Chapter IX

Would he telephone this morning? Even if it were only to make final and absolute the severance between them? She felt that she must at all costs speak to him once again, and then unquestioningly she would accept her dismissal. She vowed that she would not in any way attempt to clutch at him, but he could not expect her to be superhuman ... and it would be superhuman to be content to drop out of his life, with never a word of farewell.

All that morning she was on the alert to catch the sound of the telephone, ready to run and answer it immediately, so as not to waste the precious moments he might have set aside for her. Other sounds there were; deceptive sounds that jerked at her taut nerves; bicycle-bells in the streets; the whirr of the telephone in the house next door; jingle of bells on a passing cart; bells that existed only in her imagination. The whole world seemed to be full of bell-sounds.... The telephone alone remained dumb, as if under an enchantment.... But later on it threw off this spell, and rang with persistent and diabolical frequency during the whole afternoon. And each time Antoinette was convinced that it must be Dennis, and with her heart beating wildly, flew to take off the receiver; and was told that she was the “wrong number,” or else lured into chatty conversation with some friend of her mother’s.

She raged impotently against these people who kept the line engaged, while Dennis was perhaps trying in vain to get on.... The exhausting day wore to its finish; and after one more “Sorry you’re troubled,” and a somewhat tactless enquiry on the part of the Exchange as to whether the telephone was “in order,” the instrument relapsed into silence.

And no letter, no word from him next morning.

... Scorching eyeballs and aching head; the sick, hot swell of tears in the throat, and the unremitting effort required to swallow them down, to appear natural, to deny herself the luxury of unrestrained emotion. If once she broke down, there would be questions ... questions that she could not answer. How much understanding could she expect from her environment? They were strangers to her, strangers all—her father, her mother, her grandmother.

Even despite her really gallant efforts at self-control, it was apparent to her relatives that she was looking ill. Grand’mère, of course, took this to be a piece of personal cussedness on Antoinette’s part: did not the presence of M. Lefèvre in London render it eminently desirable that she should appear at her best?

“She is anæmic,” said Henriette.

“She smokes too much,” declared Anatole.

“We should have found her a husband when she was younger,” Grand’mère wagged her head sagaciously.

“There is still time,” muttered Anatole; “Jean Lefèvre had quite a good impression of her, though one must admit that she made very little effort to please him.”

Grand’mère brightened, and expressed the hope that M. Lefèvre would soon come to pay his “_visite de digestion_.”

“He will come soon enough,” grumbled Anatole, who discouraged enthusiasm on principle.

Of course he would come. And more than probably he would propose to her. Antoinette knew that type from past experience. And the family would be indignant if she refused him—just as they had been indignant on previous occasions. Only this time the indignation would be greater, because, as Grand’mère had said, they should have married her off when she was younger; they were getting uneasy about her future; wanted to see her safely settled.... Perhaps they would make it difficult—impossible for her to refuse him. Perhaps her own strength of resistance would give way. She felt as if she were being slowly strangled to death.

There was no one in whom she could confide, except, perhaps, Pegeen. Pegeen might not understand, but she would be good to her, and that, for the moment, was all that she asked; someone to be good to her, and before whom she could relax her wearisome pretence. She was to go to supper at the studio that evening; and the thought of it somehow helped her through the first part of the third day without news of Dennis.

But when she reached the studio, Pegeen was not there. The side-entrance had been left open, and on the table she found a scrawled note from Pegeen, saying that she had gone out to tea with Conn and would be back soon, and in the meantime would Antoinette help herself to the cigarettes.... Antoinette was bitterly disappointed, her nerves already fretted with over-much waiting. She had no idea of the time. The hands of the three clocks—an antique bronze, a little painted Bavarian one, and a cuckoo-clock—all pointed to different hours and ticked at variance with one another; through the window that stood open to the garden, a flood of orange sunset-light poured in, and lit up the colours in the gorgeous brocades and fabrics that lay strewn about. From the vicarage-garden next door came the sound of voices, and the smart dry crack of croquet balls in collision. Antoinette wondered if Pegeen and Conn were at Miss Mowbray’s, and if Dennis and Alan were there too. Perhaps Pegeen would bring her some news, some message. But why was she so late? Perhaps, with characteristic absent-mindedness, while she listened to the usual vehement sort of talk in the tea-shop, she had forgotten that Antoinette was waiting for her.

Already the sunset had faded, and the skylight showed a square of dull grey. Restlessly she went to the window and looked out. The garden with its unkempt lawn and tangled shrubbery, had a sinister appearance: effect heightened by a yellow-eyed cat, crouching motionless among the bushes.

She returned to her armchair by the fireplace; selected at random a book from one of the shelves; discovered after five minutes that she had not taken in a single word that she had read. Why didn’t Pegeen come? Yet, even if she came, Antoinette realised again that it would not be possible to tell her anything. How could she tell without implicating Dennis? Pegeen might turn away in shuddering disgust, or she might repeat Antoinette’s story to Conn.... No, one could not tell that sort of thing. That was law that could not be infringed, even though infringement might bring such relief.

Terror and loneliness of the Ishmaelite, outcast among men and women.... She was coming to know by her own experience every stage of the suffering he had foreshadowed for her, suffering that she was not big enough, not strong enough to bear alone.

Still the noise of the croquet balls persisted. Idly she wondered how the players could see in this dim light. It was getting cold, but she dared not go to close the door leading into the garden. To do so she would have to cross the whole length of the studio ... and shadows were beginning to lurk in the corners now, shadows that it would be horrible to know behind one. As long as one faced them, it was bearable. Just bearable.... The square of the skylight was changing from grey to dark blue. The primroses that Conn had brought Pegeen the other day still filled the green bowl, but they had faded to a hideous shrivelled mass of brown. The sounds from the next door garden had ceased entirely, but the studio was full of strange little sounds—creakings, whisperings, mutterings.... From the walls, the figures in the cartoons leered grotesquely down at her. There was something sinister about the designs and the crude, brutal colouring of the brocades, just as there was something sinister in that neglected garden with the weed-grown paths and the crouching cat. She could not switch on the electric lamp at her elbow; in accordance with the Lighting Regulations, the blind had to be drawn over the skylight before the lamp could be lit ... and she knew that she could never get even as far as the skylight. Those shapes in the corners would creep up behind her, padding soft-footed at her heels.... Soon it would be quite dark, and she would be alone with her terrible thoughts, alone with the shadows and the mutterings and creakings.

“Pegeen, come—please—please—please....”

No possibility of getting a sane grip of herself now. If Pegeen came she would confess to her everything—everything—not caring if she infringed the law. Only to have sight and sound of a human being among these inanimate things imbued suddenly with a mysterious spirit of evil.

Footsteps at last, coming down the path towards the entrance.... With a sob of relief, she rushed to the door.

“_Dennis!_”

She was clinging to him, laughing and crying hysterically. “I—I didn’t know you were coming here.”

“And I didn’t know I’d find you here—I came for a book that Alan lent Conn—‘_Towards Democracy_’—he wants it,” he spoke in rapid, jerky sentences.

“Conn’s out. Pegeen too. I’ve been waiting for her for hours and hours.... Dennis, it was dreadful!” Still she clung to his hand, trembling.

“Poor child.... Antoinette, I know you expected me to ring up—I’ve behaved despicably, oh, worse than that, but what’s the use of piling on adjectives? I couldn’t ring up because there was nothing to say. You see how it is with me, my dear.”

“I see, Dennis....”

“And doesn’t it make you hate me?”

“Could anything do that?”

He took her by the shoulders and kissed her again and again.

With a horrible flash of insight, she cried: “You’re kissing me—and thinking of Alan.”

He answered “Yes” ... determined that at least there should be no deception between them. “You shouldn’t let me do this, Antoinette.”

“I love you....”

“I’m a cad and a beast to let you let me.”

She laughed a little as the pressure of his hands tightened around her. “I love you, Dennis.”

She was aware that her self-respect, her sense of moral degradation should have risen in revolt against his treatment of her. Yet she knew no shame in taking and returning his kisses, would have known no shame in giving herself to him entirely, if by so doing she could have brought him an instant’s fleeting delight, appeased the hunger of his senses.

“The waste, the utter futile waste of you.... Oh, God, why can’t I care for you more?”

It might have been the cry of a person drowning, and it filled her with immense pity and despair—pity and despair beyond all consciousness of her own suffering.

“What is it that he can give you, and that I can’t?”

“You mustn’t want to give me anything. I’m not worth it. To-morrow I’m seeing Alan for the last time. He’s pledged his word to be ready when the police come for him next morning. I’m ... spending the last evening with him, Antoinette....”

A sound of pain broke from her lips as he drew her closer to him. “I’ve done my best to make you hate me. I’m doing it now.... I shall be with Alan to-morrow, I tell you! Don’t you hate me now, Antoinette, and now?”

Thus might a different man, the phantom lover of her school-girl dreams, have sought to wring from her the admission that she loved him. “Don’t you love me now, Antoinette, and now...?”

Yet in this inverted world it could still seem natural that he should try to wring from her the assurance of her hatred, using the most cruel weapon in his power—the name of Alan.

“Don’t you hate me, Antoinette? It would be so much better if you could!”

Through her torture she cried, “No!”

He kissed her roughly and passionately then, in a sort of fury at her inability to satisfy him. And she, perceiving this, was yet happy after a distorted fashion; happy despite her sad knowledge and lack of all illusions. While she was in his arms her terrors could still be kept at bay; she could laugh at the menace of M. Lefèvre or of continued existence at Cadogan Gardens. It might be the last time that she would feel secure.... Sudden conviction came upon her, that this _was_ the last time that his arms would be around her; and now as once before, she knew that the moment must be held and held—even though past experience had proved that the memory of it would be powerless to soften the inevitable pain that was to come.

“Dennis—it’s no good, you can’t make me hate you. And I can’t make myself hate you—I’ve tried.... And I can’t do without you. I’ve tried that too. Seeing what it felt like.... Yes, I know you’re in love with Alan, and that I’m nothing to you and that you’d rather be rid of me altogether—Oh, don’t interrupt me—let me say all I have to say, for once.... I know if I had any pride or decent feeling I shouldn’t be saying anything at all. You called me an immoral woman once, in fun. Perhaps you were right. I’d rather kiss you like this, knowing everything, than be respectably married to a respectable man. I suppose I’m not good enough to be able to care for a respectable man. But is it immoral to care for one man only, and for him so much, that nothing he is or does, and nothing he can make you be or do, can ever make you hate him?”

“And all this wasted on a wretched freak who can’t take it—but who’d give his soul to be able to take it—bear that in mind, Antoinette, perhaps it’ll help just a little.”

“It’s undignified of me to ask you not to cut me off entirely, but I do ask you, all the same. Dignity and pride don’t seem to convey very much to me now. They’re just words. But I know that I can’t do without you. That’s real.”

He bent over her and murmured: “Forgive me, dear, for hurting you so much....”

She answered with a half smile: “Forgive me, Dennis, for loving you so much ...” and added in a whisper: “As I forgive you for loving me so little....”

He said after a while: “Perhaps it’s just as well that Alan came when he did; otherwise you might not have believed me. Seeing was believing, wasn’t it?”

“No,” she said softly, “feeling was believing.”

“It’s monstrous that I should have had to drag you through all this!”

“I went gladly, Dennis—at first, anyway. So it was just as much my fault. And I’m still willing to go wherever you’ll lead, if only you _will_ lead, and not leave me stranded and alone. So it’s still my fault now.”

He said sorrowfully: “It’s not your fault—and it’s not my fault—we’re both unfortunates....”

As they left the studio, they heard footsteps scurrying down the walled passage between the gardens, and almost collided with Pegeen. “I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting,” she whispered breathlessly, “but I couldn’t help it. We had to arrange things—we’re off to-morrow, Conn and I—so good-bye to the two of you, and all the best luck in the world!”