"Well, you ought to sleep, I expect. Shall I blow out?"Halliday caught his hand.
"I can't say it, you know; but it must be rotten to be dead. Good-night, old boy!"
Stirred and moved, Ashurst squeezed the hand, and went downstairs.
The hall door was still open, and he passed out on to the lawn before the Crescent. The stars were bright in a very dark blue sky, and by their light some lilacs had that mysterious colour of flowers by night which no one can describe. Ashurst pressed his face against a spray; and before his closed eyes Megan started up, with the tiny brown spaniel pup against her breast. "I thought of a girl that Imight have you know. I was glad I hadn't got her on my mind!" He jerked his head away from the lilac, and began pacing up and down over the grass, a grey phantom coming to substance for a moment in the light from the lamp at either end. He was with her again under the living, breathing white ness of the blossom, the stream chattering by, the moon glinting steel-blue on the bathing-pool; back in the rapture of his kisses on her upturned face of innocence and humble passion, back in the suspense and beauty of that pagan night.
He stood still once more in the shadow of the lilacs. Here the sea, not the stream, was Night's voice; the sea with its sigh and rustle;no little bird, no owl, no night-Jar called or spun; but a piano tinkled, and the white houses cut the sky with solid curve, and the scent from the lilacs filled the air. A window of the hotel, high up, was lighted; he saw a shadow move across the blind. And most queer sensations stirred within him, a sort of churning, and twining, and turning of a single emotion on itself, as though spring and love, bewildered and confused, seeking the way, were baffled. This girl, who had called him Frank, whose hand had given his that sudden little clutch, this girl so cool and pure--what would she think of such wild, unlawful loving? He sank down on the grass, sitting there cross-legged, with his back to the house, motionless as some carved Buddha. Was he really going to break through innocence, and steal?
Sniff the scent out of a wild flower, and--perhaps--throw it away?
"Of a girl at Cambridge that I might have--you know!" He put his hands to the grass, one on each side, palms downwards, and pressed;it was just warm still--the grass, barely moist, soft and firm and friendly. 'What am I going to do?' he thought. Perhaps Megan was at her window, looking out at the blossom, thinking of him! Poor little Megan! 'Why not?' he thought. 'I love her! But do I really love her? or do I only want her because she is so pretty, and loves me?
What am I going to do?' The piano tinkled on, the stars winked; and Ashurst gazed out before him at the dark sea, as if spell-bound. He got up at last, cramped and rather chilly. There was no longer light in any window. And he went in to bed.
Out of a deep and dreamless sleep he was awakened by the sound of thumping on the door. A shrill voice called:
"Hi! Breakfast's ready."
He jumped up. Where was he--? Ah!
He found them already eating marmalade, and sat down in the empty place between Stella and Sabina, who, after watching him a little, said:
"I say, do buck up; we're going to start at half-past nine.""We're going to Berry Head, old chap; you must come!"Ashurst thought: 'Come! Impossible. I shall be getting things and going back.' He looked at Stella. She said quickly:
"Do come!"
Sabina chimed in:
"It'll be no fun without you."
Freda got up and stood behind his chair.
"You've got to come, or else I'll pull your hair!"Ashurst thought: 'Well--one day more--to think it over! One day more!' And he said:
"All right! You needn't tweak my mane!"
"Hurrah!"
At the station he wrote a second telegram to the farm, and then tore it up; he could not have explained why. From Brixham they drove in a very little wagonette. There, squeezed between Sabina and Freda, with his knees touching Stella's, they played "Up, Jenkins "; and the gloom he was feeling gave way to frolic. In this one day more to think it over, he did not want to think! They ran races, wrestled, paddled--for to-day nobody wanted to bathe--they sang catches, played games, and ate all they had brought. The little girls fell asleep against him on the way back, and his knees still touched Stella's in the narrow wagonette. It seemed incredible that thirty hours ago he had never set eyes on any of those three flaxen heads. In the train he talked to Stella of poetry, discovering her favourites, and telling her his own with a pleasing sense of superiority; till suddenly she said, rather low:
"Phil says you don't believe in a future life, Frank. I think that's dreadful."Disconcerted, Ashurst muttered:
"I don't either believe or not believe--I simply don't know."She said quickly:
"I couldn't bear that. What would be the use of living?"Watching the frown of those pretty oblique brows, Ashurst answered:
"I don't believe in believing things because a one wants to.""But why should one wish to live again, if one isn't going to?"And she looked full at him.
He did not want to hurt her, but an itch to dominate pushed him on to say:
"While one's alive one naturally wants to go on living for ever;that's part of being alive. But it probably isn't anything more.""Don't you believe in the Bible at all, then?"Ashurst thought: 'Now I shall really hurt her!'
"I believe in the Sermon on the Mount, because it's beautiful and good for all time.""But don't you believe Christ was divine?"
He shook his head.
She turned her face quickly to the window, and there sprang into his mind Megan's prayer, repeated by little Nick: "God bless us all, and Mr. Ashes!" Who else would ever say a prayer for him, like her who at this moment must be waiting--waiting to see him come down the lane? And he thought suddenly: 'What a scoundrel I am!'
