第81章

Back in the darkness and solitude of the studio, when she was gone, he sat down before the fire, his senses in a whirl.Why was he not just an ordinary animal of a man that could enjoy what the gods had sent? It was as if on a November day someone had pulled aside the sober curtains of the sky and there in a chink had been April standing--thick white blossom, a purple cloud, a rainbow, grass vivid green, light flaring from one knew not where, and such a tingling passion of life on it all as made the heart stand still!

This, then, was the marvellous, enchanting, maddening end of all that year of restlessness and wanting! This bit of Spring suddenly given to him in the midst of Autumn.Her lips, her eyes, her hair;her touching confidence; above all--quite unbelievable--her love.

Not really love perhaps, just childish fancy.But on the wings of fancy this child would fly far, too far--all wistfulness and warmth beneath that light veneer of absurd composure.

To live again--to plunge back into youth and beauty--to feel Spring once more--to lose the sense of all being over, save just the sober jogtrot of domestic bliss; to know, actually to know, ecstasy again, in the love of a girl; to rediscover all that youth yearns for, and feels, and hopes, and dreads, and loves.It was a prospect to turn the head even of a decent man....

By just closing his eyes he could see her standing there with the firelight glow on her red frock; could feel again that marvellous thrill when she pressed herself against him in the half-innocent, seducing moment when she first came in; could feel again her eyes drawing--drawing him! She was a witch, a grey-eyed, brown-haired witch--even unto her love of red.She had the witch's power of lighting fever in the veins.And he simply wondered at himself, that he had not, as she stood there in the firelight, knelt, and put his arms round her and pressed his face against her waist.Why had he not? But he did not want to think; the moment thought began he knew he must be torn this way and that, tossed here and there between reason and desire, pity and passion.Every sense struggled to keep him wrapped in the warmth and intoxication of this discovery that he, in the full of Autumn, had awakened love in Spring.It was amazing that she could have this feeling; yet there was no mistake.Her manner to Sylvia just now had been almost dangerously changed; there had been a queer cold impatience in her look, frightening from one who but three months ago had been so affectionate.And, going away, she had whispered, with that old trembling-up at him, as if offering to be kissed: "I may come, mayn't I? And don't be angry with me, please; I can't help it." Amonstrous thing at his age to let a young girl love him--compromise her future! A monstrous thing by all the canons of virtue and gentility! And yet--what future?--with that nature--those eyes--that origin--with that father, and that home? But he would not--simply must not think!

Nevertheless, he showed the signs of thought, and badly; for after dinner Sylvia, putting her hand on his forehead, said:

"You're working too hard, Mark.You don't go out enough."He held those fingers fast.Sylvia! No, indeed he must not think!

But he took advantage of her words, and said that he would go out and get some air.