Kitabı oku: «Flower o' the Peach», sayfa 18
"You want some water," he said, with an inspiration, and vanished.
Margaret had time somewhat to recover herself before he returned with his mother and the water.
Mrs. du Preez needed no explanations.
"Now you 'll have a bit of respect for our sun, Miss Harding," she said, after a single, narrow-eyed look at the girl. "Hand that water here, Paul; you didn't bring it for show, did you? Well, then. And just you let me take off this hat, Miss Harding. Bond Street, I 'll bet a pound. They don't build for this sun in Bond Street. Now jus' let me wet this handkerchief and lay it on your forehead. Now, ain't that better?"
She turned her head to drive a fierce whisper at Paul.
"Get out o' this. Come in by an' by."
"Thanks awfully." Margaret shivered as the dripping handkerchief pressed upon her brow let loose drops that gravitated to her neck and zigzagged under the collar of her blouse. "I 'm feeling much better now. I 'd rather sit up, really."
"So long as you haven't got that tight feeling," conceded Mrs. du Preez.
She stood off, watching the girl in a manner that expressed something striving within her mind.
"All right now?" she asked, when Margaret had got rid of the wet handkerchief.
"Quite," Margaret assured her. "Thanks ever so much."
Mrs. du Preez arranged the glass and jug neatly upon the iron tray on which they had made their appearance.
"Miss Harding," she said suddenly. "I know."
"Oh? What do you know?" inquired Margaret.
Mrs. du Preez glanced round to see that Paul had obeyed her.
"I know all about it," she answered, with reassuring frowns and nods. "Your Fat Mary told my Christian Kafir and she told me. About – about Kamis; you know."
"I see."
The story had the spreading quality of the plague; it was an infection that tainted every ear, it seemed.
"You mean – you 'd like me to go?" suggested Margaret.
"No! No! NO!"
Mrs. du Preez brought both hands into play to aid her face in making the negatives emphatic. "Go? Why, if it was n't for the mercy of God I 'd be in the same box myself. I would – Me! I 've got nothing to come the heavy about, even if I was the sort that would do it. So now you know."
"I don't understand," said Margaret. "Do you mean that you – ?"
"I mean," interrupted Mrs. du Preez, "that if it wasn't for that Kafir I 'd ha' been hopping in hell before now; and if people only knew it – gosh! I 'd have to hide. I wanted to tell you so 's you should know there was some one that could n't throw any stones at you. You 're beginnin' to find things rather warm up there, aren't you?"
Margaret smiled. The true kindness of Mrs. du Preez's intention moved her; charity in this quarter was the last thing she had expected to find.
"A little warm," she agreed. "Everybody 's rather shocked just now, and Mrs. Jakes has given me notice to leave."
"Has she?" demanded Mrs. du Preez. "Well, I suppose it was to be expected. I 've known that woman now for more years than I could count on my fingers, and I 've always had my doubts of her. She 's no more got the spirit of a real lady than a cow has. That 's where it is, Miss Harding. She can't understand that a lady 's got to be trusted. For two pins I 'd tell her so, the old cross-eyed skellpot. So you 're going? Well, you won't be sorry."
"But – how did you come across Kamis?" asked Margaret.
"Oh, it 's a long story. I was clearin' out of here – doing a bolt, you know, an' I got into trouble with a feller that was with me. It was a feller named Bailey that was stoppin' here," explained Mrs. du Preez, who had not heard the whole history of Margaret's exposure. "He was after a bit of money I 'd got with me, and he was startin' in to kick me when up jumps that nigger and down goes Bailey. See?"
Margaret saw only vaguely, but she nodded.
"That 's Bailey," said Mrs. du Preez, drawing her attention to the Boy's photograph. "Christian warned me against smashing it when I wanted to. He 's got notions, Christian has. 'Leave it alone,' he says; 'we 're not afraid of it.' So of course I had to; but I 'd be more 'n a bit thankful if it was gone. I can't take any pleasure in the room with it there."
"I could help you in that, perhaps," suggested Margaret. "You 've helped me. It was sweet of you to tell me what you did, the friendliest thing I ever knew."
"I 'd rather you did n't speak about it to Christian," objected Mrs. du Preez.
"I did n't mean to," Margaret assured her, rising.
She crossed to the narrow mantel as though to look more particularly at Boy Bailey's features. She lifted the plush frame from its place.
"There are people who would call this face handsome," she remarked.
"Heaps," agreed Mrs. du Preez. "In his best days, he 'd got a style – Lord! Miss Harding."
Margaret had let the photograph fall face-downwards on the edge of the fender and the crash of its glass cut Mrs. du Preez short. She stared at Margaret in astonishment as the girl put a foot on the picture and broke it.
"Wasn't that clumsy of me?" she asked, smiling.
"Well, of all the cheek," declared Mrs. du Preez, slowly. "I never guessed what you were after. But I don't know what Christian will say."
"He can't mend it, anyhow," replied Margaret. "You did want it gone, did n't you?"
"You bet," said Mrs. du Preez. "But – but that was a dodge. Here, let's make sure of it while we 're at it; those two pieces could be easily stuck together. I 'll stamp some of that smashed glass into it. Still – I should think, after this, you 'd be able to hold your own with Mrs. Jakes."
She kicked the pieces of the now unrepairable photograph into a little heap.
"I 'll leave it like that for Christian to see," she said. "But, look here. Didn't you want to speak to Paul? You 'll be wondering when I 'm goin' to give you a chance. I 'll just tap the drum for him."
Paul's whistle from behind the house answered the first strokes and Mrs. du Preez, with an unusual delicacy, did not return to the parlor with him.
"You 're all right now?" he asked, as he entered.
"Oh, yes. That was nothing," said Margaret.
Paul took his stand by the window, leaning with a shoulder against it, looking abstractedly at her face, and waiting to hear her speak.
"Paul," asked Margaret, "do you know where Kamis is now?"
"Yes," he said.
"Do you see him? Can you speak to him for me?"
"I don't see him much now," answered Paul. "That is because the policemen are riding about looking for him. But I can speak to him to-night."
"He must take care not to be caught," said Margaret. "They 're very anxious to find him just now. You 've heard, Paul, that they 've found out about me and him?"
"Ye-es," answered Paul. "I heard something."
"It's true," said Margaret. "So I 've got to go away from here. They won't have me at the Sanatorium any longer and the police are watching to see if Kamis comes anywhere near me and to catch him if he does. You must warn him to keep right away, Paul. He mustn't send any messages, even."
"I will tell him," said Paul. "But – you are going away? To England?"
"Perhaps," replied Margaret. "I expect I shall have to now. They tell me that people won't let me live in South Africa any more. I 'm a sort of leper, and I must keep my distance from healthy people. So we shan't see each other again after a few more days. Are you sorry, Paul?"
He reddened boyishly and fidgeted.
"Oh, it is best for you to go," he answered, uncomfortably.
"Paul! But why?"
"It 's – it 's not your place," he said, facing the difficulty of putting an elusive thought into words. "This country – people don't know what 's good and what 's bad – and there isn't enough people. Not like London. You should go to London again. Kamis was telling me – theaters and streets and pictures to see, and people everywhere. He says one end of London is just like you and the other end is like that Bailey. That is where you should go – London, not here. I will go to London soon, too."
"I see," said Margaret. "I was afraid at first that you were sick of me too, Paul. I needn't have been afraid of that, need I? Wouldn't it be fine if we could meet in London?"
"We can," said Paul seriously. "I have got a hundred and three pounds, and I will go."
"That's a good deal," said Margaret.
"It's a lot," he agreed. "My father gave it to me the other day, all tied up tight in a little dirty bundle, and there was my mother's marriage lines in it too. He said he didn't mean me to have those but the money was for me. It was on the table in the morning and he rolled it over to me and said: 'Here, Paul. Take this and don't bring any more of your tramps in the house.' That was because I brought that Bailey here, you know. So now – soon – I will go to London and Paris and make models there. Kamis says – "
"What?" asked Margaret.
"He says I will think my eyes have gone mad at first when I see London. He says that coming to Waterloo Station will be like dying and waking in another world. But he says too – blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God even in Waterloo Station."
"He ought to go back himself," said Margaret, with conviction. "He 's wasted here."
"Will you see him before you go?" asked Paul.
"No," said Margaret. "No; I daren't. Tell him, Paul, please, that I 'd like to see him ever so much, but that it 's too dangerous. Say I wish him well with all my heart, and that I hope most earnestly that he won't let himself be caught."
"He won't," said Paul, with confidence. "But I 'll tell him."
"And say," continued Margaret – "say he 's not to feel sorry about what has happened to me. Tell him I 'm still proud that I was his friend, and that all this row is worth it. Can you remember all that?"
Paul nodded. "I can remember," he assured her. "It is – it is so fine to hear, for me, too. I won't forget anything."
"Please don't, if you can help it. I want him to have that message," said Margaret. "And now, Paul, I 'll have to say good-by to you, because I shan't come here again."
Paul stood upright as she rose. His slow smile was very friendly.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "You are going to London, and soon I shall see you there."
"I wonder," she said, giving him her hand. "I 'll write you my address and send it you before I leave, Paul."
"I should find you anyhow," he assured her confidently.
Mrs. du Preez, also, had to be taken leave of, and shed a tear or so at the last. In her, a strong emotion found a safety valve in ferocity.
"As for that Jakes woman," she said, in conclusion, "you tell her from me, Miss Harding – from me, mind, – that it wouldn't cost me any pain to hand her a slap acrost the mug."
Margaret went homeward through the late light dreamily. Far away, blurred by the sun's horizontal rays, the figure of the trooper occupied the empty distance, no larger than an ant against the flushed sky. Peace and melancholy were in the mood of the hour, a cue to lead her thoughts towards sadness. It caused her to realize that she would not leave it all without a sense of loss. She would miss its immensity, its effect of setting one at large on an earth without trimmings under a heaven without clouds, to make the most of one's own humanity. It would be a thing she had known in part, but which henceforth she would never know even as she herself was known. She could never now find the word that expressed its wonder and its appeal.
Mr. Samson was on the stoep as she went up the steps to enter the Sanatorium. He put down his paper and toddled forward to open the door for her, anxiously punctilious.
"Ford was down for tea," he said. "Askin' for you, he was."
"Oh, was he?" replied Margaret inanely, and went in.
At supper that evening in the farmhouse kitchen, Christian du Preez, glancing up from the food which occupied him, observed by a certain frowning deliberation on Paul's face, that his son was about to deliver himself in speech.
"Well, what is it, Paul?" he inquired encouragingly.
Paul looked up with a faint surprise at having his purpose thus forecasted.
"That money," he said doubtfully.
"Oh." The Boer glanced uneasily at his wife, who laid down her knife and fork and began to listen with startled interest.
"That 's all right," said Christian. "Do what you like with it. Go to the dorp and spend it; it 's yours. Now eat your supper."
"I am going to London," said Paul then, seriously, and having got it off his mind, said, heard and done with, he resumed his meal with an appetite.
"London," echoed the Boer. "London?" exclaimed Mrs. du Preez.
"Yes," said Paul. "To make models. Here there is nobody to see them."
"He is gone mad," said the Boer with conviction. "He has been queer for a long time and now he is mad. Paul, you are mad."
"Am I?" asked Paul respectfully, and continued to eat.
His father and mother had much to say, agitatedly, angrily, persuasively, but people were always saying things to him that had no real meaning. It was ridiculous, for instance, that the Boer should call him a dumb fool because at the close of a lecture he should ask for more coffee. He wasn't dumb and didn't believe he was a fool. People were n't fools because they went to London; on the contrary, they had to be rather clever and enterprising to get there at all. And at the back of his mind dwelt the thing he could not hope to convey and did not attempt to – a sense he had, which warmed and uplifted him, of nearing a goal after doubt and difficulty, the Pisgah exaltation and tenderness, the confidence that to him and to the work which his hands should perform, Canaan was reserved, virgin and welcoming. It was a strength he had in secret, and the Boer knew himself baffled when after an hour of exhortation to be sane and explanatory and obedient and comprehensible, he looked up and said, very thoughtfully:
"In London, people pay a shilling to look at clays, father."
CHAPTER XVII
Ford's return to normal existence coincided with the arrival of mail-morning, when the breakfast menu was varied by home letters heaped upon the plates. Mrs. Jakes had one of her own this morning and was very conscious of it, affecting to find her correspondent's caligraphy hard to read. Old Mr. Samson had his usual pile and greeted him from behind a litter of torn wrappers and envelopes.
"Hullo, Ford," he cried, "up on your pins, again? Feelin' pretty bobbish – what?"
"Nice way you 've got of putting it," replied Ford, taking his seat before the three letters on his plate. "I 'm all right, though. You seem fairly well supplied with reading-matter this morning."
"The usual, the usual," said Mr. Samson airily. "People gone to the country; got time to write, don't you know. Here 's a feller tells me that the foxes down his way are simply rotten with mange."
"Awful," said Ford, glancing at the first of his own letters. "And here 's a feller tells me that he 's sent in the enclosed account nine times and must press for a cheque without delay. What 's the country coming to? Eh?"
"You be blowed," retorted Mr. Samson, and fell again to his reading.
From behind the urn Mrs. Jakes made noises indicative of lady-like exasperation.
"The way some people write, you 'd never believe they 'd been educated and finished regardless of expense," she declared. "There 's a word here – she 's telling me about a lady I used to know in Town – and whether she suffers from her children (though I never knew she was married) or from a chaplain, I can't make out. Can you see what it is, Mr. Ford? There, where I 'm pointing?"
"Oh, yes," said Ford. "It 's worse than you think, Mrs. Jakes. It 's chilblains."
"O-oh." Mrs. Jakes was enlightened. "Why, of course. I remember now. Even when she was a girl at school, she used to suffer dreadfully from them. I thought she couldn't have been married, with such feet. But is n't it a dreadful way to write?"
She would have indulged them with further information regarding the lady who suffered, but Margaret's entrance drove her back behind the breastwork of the urn. She distrusted her own correctness when the girl's eyes were on her, and her sure belief that Margaret had revealed herself as anything but correct by every standard which Mrs. Jakes could apply, failed to reassure her.
"Good morning, Miss Harding," she said frostily. "You will take coffee?"
"Good morning," replied Margaret, passing to her place at the table. "Yes, it is lovely."
"Er – the coffee?" asked Mrs. Jakes, suspicious and uncomprehending.
"Oh, coffee. Yes, please," said Margaret. "I thought you said something about the weather."
Ford grinned at the letter he was reading and greeted her quietly.
"Glad you 're better," she replied, not returning his smile, and turned at once to the letters which awaited her.
He was watching her while she sorted them, examining first the envelopes for indications of what they held. One seemed to puzzle her, and she took it up to decipher the postmark. Then she set it down and opened the fattest of all, a worthy, linen-enveloped affair, containing a couple of typewritten sheets as well as a short letter. She read it perfunctorily and looked through the business-like typescripts impatiently, folded them all up again and tucked them back into the linen envelope. Then followed the others, and the one with the smudged postmark last of all. She scrutinized the outside of this again before she opened it; it was not an English letter, but one from some unidentifiable postal district in South Africa. At last she opened it, and drew out the dashing black scrawl which it harbored. A glance at the end of the letter seemed to leave her in the dark, and Ford saw her delicate brows knit as she began to read.
He found himself becoming absorbed in the mere contemplation of her. He was aware of a character in her presence at once familiar to him by long study and intangible; it had the quality of bloom, that a touch destroys. She had hair that coiled upon her head and left its shape discernible, and beneath it a certain breadth and frankness of brow upon which the eyebrows were etched marvelously. She was like a lantern which softens and tempers the impetuous flame within it, and turns its ardor into radiance. The Kafir and the shame and the imprudence of that affair did not suffice to darken that light; at the most, they could but cause it to waver and make strange shadows for a moment, like the candle one carries, behind a guarding hand, through a windy corridor. It did not cool the strong flame that was the heart of the combination.
Suddenly Margaret laid the letter down. She put it back on her plate with an abrupt gesture and he noted that she had gone pale, and that her mouth was wry as though with a bitter taste. She even withdrew her fingers from the sheet with exactly the movement of one who has by accident set his hand on some unexpected piece of foulness.
She went on with her breakfast quietly enough, but she did not look at her letters again. They were perhaps the first letters in years to come to the Sanatorium and be dismissed with a single perusal.
"Fog in London," said Mr. Samson, suddenly. "Feller writes as though it was the plague. Hedoes n't know what it is to have too much bally sun."
The glare that shone through the window returned his glance unwinking.
"Fog?" responded Mrs. Jakes, alertly. "That is bad. Such dreadful things happen in fogs. I remember a lady at Home, who was divorced afterwards, who lost her way in a fog and didn't get home for two days, and even then she had somebody else's umbrella and could no more remember where she 'd got it than fly. And she was so confused and upset that all she could say to her husband was: 'Ed,' – his name was Edwin – 'Ed, did you remember to have your hair cut?'"
"Had he remembered?" demanded Mr. Samson.
"I think not," replied Mrs. Jakes. "What with the worry, and the things the servant said, I don't believe he 'd thought of it. He always did wear it rather long."
"Think of that," said Mr. Samson, with solemn surprise.
Margaret finished her breakfast in silence and then gathered up her letters. Ford thought that as she picked up the sheet which had distressed her, she glanced involuntarily at him. But the look conveyed nothing and she departed in silence. He was careful not to follow her too soon.
It was not difficult to find her. For some two hours after breakfast was over, the only part of the Sanatorium which it was possible to inhabit with comfort was the stoep. The other rooms were given over to Fat Mary and her colleagues for the daily ceremony known as "doing the rooms," a festival involving excursions and alarms, skylarking, breakages and fights. To seek seclusion in the drawing-room, for example, was to be subjected to a cinematograph impression of surprised and shocked black faces peering round the door and vanishing, to scuffling noises on the mat and finally to hints from Mrs. Jakes herself: "Would you mind the girls just sweeping round your feet? They 're rather behindhand this morning."
Margaret had betaken herself and her chair to the extreme end of the stoep, beyond the radius of Ford's art and Mr. Samson's meditations. Her letters were in her lap, but she was not looking at them. She was gazing straight before her at the emptiness which stretched out endlessly, affording no perch for the eye to rest on, an everlasting enigma to baffle sore minds.
Ford was innocent of stratagem in his manner of approach.
"I say," he said, and she looked up listlessly. "I say – I 'm sorry. Can't we make it up?"
"All right," she answered.
He looked at her closely.
"But is it all right?" he persisted. "You 're hurt about something; I can see you are; so it 's not all right yet. Look here, Miss Harding: you were wrong about what I was thinking."
"Oh no." Margaret shifted in her chair with a tired impatience. "I wasn't wrong," she answered. "I could see; and I think you should n't go back on it now. The least you can do is stand by your beliefs. You won't find yourself alone. I had a letter from some one this morning who would back you up to the last drop of his blood, I 'm sure."
"Who 's that?"
"I don't know," she answered. "It 's my first anonymous letter. Somebody has heard about me and therefore writes. He thinks just as you do. Would you like to see it?"
She handed him the bold, crowded scrawl and sat back while he leaned on the rail to read it.
At the second sentence in the letter he looked up sharply and restrained an ejaculation. She was not looking at him, but a tinge of pink had risen in her quiet face.
It was an anonymous letter of the most villainous kind. Something like horror possessed him as he realized that her grave eyes had perused its gleeful and elaborate offense. The abominable thing was a vileness fished from the pit of a serious and blackguard mind. It had the baseness of ordure, and a sort of frivolity that transcended commonplace evil.
"I say," he cried, before the end of the ingenious thing was reached. "You have n't read this through?"
"Not quite," she answered.
"I – I should think not."
With quick nervous jerks of his fingers which betrayed the hot anger he felt, he tore the letter into strips and the strips again into smaller fragments, and strewed them forth upon the stiff dead shrubs below.
"It's getting about, you see," said Margaret, with a sigh. "I suppose, before I manage to get away, I shall be accustomed to things of that kind."
"But this is awful," cried Ford. "I can't bear this. You, of all people, to have to go through all that this means and threatens – it 's awful. Miss Harding, let me apologize, let me grovel, let me do anything that 'll give you the feeling that I 'm with you in this. You can't face it alone – you simply can't. I'm sorry enough to – to kick myself. Can't you let me stand in with you?"
He stopped helplessly before Margaret's languid calm. She was not in the least stirred by his appeal. She lay back in her chair listlessly, and only withdrew her eyes from the veld to look at him as he ceased to speak.
"Oh, it doesn't matter," she said indifferently. "It's a silly business. Don't worry about it, please."
"But – " began Ford, and stopped. "You mean – you won't have me with you, anyhow?" he asked. "What you thought I thought, upstairs – you can't forget that? Is that it?"
She smiled slowly, and he stared at her in dismay. Nothing could have expressed so clearly as that faint smile her immunity from the passion that stirred in him.
"Perhaps it 's that," she answered, always in the same indifferent, low voice. "I 'm not thinking more about it than I can help."
"I didn't think any harm of you," Ford protested earnestly, leaning forward from his perch on the rail and striving to compel her to look at him. "We 've been good friends, and you might have trusted me not to think evil of you. I simply didn't understand – nothing else. You can't seriously be offended because you imagined that I was thinking certain thoughts. It isn't fair."
"I 'm not offended," she answered.
"Hurt, then," he substituted. "Anything you please."
He stepped down from his seat and walked a few paces away, with his hands deeply sunk in his pockets, and then walked back again.
"I say," he said abruptly; "it 's a question of what I think of you, it seems. Let me tell you what I do think."
Margaret turned her face towards him. He was frowning heavily, with an appearance of injury and annoyance. He spoke in curt jets.
"It 's only since I 've known you that I 've really worried over being a lunger," he said. "The Army – I could stand that. But seeing you and talking to you, and knowing I 'd no right to say a word – no right to try and lead things that way, even, for your sake as much as mine – it 's been hard. Because – this is what I do think – it 's seemed to me that you were worth more than everything else. I 'd have given the world to tell you so, and ask you – well, you know what I mean."
Margaret was not so steeped in sorrows but she could mark this evasion of a plain statement with amusement.
Ford, staring at her intently, clicked with impatience.
"Well, then," he said in the tone of one who is goaded to extreme lengths; "well then, Miss – er – Margaret – " he paused, seemingly struck by a pleasant flavor in the name as he spoke it – "Margaret," he repeated, less urgently; "I 'm hanged if I know how to say it, but – I love you."
There was an appreciable interval while they remained gazing at each other, he breathless and discomposed, she grave and unresponding.
"Do you?" she said at last. "But – "
"I do," he urged. "On my soul, I do. Margaret, it 's true. I 've been – loving – you for a long time. I thought perhaps you might care a little, too, sometimes, and I 'd have told you if it was n't for this chest of mine. That 's what I meant when you said you were going away and I asked you to stay. I thought you understood then."
"I did understand," she replied, and sat thoughtful.
She wondered vaguely at the apathy that mastered her and would not suffer her to feel even a thrill. Some virtue had departed out of her and drawn with it the whole liveliness of her mind and spirit, so that what remained was mere deadness. She knew, in some subconscious and uninspiring manner, that Ford was what he had always been, with passion added to him; he was waiting in a tension of suspense for her to answer, with his thin face eager and glowing. It should have moved her with compassion and liking for the stubborn, faithful, upright soul she knew him to be. But the letter, the confident approaches of the Punchinello policeman, and even Mrs. Jakes' ill-restrained joy in bidding her leave the place, had been so many blows upon her function of susceptibility. The accumulation of them had a little stunned her, and she was not yet restored.
Ford saw her lips hesitate before she spoke, and his heart beat more quickly.
She looked up at him uncertainly and made a movement with her shoulders like a shrug.
"Oh, I can't," she said suddenly. "No, I can't. It 's no use; you must leave me alone, please."
His look of sheer amazement, of pain and bewilderment, returned to her later. It was as though he had been struck in the face by some one he counted on as a friend. He stood for an instant rooted.
"Sorry," he said, then. "I might have seen I was worrying you. Sorry."
His retreating feet sounded softly on the flags of the stoep, and she sank back in her chair, wondering wearily at the event and its inconsequent conclusion, with her eyes resting on the wide invitation of the veld.
"Am I going to be ill?" was the thought that came to her relief. "Am I going to be ill? I 'm not really like this."
The ordeal of lunch had to be faced; she could not eat, but still less could she face the prospect of Mrs. Jakes with a tray. Afterwards, there was the dreary labor of writing letters to go before her to England and make ready the way for her return. There would have to be explanations of some kind, and it was a sure thing that her explanations would fail to satisfy a number of people who would consider themselves entitled to comment on her movements. There would have to be some mystery about it, at the best. For the present, she could not screw herself up to the task of composing euphemisms. "Expect me home by the boat after next. I will tell you why when I see you"; that had to suffice for the legal uncle, his lawful wife, the philosophic aunt and all the rest.
Then came tea and afterwards dinner; the day dragged like a sick snake. Dr. Jakes made mournful eyes at her and talked feverishly to cover his nervousness and compunction, and now and again he looked down the table at his wife and Mr. Samson with furtive malevolence. Afterwards, in the drawing-room, Mrs. Jakes, having made an inspection of the doctor, played the intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana" five times, and Ford and Samson spent the evening over a chessboard. Margaret, on the couch, found herself coming to the surface of the present again and again from depths of heavy and turgid thought, to find the intermezzo still limping along and Mr. Samson still apostrophizing his men in an undertone ("Take his bally bishop, old girl; help yourself. No, come back – he 'll have you with that knight"). It was interminable, a pocket eternity.
