Chapter III

“... I didn’t think it was possible to be quite so happy as this. I want to thank you for it again and again, but I simply can’t find words. You’ve made me so glad and triumphant. I know now that nothing else matters, and that nothing can ever come between us. Please say you know it too, because you do, deep down in your heart, don’t you? Oh, I can’t say one fraction of what I want to, but I can hardly wait till to-morrow, to have you in my arms again.... God bless you, my dear....”

The sight of the scrawled phrases sent the blood rushing to Antoinette’s cheeks; and yet—she had given him no reason to burst into these pæans of joy. Was he so dense, then, that he did not perceive that there was no answering joy in her? Dense and selfish he must be, with that peculiar masculine denseness and selfishness that she had always abhorred in the men who had hitherto flirted with her—men who had taken for granted that her pleasure in receiving their attentions must equal their pleasure in bestowing them. What right had Dennis to take so much for granted? She had credited him with more subtlety of insight than was common to the average male. His caresses had lacked the masculine brutality that had always frightened her. Dennis had not frightened her: he had merely bored her.

She read the letter through again, and again thrilled at the sight of the words. Which of her impressions of him was correct? How was it that his letter could thrill her, when under his kisses she had remained as cold as ice? Obviously, there was still some mystery that awaited solution.

Perhaps it would be solved this morning! He had rung her up, and asked her to meet him for a good long talk ... and at the sound of his voice, tense and controlled, over the telephone, she was aware of an intense desire to avoid hurting him, and to find that everything was really “all right.”

He took her to a little underground tea-shop in the Strand much frequented by Barnaby and his journalistic friends. It was empty at this hour of the morning, and no sooner had Dennis given his order for coffee, than he took Antoinette in his arms, kissed her and kissed her.... And Antoinette let him kiss her and kissed him back, trying to act the part, shamming the passion she was far from feeling, and that she longed so genuinely to call into existence by shamming if it could not be otherwise, and wondered all the while that he did not seem to notice the coldness beneath this sham passion of hers, and that he could still murmur brokenly between their kisses: “I’m so glad—so very glad....”

“Let’s go and tell your people when we leave here, shall we?” he cried, as he released her, “do you think your grandmother will die of the shock?”

“Oh, she needn’t know just yet. There’s not such a hurry, is there?” ... Again that twinge of alarm. She must know that she could still escape in case of need. If her people were told at once, and an engagement between herself and Dennis formally announced, all possibility of escape would be barred.

“But there’s no need to keep it a secret,” he protested, “I feel I can’t keep it to myself a moment longer. I want to tell everybody I meet—Crispin—Barnaby—and to wire to them at home—Mother will be ever so glad. I may just tell her, mayn’t I?”

“I’d much rather you didn’t, Dennis....” More and more real her alarm, now. She must succeed in combating this desire of his to take people into his confidence. For once his family knew, and her family, and his friends, and her friends, she would be bound hand and foot to carry out her portion of an agreement into which she had not yet entered. Not yet.... She was frightened of being rushed into a decision; determined to play for time.

“I’m not sure of myself, Dennis. I told you so last night, and it’s true. Won’t you give me a chance to be really sure?”

He avoided answering the direct question and argued: “We could tell them all the same, couldn’t we? Whether we tell them now, or in six months, doesn’t make much difference.”

“Yes, it does. It makes all the difference in the world to me—it should make all the difference in the world to you, if you care that I should really care for you.”

He said sadly, “But don’t you, Antoinette?”

“Not yet.... Not as I want to be able to care for the man I marry. Not as I have cared for—other people.” A fleeting recollection of some of her feelings for Hester crossed her mind.

“Oh, don’t talk like that,” Dennis begged her.

“But I must!” she cried impatiently, “not to make you jealous, or anything as absurd as that, but just to get things clear, to show you that I do know the difference between the real thing, and what isn’t the real thing.”

“And this—isn’t the real thing?” He spoke without looking at her.

“I’ve told you it isn’t—yet.”

“But it may be? You think it will be?”

For the sake of the eagerness in his voice and eyes, she smothered doubt, and replied, “Give me six months, and I’ll tell you then.”

As they climbed the little stairway that led from the tea-shop to the street-level, she had the ridiculous sensation of having been reprieved....

He had to rest content with her decision. His belief that all was well was still unshaken; but it was a pity that she had chilled his first enthusiasm; a pity, also, that she had not let him tell his mother. Once his family knew, and her family, and his friends, and her friends, withdrawal would be made impossible. Not that he had the slightest desire to withdraw: this _was_ the real thing, he assured himself over and over again, as he held her in his arms and kissed her.

All the same it would have been safer to make withdrawal absolutely out of the question....

In order to avoid the curiosity which her family would have displayed, had it been known that she was seeing Dennis three or four times a week, Antoinette stated airily that he had returned to Eastwold; and accounted for her frequent outings, by manufacturing an entirely fictitious set of invitations from an entirely fictitious set of friends. Sometimes, to vary the monotony, she threw in some equally fictitious friends of Rosabel’s, with the result that she was able, in comparative peace, to continue her experiment with Dennis.

It certainly was an experiment from Antoinette’s point of view, but she wished with all her heart, that it was something more than that, or that it would become something more.... At present there was not much hope. He seemed incapable of arousing her, even though on their long drives home through the darkened streets she lay in his arms and returned his kisses, and tried so hard, for his sake as well as for her own, to catch fire. She resented the lack of mastery in him—mastery that should have demanded and compelled love, instead of gently pleading for it. Was it love, though, for which he pleaded? She was still aware that he did not reiterate that he loved her; did not use the words that love would have used, and that she longed to hear.... But he wanted to marry her; he was taking for granted that at the end of six months she would marry him.

Of that queer glamorous mystery that had once enshrouded his personality, nothing remained. All the promise that he had held out in his letters from Devonshire was yet unfulfilled. When she tried to lead him to talk openly of himself, he fell silent, or changed the subject—and kissed her. It seemed to her that she knew even less about him now than at the beginning. And he knew nothing about her. She was convinced of that. He never made any attempt to fathom her moods and feelings; to discover what her thoughts had been in the past, or what were her ideas concerning the future. Nor would he discuss their relations to each other; always silenced her questionings with: “It must be all right—it was meant to be.”

“I don’t feel that it was,” she argued uneasily.

“You will—in time.”

“And ... if I don’t?”

“Oh, don’t let’s think of that.”

“But why do you wilfully blind yourself like this?” she cried.

He said mournfully, “Because life is so full of cruelties, that the less one sees of them the better.”

“It’s cowardly, just to pretend that they aren’t there!”

He flushed and started at that; and she hoped it might lead to some further explanation.

“Much better to face them out.”

He shook his head. “No ...” and relapsed into silence.

Exasperated, she gave it up.

Often she wondered what his relations with other women had been, and tried to sound him on the subject.

He answered: “There’s never been any other woman,” and she knew by instinct that he did not say this merely to please her, or to assuage a non-existent jealousy, but that it was the truth ... and she could not tell why it filled her with a new uneasiness. Yet she could not bear to sever their connection entirely. Sometimes, for days together, he did not see her; left her without news of his whereabouts. Then she began to believe that he would never return, and was conscious of a fear quite disproportionate to her real feelings for him. It was always with immense relief that she welcomed him back. There were so many little things for which she liked him. On rare occasions, she released him from his fictitious exile in Eastwold, and he was allowed to lunch in state at Cadogan Gardens. Antoinette enjoyed watching him as he made conversation with her grandmother, who thought him a very backward young man, and strove by an increased amiability to give him the courage necessary to demand Antoinette’s hand in marriage. Grand’mère was not at all sure that she would accede to such a demand, but then, from her own point of view, it was almost as enjoyable to refuse as to accept an offer of marriage for her grand-daughter. Antoinette had explained the subtlety of Grand’mère’s attitude to Dennis, who, sharing her delight in it, solemnly acted up to it. It added, also, to the pleasant feeling of truancy appertaining to all her expeditions with him. Yes, in their lighter moods, they harmonized well enough. It was only in moods that were not light—

And yet she could never quite rid herself of the hope that they must one day stumble upon the thing which would dispel, as if by magic, the mental fog that had descended between them. Some quite little thing ... something equivalent to a mere click or switching-on of machinery that would be in perfect working-order, if only one knew how to set it in motion. The hope that one day it would be set in motion, sprang up afresh whenever she was not with him, but it died down inevitably at their next meeting, died under his queer silences and evasions, and under his kisses....

Once, in one of his more clear-sighted moments, he cried out to her: “Oh, why can’t you care for me more?”

And all the longing of her soul was in her voice, as she replied: “My dear—if only I could....”

Dennis’s music alone thrilled her, as could nothing else about him. In it, he seemed to give something of himself that he otherwise withheld; and yet she felt that it was not to her that it was being given. He played her his old songs or bits of his opera, but nothing that had been dedicated to her or that had been composed because of her. Lacking the power to inspire him, she was completely shut out of his music.

* * * * *

Thus they drifted, for the six months and over the six months. He was no longer pressing her to make a decision, as he had done at first. She was guiltily aware that she ought to do so, that the situation was absurd, anomalous, and that she ought to end it—one way or another. But which way? She was no nearer to loving him than she had been six months ago; but she dreaded the idea of the blank there would be in her life, if she put him out of it altogether, as she surely must do, once she spoke the decisive word. So she did not speak it....

More and more silences and evasions now; the fog between them thicker and thicker.... And always he kissed her; kissed her with a fervour that seemed to increase in the same proportion as their mental affinity seemed to diminish.

At the end of a hot August day, they drifted in their punt down one of the backwaters at Wargrave. Antoinette had done most of the punting; and now, deliciously tired, she lay back among the cushions, while he paddled down-stream. Through half-closed eyes she watched him, noted the contrast between his athletic build and sensitive features. He was gazing straight ahead, into the green-gold tunnel formed by the overhanging branches. What was he thinking of, she wondered. Was it some new musical inspiration that had come to him, and that was absorbing his entire thoughts? He was rather a wonderful person altogether; good-looking, and a genius. She was musician enough herself to recognise that he was a genius. It was absurd that she should not love him.... Perhaps, unbeknown even to herself, already she was beginning to love him? Perhaps—with a sudden quickening of her pulses—perhaps someone had spoken the magic password...?

He put down the paddle, tied up the boat, and came and flung himself down on the cushions beside her. He had chosen his moment well. For the first time she was glad of the storm of kisses that he showered upon her. No need to complain of his gentleness now—not now, with his hands clenched into the short warm tangle of her hair, his hard kisses beating down upon her lips and upon her throat. She lay passive under the storm, rejoicing in this new fierceness and mastery that had come to him—fierceness and mastery that in any other man would have terrified her—and thought: “It’s going to be all right—it _is_ all right now....”

Suddenly, without a word, he pulled himself away from her, untied the punt and paddled back to the landing-stage. All the way to Paddington, their compartment was crowded and conversation impossible; but Antoinette was satisfied with what the day had already given her—knowledge that it would be easy to make her decision now. Should she tell him to-night, she debated as the taxi bore them homewards, or should she leave it till to-morrow, and let to-day be sufficient unto itself? She decided on the latter course, convinced that it would harmonize better with his mood. He was exceptionally silent; and on her door-step, he bade her good-bye without kissing her again, without so much as touching her. And she was well pleased with his behaviour that showed a fine appreciation of a mood for once shared.

Oh, but she was looking forward to seeing him to-morrow!

And to-morrow, at breakfast, there was a letter from him waiting beside her plate. Joyfully she swooped down upon it. After all, he had been quicker than herself to seize the moment. This would be one of his perfect letters, and at last she would be able to give in response to it, all that he might ask of her.

Grand’mère, who had of course recognised the handwriting, looked inquisitively over the tops of her spectacles.

“What has he to tell you, the young Blackwood? Would it not be time to ask him to lunch again?” And aside to Henriette: “_Cela lui donnerait peut-être l’entrain qui lui manque...._”

... One of his perfect letters: Antoinette’s heart fluttered wildly—and then stopped.

“... I’m sorry, but we can’t go on like this. I’ve known it for a long time, and I am to blame for not having acted on my knowledge sooner. You were right and I was wrong—it wasn’t the ‘real thing.’ I should have broken with you completely when I first began to realise it, but for your sake I tried to go on pretending, long after I knew it was useless. So I’m afraid it must be good-bye.”

“_Eh bien_,” persisted Grand’mère, “he has at last made you his declaration...?”

But Antoinette sat staring at the letter, stunned and bewildered as from a blow between the eyes. This—after yesterday.... She was dazed with the sheer incredibility of the thing; too dazed, even, to be conscious of pain. That would come later.

“For your sake I tried to go on pretending——”

So yesterday, also, had been mere pretence on his part, yesterday, when for the first time she had been genuine in her response to his passion—his sham passion. It was fantastic, this reversal of their original positions!

“So I’m afraid it must be good-bye.”

The words, read and re-read till they seemed to become devoid of all meaning, swam before her eyes. If only he had indeed chosen to break sooner, he would have left a blank in her life; but no more. Why must he have waited until this moment, when it meant leaving far more than a blank? One did not suffer when it was only a blank, but when it was more....

“For your sake I tried to go on pretending, long after I knew it was useless.”

That was the answer; and it stung. Between the lines, she thought she read contempt of herself; contempt and dislike.

But was it entirely her fault that she had never possessed the key to any of his moods? He had always shut himself away, hidden from her the workings of his mind, so no wonder that this revelation of an attitude that must have been crystallizing gradually during the past months came as such a shock.

She folded up the letter, and put it away with the one he had written the night he had asked her to marry him.

“I know now that nothing else matters, and that nothing can ever come between us....”

As contrasts, she reflected, the two letters were quite effective.