第54章

That letter of hers fanned the flame in Lennan as nothing had yet fanned it.Earthiness! Was it earthiness to love as he did? If so, then not for all the world would he be otherwise than earthy.

In the shock of reading it, he crossed his Rubicon, and burned his boats behind him.No more did the pale ghost, chivalrous devotion, haunt him.He knew now that he could not stop short.Since she asked him, he must not, of course, try to see her just yet.But when he did, then he would fight for his life; the thought that she might be meaning to slip away from him was too utterly unbearable.

But she could not be meaning that! She would never be so cruel!

Ah! she would--she must come to him in the end! The world, life itself, would be well lost for love of her!

Thus resolved, he was even able to work again; and all that Tuesday he modelled at a big version of the fantastic, bull-like figure he had conceived after the Colonel left him up on the hillside at Beaulieu.He worked at it with a sort of evil joy.Into this creature he would put the spirit of possession that held her from him.And while his fingers forced the clay, he felt as if he had Cramier's neck within his grip.Yet, now that he had resolved to take her if he could, he had not quite the same hatred.After all, this man loved her too, could not help it that she loathed him;could not help it that he had the disposition of her, body and soul!

June had come in with skies of a blue that not even London glare and dust could pale.In every square and park and patch of green the air simmered with life and with the music of birds swaying on little boughs.Piano organs in the streets were no longer wistful for the South; lovers already sat in the shade of trees.

To remain indoors, when he was not working, was sheer torture; for he could not read, and had lost all interest in the little excitements, amusements, occupations that go to make up the normal life of man.Every outer thing seemed to have dropped off, shrivelled, leaving him just a condition of the spirit, a state of mind.

Lying awake he would think of things in the past, and they would mean nothing--all dissolved and dispersed by the heat of this feeling in him.Indeed, his sense of isolation was so strong that he could not even believe that he had lived through the facts which his memory apprehended.He had become one burning mood--that, and nothing more.

To be out, especially amongst trees, was the only solace.

And he sat for a long time that evening under a large lime-tree on a knoll above the Serpentine.There was very little breeze, just enough to keep alive a kind of whispering.What if men and women, when they had lived their gusty lives, became trees! What if someone who had burned and ached were now spreading over him this leafy peace--this blue-black shadow against the stars? Or were the stars, perhaps, the souls of men and women escaped for ever from love and longing? He broke off a branch of the lime and drew it across his face.It was not yet in flower, but it smelled lemony and fresh even here in London.If only for a moment he could desert his own heart, and rest with the trees and stars!

No further letter came from her next morning, and he soon lost his power to work.It was Derby Day.He determined to go down.

Perhaps she would be there.Even if she were not, he might find some little distraction in the crowd and the horses.He had seen her in the paddock long before the Colonel's sharp eyes detected him; and, following in the crush, managed to touch her hand in the crowded gateway, and whisper: "To-morrow, the National Gallery, at four o'clock--by the Bacchus and Ariadne.For God's sake!" Her gloved hand pressed his hard; and she was gone.He stayed in the paddock, too happy almost to breathe....