第137章

"In love, are you?" she said quietly. "I'm glad, Ralph.""I suppose I'm in love. Anyhow, I'm out of my mind. I can't think, Ican't work, I don't care a hang for anything in the world. Good Heavens, Mary! I'm in torment! One moment I'm happy; next I'm miserable. I hate her for half an hour; then I'd give my whole life to be with her for ten minutes; all the time I don't know what I feel, or why I feel it; it's insanity, and yet it's perfectly reasonable. Can you make any sense of it? Can you see what's happened? I'm raving, Iknow; don't listen, Mary; go on with your work."He rose and began, as usual, to pace up and down the room. He knew that what he had just said bore very little resemblance to what he felt, for Mary's presence acted upon him like a very strong magnet, drawing from him certain expressions which were not those he made use of when he spoke to himself, nor did they represent his deepest feelings. He felt a little contempt for himself at having spoken thus;but somehow he had been forced into speech.

"Do sit down," said Mary suddenly. "You make me so--" She spoke with unusual irritability, and Ralph, noticing it with surprise, sat down at once.

"You haven't told me her name--you'd rather not, I suppose?""Her name? Katharine Hilbery."

"But she's engaged--"

"To Rodney. They're to be married in September.""I see," said Mary. But in truth the calm of his manner, now that he was sitting down once more, wrapt her in the presence of something which she felt to be so strong, so mysterious, so incalculable, that she scarcely dared to attempt to intercept it by any word or question that she was able to frame. She looked at Ralph blankly, with a kind of awe in her face, her lips slightly parted, and her brows raised. He was apparently quite unconscious of her gaze. Then, as if she could look no longer, she leant back in her chair, and half closed her eyes.

The distance between them hurt her terribly; one thing after another came into her mind, tempting her to assail Ralph with questions, to force him to confide in her, and to enjoy once more his intimacy. But she rejected every impulse, for she could not speak without doing violence to some reserve which had grown between them, putting them a little far from each other, so that he seemed to her dignified and remote, like a person she no longer knew well.

"Is there anything that I could do for you?" she asked gently, and even with courtesy, at length.

"You could see her--no, that's not what I want; you mustn't bother about me, Mary." He, too, spoke very gently.

"I'm afraid no third person can do anything to help," she added.

"No," he shook his head. "Katharine was saying to-day how lonely we are." She saw the effort with which he spoke Katharine's name, and believed that he forced himself to make amends now for his concealment in the past. At any rate, she was conscious of no anger against him;but rather of a deep pity for one condemned to suffer as she had suffered. But in the case of Katharine it was different; she was indignant with Katharine.

"There's always work," she said, a little aggressively.

Ralph moved directly.

"Do you want to be working now?" he asked.

"No, no. It's Sunday," she replied. "I was thinking of Katharine. She doesn't understand about work. She's never had to. She doesn't know what work is. I've only found out myself quite lately. But it's the thing that saves one--I'm sure of that.""There are other things, aren't there?" he hesitated.

"Nothing that one can count upon," she returned. "After all, other people--" she stopped, but forced herself to go on. "Where should I be now if I hadn't got to go to my office every day? Thousands of people would tell you the same thing--thousands of women. I tell you, work is the only thing that saved me, Ralph." He set his mouth, as if her words rained blows on him; he looked as if he had made up his mind to bear anything she might say, in silence. He had deserved it, and there would be relief in having to bear it. But she broke off, and rose as if to fetch something from the next room. Before she reached the door she turned back, and stood facing him, self-possessed, and yet defiant and formidable in her composure.

"It's all turned out splendidly for me," she said. "It will for you, too. I'm sure of that. Because, after all, Katharine is worth it.""Mary--!" he exclaimed. But her head was turned away, and he could not say what he wished to say. "Mary, you're splendid," he concluded. She faced him as he spoke, and gave him her hand. She had suffered and relinquished, she had seen her future turned from one of infinite promise to one of barrenness, and yet, somehow, over what she scarcely knew, and with what results she could hardly foretell, she had conquered. With Ralph's eyes upon her, smiling straight back at him serenely and proudly, she knew, for the first time, that she had conquered. She let him kiss her hand.