Nearly sixteen years old, he was deaf now and disillusioned, and every time that Summerhay left him, his eyes seemed to say: "You will leave me once too often!" The blandishments of the other nice people about the house were becoming to him daily less and less a substitute for that which he felt he had not much time left to enjoy; nor could he any longer bear a stranger within the gate.
From her window, Gyp saw him get up and stand with his back ridged, growling at the postman, and, fearing for the man's calves, she hastened out.
Among the letters was one in that dreaded hand writing marked "Immediate," and forwarded from his chambers. She took it up, and put it to her nose. A scent--of what? Too faint to say. Her thumb nails sought the edge of the flap on either side. She laid the letter down. Any other letter, but not that--she wanted to open it too much. Readdressing it, she took it out to put with the other letters. And instantly the thought went through her: 'What a pity! If I read it, and there was nothing!' All her restless, jealous misgivings of months past would then be set at rest! She stood, uncertain, with the letter in her hand. Ah--but if there WERE something! She would lose at one stroke her faith in him, and her faith in herself--not only his love but her own self-respect.
She dropped the letter on the table. Could she not take it up to him herself? By the three o'clock slow train, she could get to him soon after five. She looked at her watch. She would just have time to walk down. And she ran upstairs. Little Gyp was sitting on the top stair--her favourite seat--looking at a picture-book.
"I'm going up to London, darling. Tell Betty I may be back to-night, or perhaps I may not. Give me a good kiss."Little Gyp gave the good kiss, and said:
"Let me see you put your hat on, Mum."
While Gyp was putting on hat and furs, she thought: "I shan't take a bag; I can always make shift at Bury Street if--" She did not finish the thought, but the blood came up in her cheeks. "Take care of Ossy, darling!" She ran down, caught up the letter, and hastened away to the station. In the train, her cheeks still burned. Might not this first visit to his chambers be like her old first visit to the little house in Chelsea? She took the letter out. How she hated that large, scrawly writing for all the thoughts and fears it had given her these past months! If that girl knew how much anxiety and suffering she had caused, would she stop writing, stop seeing him? And Gyp tried to conjure up her face, that face seen only for a minute, and the sound of that clipped, clear voice but once heard--the face and voice of one accustomed to have her own way. No! It would only make her go on all the more. Fair game, against a woman with no claim--but that of love. Thank heaven she had not taken him away from any woman--unless--that girl perhaps thought she had! Ah! Why, in all these years, had she never got to know his secrets, so that she might fight against what threatened her? But would she have fought? To fight for love was degrading, horrible! And yet--if one did not?
She got up and stood at the window of her empty carriage. There was the river--and there--yes, the very backwater where he had begged her to come to him for good. It looked so different, bare and shorn, under the light grey sky; the willows were all polled, the reeds cut down. And a line from one of his favourite sonnets came into her mind:
"Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang."Ah, well! Time enough to face things when they came. She would only think of seeing him! And she put the letter back to burn what hole it liked in the pocket of her fur coat.
The train was late; it was past five, already growing dark, when she reached Paddington and took a cab to the Temple. Strange to be going there for the first time--not even to know exactly where Harcourt Buildings were. At Temple Lane, she stopped the cab and walked down that narrow, ill-lighted, busy channel into the heart of the Great Law.
"Up those stone steps, miss; along the railin', second doorway."Gyp came to the second doorway and in the doubtful light scrutinized the names. "Summerhay--second floor." She began to climb the stairs. Her heart beat fast. What would he say? How greet her? Was it not absurd, dangerous, to have come? He would be having a consultation perhaps. There would be a clerk or someone to beard, and what name could she give? On the first floor she paused, took out a blank card, and pencilled on it:
"Can I see you a minute?--G."
Then, taking a long breath to quiet her heart, she went on up.
There was the name, and there the door. She rang--no one came;listened--could hear no sound. All looked so massive and bleak and dim--the iron railings, stone stairs, bare walls, oak door. She rang again. What should she do? Leave the letter? Not see him after all--her little romance all come to naught--just a chilly visit to Bury Street, where perhaps there would be no one but Mrs.
Markey, for her father, she knew, was at Mildenham, hunting, and would not be up till Sunday! And she thought: 'I'll leave the letter, go back to the Strand, have some tea, and try again.'
She took out the letter, with a sort of prayer pushed it through the slit of the door, heard it fall into its wire cage; then slowly descended the stairs to the outer passage into Temple Lane. It was thronged with men and boys, at the end of the day's work. But when she had nearly reached the Strand, a woman's figure caught her eye.
She was walking with a man on the far side; their faces were turned toward each other. Gyp heard their voices, and, faint, dizzy, stood looking back after them. They passed under a lamp; the light glinted on the woman's hair, on a trick of Summerhay's, the lift of one shoulder, when he was denying something; she heard his voice, high-pitched. She watched them cross, mount the stone steps she had just come down, pass along the railed stone passage, enter the doorway, disappear. And such horror seized on her that she could hardly walk away.