry pushed past their knees till he saw, across an intervening bar, a platform on which rested one of the ship's boats. He stepped over the bar, and Daphne bent her head and went under. The tray he laid on the boat's seat, and pointing to the boat's side, said:

"Sit there. You're tired out."

She climbed on to the side, and this position left her crossed feet dangling. It was true she was tired out. Her body sagged as she sat. She took the coffee and sipped it.

"I am going to speak low," began Henry, "in case any of these detestable people are nearer than they appear and can speak English.... My dear, I can't tell what you're feeling or thinking--I simply haven't the courage to ask you for fear of learning that I've built too much on your--oh, but I'll leave that--but I know _I_ never want to suffer again what I've gone through the last few days. Sometimes I've wondered what the morning of departure would be like, and how I could stand it. Often I've wished the wrench were over, and I could be away from you. I've said, 'My God, I'm glad I'm going soon. I can't stick it.'"

Her head still hung over the cup in her lap.

"You see--you see," he pursued, stuttering, "I don't know how it all happened. It's an abrupt mystery to me. I seemed to find myself suddenly floundering and struggling in a love--and it was a love such as I'd never experienced before and never expected to.... It stands alone, dear, in my life, and always will do.... I thought I'd like you to know that much in case we don't ... lest we never..."

He paused long and beat with his feet on the ground.

"Often I wished I'd never seen you at all, and then I thought immediately, 'No, I wouldn't have missed this awful pain.' An idiot's business."

Daphne wanted to nod her bent head as if to show that she understood him; but she couldn't, and she didn't know whether he was looking at her or away.

"I wanted you to know something of the strength--the uncontrollable strength of what I felt for you; so that you could understand that it was something too big for me that forced me to speak. At one time I hoped it'd be enough if I just hung about near you and waited for the end. One might as well have expected one of these ghastly Swiss waterfalls to stand still.... My God, I hate everything about Switzerland, and yet I love it next to you.... I wish I understood anything on earth ... and what I'm saying...."

A dance must have finished, for more couples came towards the seats the other side of the bar. Daphne moved as if to drop from the boat's side to the ground, but Henry stopped her with a slight touch of his hand.

"No; don't go. Please don't go. They'll only think we're sitting out. Stay--stay as long as you can."

They stayed in silence; and when many of the couples had returned to the deck for another dance, Henry adventured his hand towards Daphne's on the boat's rim, and touched it with his fingers. She did not move it away or show any feeling, though at his touch the temperature of her body fluctuated as in a rigor. His hot, trembling palm and fingers closed on hers, feeling it, pressing it.

Speech yielded to this, and many minutes must have passed before their silence was disturbed by an excitement on the boat, everybody crowding to the starboard side and staring over the water. Many hurried past their retreat.

Henry muttered, withdrew his hand, and looked in the direction of some pointing fingers. Daphne, hardly moving her body, also turned her head. They saw that a chalet on the side of the wooded mountain had been illuminated with a red flare to greet the passing pleasure-steamer. The red glow reached its most brilliant and died down, to be succeeded by a pale green flare. On the water under the trees a rowing boat had also lit a sea-green flare, and its reflection came trilling down the surface as far as the steamer.

"It's the Rutli," people were saying in several languages. They clapped loudly, the women with their hands as high as their heads, hoping that their grateful applause might reach the chalet on the mountain. A boom from the funnel also acknowledged the courtesy. Automatically and dreamily Henry joined in the clapping, and a laugh that was rather frightening because so mixed up with despair shook in Daphne's throat. For a long time the people watched the alternating lights till they had left the chalet far on their quarter and its last red flare was like the glow of a camp fire behind the pines.

"And there's another!" cried an English voice.

The boat was swinging round; and Tell's Chapel, at the mountain's foot, had come into view. Its front was flaring with a crimson light in honour of this advancing boat-load of happy people. And when the boat had completely turned in its course a Brunnen hotel lit up its long façade. Again the grateful people clapped and cheered and the funnel boomed.

Henry turned to Daphne.

"You say nothing, dear. Tell me--tell me this much: does this pleasure hurt you as it does me?"

"A little," she acknowledged. Her hair was blown about in the breeze and she tried to steady and straighten it with her hand.

The flares ashore died down and the people returned to their dancing.

"Hadn't we better be getting back?" ventured Daphne, after a long pause.

"Oh, no--no.... How can you want to go back? ... The others won't even notice our absence ... or if they do, I don't care.... They'll probably only think we're flirting.... God! _Flirting!_ ..."

So the silence was resumed, he standing by her, and she sitting on the boat's edge. He did not again seek her hand. Once or twice he broke the silence. "Dear, I want to say this: I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but if--if we never----" The sentence was left incomplete. "I want you to promise never to look back upon what I felt for you and think of it as some holiday infatuation--don't profane it by thinking that.... I know when I look back on it I shall never soil it by seeing any folly or wrong in it.... It's somehow true, and I'm not ashamed of it."

And later: "Perhaps such a love is too terrible to last--I don't know.... I can't imagine now that it would ever end.... No, it never could--it must always be there in some form. At present my one wish is to have you evermore and alone.... You don't say much, dear."

Daphne looked up at him.

"I'm awfully tired, somehow."

"Of course you are."

Nothing more was said till he exclaimed, "We're pushing into Brunnen already. It's nearly ten past eleven."

She looked towards the shore and saw Brunnen in darkness and their vast hotel with only a few lights in the bedroom windows. The crowd on the boat was already beginning to pack towards the gangway, leaving them alone. She dropped to her feet, but immediately he stayed her.

"No, wait. Wait a little. We've hardly once been alone."

When their end of the boat was quite deserted, he put his arm round her waist and kissed her.

She could not so lie as to resist or reproach him; but she had received only, and not given. They walked towards the gangway--the coffee cups remaining in the boat unreturned, as they were unpaid for. She reflected that neither had said a word about his letter asking her to come to his room; he, doubtless, because he had dreaded hearing her say No--wherefore he had kissed lest it were their last privacy; and she because she was shy of saying Yes, she would come.

They found the rest of their party at the head of the gangway and crowded down it with them. On the pier Mr. Clarkson said:

"Come along, children. Are we all here?" And he put an arm into Elsie's and Madeleine's arms and began to walk them along the road to the hotel. Elsie had thrust an arm into Daphne's. Henry walked in front, unlinked, remote. Daphne was obliged to fall into step with the other three as they hurried along to Mr. Clarkson's "Left, Right, Left--Right, Left--Right."