Chapter XXV

He entered the study, expecting to find his pupil at work, but, though the lamp was burning and the table showed numerous traces of him, Denis was not there. Rusk was really just as glad, for he had an idea that after the interview Doctor Birch might come in to report the result. He had been dining with the Birches and they had talked a good deal of the new plan, they had talked, in fact, of very little else, and, after dinner, the Doctor had decided to walk over with his guest and put the matter before Denis’s father as quite his own idea. He had laid particular stress upon this, having found out that, so far as his visitor was aware, nobody had yet broached the subject to Mr. Bracknel. Rusk, of course, could see that this would be much the best way; it would give the proposition infinitely more weight to have it come from such a source; the Doctor could guarantee it, as it were, scientifically--guarantee it as the proper, the necessary, thing to be done; and even if he failed to gain his point he would at least prepare the way. They had discussed it, Rusk and his host, in every light, to the accompaniment of the Doctor’s excellent cigars and the Doctor’s excellent wine--perhaps indeed, for one of them, the less experienced, they had lingered over it a little too long. At all events now, seated before the fire, he felt somewhat sleepy and perfectly at peace with life and the world. In this happy condition he became conscious that the door had been opened, and concluded, without troubling to look, that his pupil had come in. But no further sound followed the opening of the door, and after a few seconds Rusk, puzzled, turned himself round in his chair to see what was the matter. It was only then he discovered that it was Amy and not her brother who had entered. She stood still, neither advancing nor retreating, hesitating, apparently rather disconcerted to find him there alone.

“Where is Denis?” she asked, suddenly smiling with a peculiar soft intensity that covered him with a strange physical sense of light and even of warmth.

“I don’t know. Is he not downstairs?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing of any importance.... You look dreadfully lazy, and dreadfully unsociable--I suppose I had better go away.” These last words were uttered in a tone somewhat at variance with their literal sense, and she, in fact, made no visible attempt to put them into practice. Rusk begged her to come in.

“I _am_ rather lazy,” he confessed. “It must be the demoralizing effect of a comfortable chair and a fire. Such things are fatal.”

“Do you feel demoralized, then? I love to feel that way, but it’s so difficult.”

“I was enjoying it immensely.” He looked at her with his frank simple smile. His fair hair was ruffled, as if he had been out in the wind without a hat; his handsome, boyish face was rather flushed.

The sudden softness of her manner was remarkable. The coldness and reserve that she had treated him to of late had entirely disappeared, and it was the very midsummer sun of favour that she turned upon him now. He had risen to his feet on her entrance, but he sat down again since Amy, forgetful of her intention to leave him, had already found a chair. Moreover, she had given it a push that had brought it in front of the fire, and very close to his own; and she leaned a little forward as she sat, while the warm, coloured light played on her face and in her eyes, which rested on him from time to time with an expression he had not seen in them for quite a long while now, and that never before perhaps had been so frankly revealed. He had an idea that she had come in to make friends with him, and that it was rather nice of her. He found himself dreamily watching her. The firelight lent an exquisite grace of colour to her delicate skin.

She drew her chair still closer. He felt that she was very near to him, and over the dreamy passivity of his mood the strength of her will seemed to prevail, seemed in the end to cast a kind of glamour.

“It is horrid to see you here all by yourself and looking so lonely,” she softly breathed, with a lingering sweetness in her voice. “I’m sure you must very often feel lonely. I have thought so over and over again.”

“Oh, I’m all right,” answered Rusk vaguely. He smiled as his eyes rested upon her.

“But you must find it so different from what you have been accustomed to! You must have had so many friends in England!”

“Oh well, of course I had a few friends. But sooner or later men are bound to get scattered, to lose sight of one another. It’s inevitable.”

“And girls don’t make friends.”

“Don’t they?”

She shook her head. “Not really. Of all the girls I knew at school there isn’t one to whom I even write now; and yet we used to sit with our arms round each other and pretend to be ever so affectionate.”

“Well, I can understand the not writing part of it,” laughed Rusk.

“Ah, but it isn’t the trouble that prevents me. I don’t even want to write. I don’t like girls--that is the real truth of the matter. I never did like them. They are nice enough in some ways I daresay, but they aren’t made for friendships among themselves.”

“Why not? My sisters never seem to find any difficulty.”

“Perhaps they are like you.”

“They’re not--not a bit.”

“Most girls are jealous of each other, and, besides, they’re always doing mean things. You don’t understand, you don’t know. No man knows anything about women. Sometimes they say he does when he flatters them or idealizes them, but he doesn’t. They’re both better and worse than men think--at all events they’re different. The only women who are really popular with other women are the very plain ones, and it’s not altogether because they are plain, it’s because they have--a better chance.”

“A better chance to do what?”

“To be different; to live their own lives; to be not quite so selfish. It’s the difference between children and grown-up people. There isn’t the same spirit of competition, the same struggle; you can watch them without feeling sick....” She paused and Rusk made no reply. For a few minutes they sat in silence, and then Amy began to speak again.

“Don’t you feel it very queer to have nobody who calls you by your Christian name ...? I have seen your name so often on your letters that I have got into the way of calling you by it when I think of you, but I have never heard anybody say it aloud.... Hubert.... It sounds a little strange, but not very.... I don’t know any other Hubert, which makes it seem to belong particularly to you.”

“Oh, a man doesn’t notice these things much. You see he’s accustomed to being called by his surname by everybody except his own people and perhaps one or two others. It begins when he goes to school.”

“To me that would be dreadful. I should like everyone to call me Amy.”

“They do, don’t they?” asked Rusk without looking at her.

“You don’t.” Her eyes as they rested on him were almost closed, and she leaned back in her chair, her arms along either side. A slow languid smile parted her lips.

“Well, of course I couldn’t, could I? You wouldn’t have liked it if I had.” He gave a little, boyish, rather foolish laugh.

He felt her hand touch his. It rested there for a few seconds and then was withdrawn. He felt a sudden quickening of his blood, and made an effort to shake himself free from the fascination that was closing about him. For a moment their eyes met and he tried to read what was passing in her mind. A silence followed which seemed very long. He moved uneasily. He lifted the poker and began to stir the fire, and as he did so she felt that he was trembling slightly.

“Doctor Birch is downstairs talking to papa about your going abroad with Denis,” Amy murmured at last, as if with a slight effort. “I wonder if the idea is yours or his.... You are fond of travelling, aren’t you?”

“I haven’t had very much opportunity to do so up to the present.”

“Perhaps when you get married you will have more,” said Amy. “If you were to marry somebody with plenty of money then you would be able to do exactly as you liked.” Her voice continued to caress him with its vague provocation.

“Oh, I’m not so sure of that.” The word “marry” had given him a disagreeable sense of dropping back to earth, which he seemed to reach now with a sudden bang as there flashed on him the so definite end that all this had possibly been leading up to.

“You would be, if your wife cared only to please you,” Amy went on. “If you met someone like that--someone who loved you more than anything else in the world.... But you are spoiling the fire; give me the poker.” She knelt down on the hearth-rug beside his chair. One of her hands rested on his knee as with the other she gave a few touches to the glowing coals. “See!”

He saw well enough but he did not move, and she raised her head. She was so close to him that her hair brushed his cheek. For perhaps three seconds her face was there before him, lingering, smiling; at the next he had kissed her and she had returned his kiss. They heard someone at the door, and Amy moved away from him, but to Rusk it seemed not nearly so quickly as she might have. He was conscious of having almost had to push her. The intruder was May, and Denis followed closely at her heels. May stopped short as she saw them. “Oh, mamma isn’t here?” she exclaimed, quickly, glancing round the room. “She must be upstairs.”

She went out, but her brother had come in, and whether he had noticed anything or not he gave no sign. He went straight to the table and began to gather up his books and papers and to put them away. Meanwhile Rusk had got on his feet and was standing on the hearthrug before the fire, looking very flushed and confused. He knew that to anybody entering the room at the particular moment when May and Denis had entered it their position, his and Amy’s, must have revealed an interrupted embrace, and he had an instinctive feeling that he had been trapped. As his eyes met Amy’s there was an angry light in them, and she turned away without a word, leaving him alone with his pupil, which seemed to make the matter worse. He felt horribly ill at ease as he glanced from time to time at Denis, who continued to keep a provoking silence. Rusk endeavoured to assume a highly natural air, but was conscious of woeful failure. What did it matter? he told himself. Nevertheless it mattered a good deal. He was horribly ashamed--ashamed of what May must have seen, of what Denis very probably had seen. Rusk looked at him once more, but the boy kept his face averted, and presently sat down at the table. Rusk could learn absolutely nothing from watching him. He took up a book, not in the least because he wanted to read, but because he was angry, puzzled and suspicious. Suddenly he spoke: “Where were you?” he asked.

Denis for the first time glanced up. “I was out. Amy asked me to go a message for her.”

“H’m....” His frown deepened, but he said nothing more. She _had_ known then that he was by himself; she had sent Denis a message simply to get him out of the way; she had told him a thumping lie. He filled his pipe and began to smoke.

“Did you want me for anything?” asked Denis, innocently.

“No--no. I just wondered where you had got to.... That’s all--that’s all,” he added somewhat impatiently, as he saw the boy still looking at him.