The bully and his victim never quite forget their first relations. They meet in clubs and country houses, and clap one another on the back; but in both the memory is green of a more strenuous day, when they were boys together.
He tried to say, "He was the right kind of boy, and I was the wrong kind." But Cambridge would not let him smooth the situation over by self-belittlement. If he had been the wrong kind of boy, Gerald had been a worse kind. He murmured, "We are different, very," and Miss Pembroke, perhaps suspecting something, asked no more. But she kept to the subject of Mr. Dawes, humorously depreciating her lover and discussing him without reverence.
Rickie laughed, but felt uncomfortable. When people were engaged, he felt that they should be outside criticism. Yet here he was criticizing. He could not help it. He was dragged in.
"I hope his ankle is better."
"Never was bad. He's always fussing over something.""He plays next week in a match, I think Herbert says.""I dare say he does."
"Shall we be going?"
"Pray go if you like. I shall stop at home. I've had enough of cold feet."It was all very colourless and odd.
Gerald returned, saying, "I can't stand your cook. What's she want to ask me questions for? I can't stand talking to servants.
I say, 'If I speak to you, well and good'--and it's another thing besides if she were pretty.""Well, I hope our ugly cook will have lunch ready in a minute,"said Agnes. "We're frightfully unpunctual this morning, and Idaren't say anything, because it was the same yesterday, and if Icomplain again they might leave. Poor Rickie must be starved.""Why, the Silts gave me all these sandwiches and I've never eaten them. They always stuff one.""And you thought you'd better, eh?" said Mr. Dawes, "in case you weren't stuffed here."Miss Pembroke, who house-kept somewhat economically, looked annoyed.
The voice of Mr. Pembroke was now heard calling from the house, "Frederick! Frederick! My dear boy, pardon me. It was an important letter about the Church Defence, otherwise--. Come in and see your room."He was glad to quit the little lawn. He had learnt too much there. It was dreadful: they did not love each other.
More dreadful even than the case of his father and mother, for they, until they married, had got on pretty well. But this man was already rude and brutal and cold: he was still the school bully who twisted up the arms of little boys, and ran pins into them at chapel, and struck them in the stomach when they were swinging on the horizontal bar. Poor Agnes; why ever had she done it? Ought not somebody to interfere?
He had forgotten his sandwiches, and went back to get them.
Gerald and Agnes were locked in each other's arms.
He only looked for a moment, but the sight burnt into his brain.
The man's grip was the stronger. He had drawn the woman on to his knee, was pressing her, with all his strength, against him.
Already her hands slipped off him, and she whispered, "Don't you hurt--" Her face had no expression. It stared at the intruder and never saw him. Then her lover kissed it, and immediately it shone with mysterious beauty, like some star.
Rickie limped away without the sandwiches, crimson and afraid. He thought, "Do such things actually happen?" and he seemed to be looking down coloured valleys. Brighter they glowed, till gods of pure flame were born in them, and then he was looking at pinnacles of virgin snow. While Mr. Pembroke talked, the riot of fair images increased.
They invaded his being and lit lamps at unsuspected shrines.
Their orchestra commenced in that suburban house, where he had to stand aside for the maid to carry in the luncheon. Music flowed past him like a river. He stood at the springs of creation and heard the primeval monotony. Then an obscure instrument gave out a little phrase.
The river continued unheeding. The phrase was repeated and a listener might know it was a fragment of the Tune of tunes.
Nobler instruments accepted it, the clarionet protected, the brass encouraged, and it rose to the surface to the whisper of violins. In full unison was Love born, flame of the flame, flushing the dark river beneath him and the virgin snows above.
His wings were infinite, his youth eternal; the sun was a jewel on his finger as he passed it in benediction over the world.
Creation, no longer monotonous, acclaimed him, in widening melody, in brighter radiances. Was Love a column of fire? Was he a torrent of song? Was he greater than either--the touch of a man on a woman?
It was the merest accident that Rickie had not been disgusted.
But this he could not know.
Mr. Pembroke, when he called the two dawdlers into lunch, was aware of a hand on his arm and a voice that murmured, "Don't--they may be happy."
He stared, and struck the gong. To its music they approached, priest and high priestess.
"Rickie, can I give these sandwiches to the boot boy?" said the one. "He would love them.""The gong! Be quick! The gong!"
"Are you smoking before lunch?" said the other.
But they had got into heaven, and nothing could get them out of it. Others might think them surly or prosaic. He knew. He could remember every word they spoke. He would treasure every motion, every glance of either, and so in time to come, when the gates of heaven had shut, some faint radiance, some echo of wisdom might remain with him outside.
As a matter of fact, he saw them very little during his visit. He checked himself because he was unworthy. What right had he to pry, even in the spirit, upon their bliss? It was no crime to have seen them on the lawn. It would be a crime to go to it again. He tried to keep himself and his thoughts away, not because he was ascetic, but because they would not like it if they knew. This behaviour of his suited them admirably. And when any gracious little thing occurred to them--any little thing that his sympathy had contrived and allowed--they put it down to chance or to each other.
So the lovers fall into the background. They are part of the distant sunrise, and only the mountains speak to them. Rickie talks to Mr. Pembroke, amidst the unlit valleys of our over-habitable world.
