第17章

Irene was soft,surely she would do this for him,subdue her natural shrinking,sooner than give him pain!The lessons must continue;for if they did,he was secure.And lighting his cigar at last,he began trying to shape out how to put it to them all,and explain this strange intimacy;how to veil and wrap it away from the naked truth--that he could not bear to be deprived of the sight of beauty.Ah!Holly!Holly was fond of her,Holly liked her lessons.She would save him--his little sweet!And with that happy thought he became serene,and wondered what he had been worrying about so fearfully.He must not worry,it left him always curiously weak,and as if but half present in his own body.

That evening after dinner he had a return of the dizziness,though he did not faint.He would not ring the bell,because he knew it would mean a fuss,and make his going up on the morrow more conspicuous.When one grew old,the whole world was in conspiracy to limit freedom,and for what reason?--just to keep the breath in him a little longer.He did not want it at such cost.Only the dog Balthasar saw his lonely recovery from that weakness;anxiously watched his master go to the sideboard and drink some brandy,instead of giving him a biscuit.When at last old Jolyon felt able to tackle the stairs he went up to bed.And,though still shaky next morning,the thought of the evening sustained and strengthened him.It was always such a pleasure to give her a good dinner--he suspected her of undereating when she was alone;and,at the opera to watch her eyes glow and brighten,the unconscious smiling of her lips.She hadn't much pleasure,and this was the last time he would be able to give her that treat.But when he was packing his bag he caught himself wishing that he had not the fatigue of dressing for dinner before him,and the exertion,too,of telling her about June's return.

The opera that evening was 'Carmen,'and he chose the last entr'acte to break the news,instinctively putting it off till the latest moment.

She took it quietly,queerly;in fact,he did not know how she had taken it before the wayward music lifted up again and silence became necessary.The mask was down over her face,that mask behind which so much went on that he could not see.She wanted time to think it over,no doubt!He would not press her,for she would be coming to give her lesson to-morrow afternoon,and he should see her then when she had got used to the idea.In the cab he talked only of the Carmen;he had seen better in the old days,but this one was not bad at all.When he took her hand to say good-night,she bent quickly forward and kissed his forehead.

"Good-bye,dear Uncle Jolyon,you have been so sweet to me.""To-morrow then,"he said."Good-night.Sleep well."She echoed softly:"Sleep welll"and from the cab window,already moving away,he saw her face screwed round towards him,and her hand put out in a gesture which seemed to linger.

He sought his room slowly.They never gave him the same,and he could not get used to these 'spick-and-spandy'bedrooms with new furniture and grey-green carpets sprinkled all over with pink roses.He was wakeful and that wretched Habanera kept throbbing in his head.

His French had never been equal to its words,but its sense he knew,if it had any sense,a gipsy thing--wild and unaccountable.

Well,there was in life something which upset all your care and plans--something which made men and women dance to its pipes.And he lay staring from deep-sunk eyes into the darkness where the unaccountable held sway.You thought you had hold of life,but it slipped away behind you,took you by the scruff of the neck,forced you here and forced you there,and then,likely as not,squeezed life out of you!It took the very stars like that,he shouldn't wonder,rubbed their noses together and flung them apart;it had never done playing its pranks.Five million people in this great blunderbuss of a town,and all of them at the mercy of that Life-Force,like a lot of little dried peas hopping about on a board when you struck your fist on it.Ah,well!Himself would not hop much longer--a good long sleep would do him good!

How hot it was up here!--how noisy!His forehead burned;she had kissed it just where he always worried;just there--as if she had known the very place and wanted to kiss it all away for him.But,instead,her lips left a patch of grievous uneasiness.She had never spoken in quite that voice,had never before made that lingering gesture or looked back at him as she drove away.

He got out of bed and pulled the curtains aside;his room faced down over the river.There was little air,but the sight of that breadth of water flowing by,calm,eternal,soothed him.'The great thing,'he thought 'is not to make myself a nuisance.I'll think of my little sweet,and go to sleep.'But it was long before the heat and throbbing of the London night died out into the short slumber of the summer morning.And old Jolyon had but forty winks.

When he reached home next day he went out to the flower garden,and with the help of Holly,who was very delicate with flowers,gathered a great bunch of carnations.They were,he told her,for 'the lady in grey'--a name still bandied between them;and he put them in a bowl in his study where he meant to tackle Irene the moment she came,on the subject of June and future lessons.Their fragrance and colour would help.After lunch he lay down,for he felt very tired,and the carriage would not bring her from the station till four o'clock.But as the hour approached he grew restless,and sought the schoolroom,which overlooked the drive.