IV
She was silent. She sat in one of the chairs with her eyes looking straight into the fire; while he took off his coat and hat and drew up his own chair opposite to hers she neither moved nor spoke. It seemed to him as he watched her that the room grew redder and warmer and more melancholy; the flames lapped so noisily in the silence that he had for an instant the absurd fear that the scores of sleepers in the dormitories would be awakened. Then he heard, very faintly from above, what he imagined must be an especially loud snore; it made him smile. As he smiled he saw Helen’s eyes turned suddenly upon him; he blushed as if caught in some guilty act. He said: “Can you hear somebody snoring up in the Senior dormitory?”
She stared at him curiously for a moment and then replied: “No, and neither can you. You said that to make conversation.”
“I didn’t!” he cried, with genuine indignation. “I distinctly heard it. That’s what made me smile.”
“And do you really think that the sound of anybody snoring in the Senior dormitory would reach us in here? Why, we never hear the maids in a morning and they make ever such a noise!”
“Yes, but then there are so many other noises to drown it. However, it may have been my imagination.”
“Or it may have been your invention, eh?”
“I tell you, Helen, I did think that I heard it! It wasn’t my invention. What reason on earth should I have for inventing it? Oh, well, anyway, it’s such a trifling matter—it’s not worth arguing about.”
“Then let’s stop arguing. You started it.”
Silence again. The melancholy in the atmosphere was charged now with an added quality, something that weighed and threatened and was dangerous. He knew that Helen had something pressing on her mind, and that until she flung it off there would be no friendliness with her. And he wanted friendliness. He could not endure the torture of her bitter silences.
“Helen,” he said, nervously eager, “Helen, there’s something the matter. Tell me what it is.”
“There’s nothing the matter.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“Then why are you so silent?”
“Because I would rather be silent than make conversation.”
“That’s sarcastic.”
“Is it? If you think it is——”
“Helen, please be kind to me. If you go on as you are doing I’m sure I shall either cry or lose my temper. I’m tired to death after all the work of the concert and I simply can’t bear this attitude of yours.”
“Well, I can’t change my attitude to please you.”
“Apparently not.”
“Now who’s sarcastic? Good heavens, do you think I’ve nothing to do but suit your mood when you come home tired at one o’clock in the morning—You spend half the night with some other woman and then when you come home, tired out, you expect me to soothe and make a fuss of you!”
“Helen, that’s a lie! I walked straight home with Clare. You specially asked me to do that.”
“I didn’t specially ask you to stay out with her till one o’clock in the morning.”
“I didn’t stay with her till then. To begin with, it isn’t one o’clock even yet.... Remember that the concert was over about eleven. I took Clare straight home and left her long before midnight. It wasn’t my fault I lost my way in the fog.”
“Nor mine either. But perhaps it was Clare’s, eh?”
“Helen, I can’t bear you to insinuate like that! Tell me frankly what you suspect, and then I’ll answer frankly!”
“You wouldn’t answer frankly. And that’s why I can’t tell you frankly.”
“Well, I think it’s scandalous——”
She interrupted him fiercely with: “Oh, yes, it’s scandalous that I should dare to be annoyed when you give all your friendship to another woman and none to me, isn’t it? It’s scandalous that when you come home after seeing this other woman I shouldn’t be perfectly happy and bright and ready to kiss and comfort you and wheedle you out of the misery you’re in at having to leave her! You only want me for a comforter, and it’s so scandalous when I don’t feel in the humour to oblige, isn’t it?”
“Helen, it’s not true! My friendship belongs to you more than to——”
“Don’t tell me lies just to calm me into suiting your mood. Do you think I haven’t noticed that we haven’t anything in common except that we love each other? We don’t know what on earth to talk about when we’re alone together. We just know how to bore each other and to torture each other with our love. Don’t you realize the truth of that? Don’t you find yourself eagerly looking forward to seeing Clare; Clare whom you can talk to and be friendly with; Clare who’s your equal, perhaps your superior, in intellect? Lately, I’ve given you as many chances to see her as I could, because if you’re going to tire of me I’d rather you do it quickly. But I’m sorry I can’t promise to be always gay and amusing while it’s going on. It may be scandalous that I can’t, but it’s the truth, anyway!”
“But, my dear Helen, what an extraordinary bundle of misunderstandings you’ve got hold of! Why——”
“Oh yes, you’d like to smooth me down and persuade me it’s all my own misunderstanding, I daresay, as you’ve always been able to do! But the effect doesn’t last for very long; sooner or later it all crops up again. It’s no use, Kenneth. I’m not letting myself be angry, but I tell you it’s not a bit of use. I’m sick to death of wanting from you what I can’t get. I’ve tried hard to educate myself into being your equal, but it doesn’t seem to make you value me any more. Possibly you like me best as a child; perhaps you wouldn’t have married me if you’d known I was really a woman. Anyway, Kenneth, I can’t help it. And there’s another thing—I’m miserably jealous—of Clare. If you’d had a grain of ordinary sense you might have guessed it before now.”
“My dear Helen——”
Then he stopped, seeing that she was staring at him fearlessly. She was different, somehow, from what she had ever been before; and this quarrel, if it could be called a quarrel, was also different both in size and texture. There was no anger in her; nothing but stormy sincerity and passionate outpouring of the truth. A new sensation overspread him; a thrill of surprised and detached admiration for her. If she were always like this, he thought—if she were always proud, passionate, and sincere—how splendidly she would take possession of him! For he wanted to belong to her, finally and utterly; he was anxious for any enslavement that should give him calm and absolute anchorage.
His admiration was quickly superseded by astonishment at her self-revelation.
“But Helen—” he gasped, leaning over the arm of his chair and putting his hand on her wrist, “Helen, I’d no idea! Jealous! You jealous of Clare! What on earth for? Clare’s only an acquaintance! Why, you’re a thousand times more to me than Clare ever is or could be!”
“Kenneth!” She drew her arm away from the touch of his hand with a gesture that was determined but not contemptuous. “Kenneth, I don’t believe it. Perhaps you’re not trying to deceive me; probably you’re trying to deceive yourself and succeeding. Tell me, Kenneth, truthfully, don’t you sometimes wish I were Clare when you’re talking to me? When we’re both alone together, when we’re neither doing nor saying anything particular, don’t you wish you could make me vanish suddenly and have Clare in my place, and—and—” bitterness crept into her voice here—“and call me back when you wanted the only gift of mine which you find satisfactory? You came back to-night, miserable, because you’d said good-bye to Clare, and because you couldn’t see in the future any chances of meeting her as often as you’ve been able to do lately. You wanted—you’re wanting it now—Clare’s company and Clare’s conversation and Clare’s friendship. And because you can’t have it you’re willing to soothe yourself with my pretty little babyish ways, and when you find you can’t have them either you think it’s scandalous! Kenneth, my dear, dear Kenneth, I’m not a baby any longer, even if I ever was one—I’m a woman now, and you don’t like me as much. I can’t help it. I can’t help being tortured with jealousy all the time you’re with Clare. I can’t help wanting what Clare has of you more than I want what I have of you myself. I can’t help—sometimes—hating her—loathing her!”
He was speechless now, made so by a curious dignity with which she spoke and the kindness to him that sounded in everything that she said. He was so tired and sorry. He leaned his head in his arms and sobbed. Some tragedy that had seemed to linger in the lamp-lit room ever since he had come into it out of the fog, was now about his head blinding and crushing him; all the world of Millstead, spread out in the panorama of days to come, appeared in a haze of forlorn melancholy. The love he had for Helen ached in him with a sadness that was deeper now than it had ever been.
And then, suddenly, she was all about him, kneeling beside him, stroking his hair, taking his hand and pressing it to her breast, crying softly and without words.
He whispered, indistinctly: “Helen, Helen, it’s all right. Don’t you worry, little Helen. I’m not quite well to-night, I think. It must be the strain of all that concert work.... But I’ll be all right when I’ve had a rest for a little while.... Helen, darling, you mustn’t cry about me like that!”
Then she said, proudly, though her voice still quivered: “I’m not worrying, dear. And you’ll see Clare again soon, because I shall ask her to come here. You’ve got to choose between us, and Clare shall have a fair chance, anyway.... And now come to bed and sleep.”
He gave her a smile that was more babyish than anything that she had ever been or done. And with her calm answering smile the sadness seemed somehow a little lifted.