In the morning when he woke the same confused struggle of feeling had gone on. He had spent the afternoon writing her a letter, and had barely finished it when her first love-letter came. And he sat now with the two before him.
‘I can’t send this,’ he thought suddenly; ‘it goes over and over and gets nowhere. Rotten!’ He tore it up, and read her letter a third time.
‘Impossible!’ he thought; ‘to go down there! God and the King and the rest of it. Impossible!’ And seizing a piece of paper, he wrote:
“Cork Street: Saturday.
“Bless you for your letter. Come up here to lunch Monday. We must talk.—WILFRID.”
Having sent Stack out with this missive, he felt a little more at peace…
Dinny did not receive this note till Monday morning, and was the more relieved to get it. The last two days had been spent by her in avoiding any mention of Wilfrid, listening to Hubert and Jean’s account of their life in the Soudan, walking and inspecting the state of trees with her father, copying his income-tax return, and going to church with him and her mother. The tacit silence about her engagement was very characteristic of a family whose members were mutually devoted and accustomed to spare each other’s feelings; it was all the more ominous.
After reading Wilfrid’s note she said to herself blankly: ‘For a love-letter it’s not a love-letter.’ And she said to her mother:
“Wilfrid’s shy of coming, dear. I must go up and talk to him. If I can, I will bring him down with me. If I can’t, I’ll try and arrange for you to see him at Mount Street. He’s lived alone so much that seeing people is a real strain.”
Lady Cherrell’s answer was a sigh, but it meant more to Dinny than words; she took her mother’s hand and said: “Cheer up, Mother dear. It’s something that I’m happy, isn’t it?”
“That would be everything, Dinny.”
Dinny was too conscious of implications in the ‘would be’ to answer.
She walked to the station, reached London at noon, and set out for Cork Street across the Park. The day was fine, the sun shone; spring was established to the full, with lilac and with tulips, young green of plane-tree leaves, songs of birds, and the freshness of the grass. But though she looked in tune, she suffered from presentiment. Why she should feel so, going to a private lunch with her lover, she could not have explained. There could be but few people in all the great town at such an hour of day with prospect before them so closely joyful; but Dinny was not deceived: all was not well—she knew it. Being before her time, she stopped at Mount Street to titivate. According to Blore, Sir Lawrence was out, but his lady in. Dinny left the message that she might be in to tea.
Passing the pleasant smell at the corner of Burlington Street, she had that peculiar feeling, experienced by all at times, of having once been someone else which accounts for so much belief in the transmigration of souls.
‘It only means,’ she thought, ‘something I’ve forgotten. Oh! here’s the turning!’ And her heart began to beat.
She was nearly breathless when Stack opened the door to her. “Lunch will be ready in five minutes, miss.” His eyes, dark, prominent above his jutting nose, and yet reflective, and the curly benevolence of his lips always gave her the impression that he was confessing her before she had anything to confess. He opened the inner door, shut it behind her, and she was in Wilfrid’s arms. That was a complete refutation of presentiment; the longest and most satisfactory moment of the sort she had yet experienced. So long that she was afraid he would not let her go in time. At last she said gently:
“Lunch has already been in a minute, darling, according to Stack.”
“Stack has tact.”
Not until after lunch, when they were alone once more with coffee, did discomfiture come with the suddenness of a thunderclap in a clear sky.
“That business has come out, Dinny.”
What! That? THAT! She mastered the rush of her dismay.
“How?”
“A man called Telfourd Yule has brought the story back with him. They talk of it among the tribes. It’ll be in the bazaars by now, in the London clubs tomorrow. I shall be in Coventry in a few weeks’ time. Nothing can stop a thing like that.”
Without a word Dinny got up, pressed his head against her shoulder, then sat down beside him on the divan.
“I’m afraid you don’t understand,” he said gently.
“That this makes any difference? No, I don’t. The only difference could have been when you told me yourself. That made none. How can this, then?”
“How can I marry you?”
“That sort of thing is only in books, Wilfrid. WE won’t have linkéd misery long drawn out.”
“False heroics are not in my line either; but I don’t think you see yet.”
“I do. Now you can stand up straight again, and those who can’t understand—well, they don’t matter.”
“Then don’t your people matter?”
“Yes, they matter.”
“But you don’t suppose for a minute that they’ll understand?”
“I shall make them.”
“My poor dear!”
It struck her, ominously, how quiet and gentle he was being. He went on:
“I don’t know your people, but if they’re the sort you’ve described—charm ye never so wisely, they won’t rise. They can’t, it’s against their root convictions.”
“They’re fond of me.”
“That will make it all the more impossible for them to see you tied to me.”
Dinny drew away a little and sat with her chin on her hands. Then, without looking at him, she said:
“Do you want to get rid of me, Wilfrid?”
“Dinny!”
“Yes, but do you?”
He drew her into his arms. Presently she said:
“I see. Then if you don’t, you must leave this to me. And anyway it’s no good going to meet trouble. It isn’t known yet in London. We’ll wait until it is. I know you won’t marry me till then, so I MUST wait. After that it will be a clear issue, but you mustn’t be heroic then, Wilfrid, because it’ll hurt me too much—too much.” She clutched him suddenly; and he stayed silent.
With her cheek to his she said quietly:
“Do you want me to be everything to you before you marry me? If so, I can.”