“Oh, yes — better than those naked lines.”
“You are quaint tonight — what did you want me for — to say good-bye?”
“Good-bye?”
“Yes — you’re going away, Cyril tells me. I’m very sorry — fancy horrid strangers at the Mill! But then I shall be gone away soon, too. We are all going, you see, now we’ve grown up”— she kept hold of my arm.
“Yes.”
“And where will you go — Canada? You’ll settle there and be quite a patriarch, won’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You are not really sorry to go, are you?”
“No, I’m glad.”
“Glad to go away from us all.”
“I suppose so — since I must.”
“Ah, Fate — Fate! It separates you whether you want it or not.”
“What?”
“Why, you see, you have to leave. I mustn’t stay out here — it is growing chilly. How soon are you going?”
“I don’t know.”
“Not soon then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then I may see you again?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh yes, I shall. Well, I must go. Shall I say good-bye now? — that was what you wanted, was it not?”
“To say good-bye?”
“Yes.”
“No — it wasn’t — I wanted, I wanted to ask you —”
“What?” she cried.
“You don’t know, Lettie, now the old life’s gone, everything — how I want you — to set out with — it’s like beginning life, and I want you.”
“But what could I do — I could only hinder — what help should I be?”
“I should feel as if my mind was made up — as if I could do something clearly. Now it’s all hazy — not knowing what to do next.”
“And if — if you had — what then?”
“If I had you I could go straight on.”
“Where?”
“Oh — I should take a farm in Canada —”
“Well, wouldn’t it be better to get it first and make sure —?”
“I have no money.”
“Oh! — so you wanted me —?”
“I only wanted you, I only wanted you. I would have given you —”
“What?”
“You’d have me — you’d have all me, and everything you wanted.”
“That I paid for — a good bargain! No, oh no, George, I beg your pardon. This is one of my flippant nights. I don’t mean it like that. But you know it’s impossible — look how I’m fixed — it is impossible, isn’t it now?”
“I suppose it is.”
“You know it is. — Look at me now, and say if it’s not impossible — a farmer’s wife — with you in Canada.”
“Yes — I didn’t expect you like that. Yes, I see it is impossible. But I’d thought about it, and felt as if I must have you. Should have you . . . Yes, it doesn’t do to go on dreaming. I think it’s the first time, and it’ll be the last. Yes, it is impossible. Now I have made up my mind.”
“And what will you do?”
“I shall not go to Canada.”
“Oh, you must not — you must not do anything rash.”
“No — I shall get married.”
“You will? Oh, I am glad. I thought — you — you were too fond —. But you’re not — of yourself, I meant. I am so glad. Yes — do marry!”
“Well, I shall — since you are —”
“Yes,” said Lettie. “It is best. But I thought that you she smiled at him in sad reproach.
“Did you think so?” he replied, smiling gravely.
“Yes,” she whispered. They stood looking at one another. He made an impulsive movement towards her. She, however, drew back slightly, checking him.
“Well — I shall see you again some time — so good-bye,” he said, putting out his hand.
We heard a foot crunching on the gravel. Leslie halted at the top of the riding. Lettie, hearing him, relaxed into a kind of feline graciousness, and said to George:
“I am so sorry you are going to leave — it breaks the old life up. You said I would see you again —” She left her hand in his a moment or two.
“Yes,” George replied. “Good night”— and he turned away. She stood for a moment in the same drooping, graceful attitude watching him, then she turned round slowly. She seemed hardly to notice Leslie.
“Who was that you were talking to?” he asked.
“He has gone now,” she replied irrelevantly, as if even then she seemed hardly to realise it.
“It appears to upset you — his going — who is it?”
“He! — Oh — why, it’s George Saxton.”
“Oh, him!”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“Eh? What did he want? Oh, nothing.”
“A mere trysting — in the interim, eh!” he said this laughing, generously passing off his annoyance in a jest.
“I feel so sorry,” she said.
“What for?”
“Oh — don’t let us talk about him — talk about something else. I can’t bear to talk about — him.”
“All right,” he replied — and after an awkward little pause, “What sort of a time had you in Nottingham?”
“Oh, a fine time.”
“You’ll enjoy yourself in the shops between now and — July. Some time I’ll go with you and see them.”
“Very well.”
“That sounds as if you don’t want me to go. Am I already in the way on a shopping expedition, like an old husband?”
“I should think you would be.”
“That’s nice of you! Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Yes you do.”
“Oh, I suppose you’d hang about.”
“I’m much too well brought up.”
“Rebecca has lighted the hall lamp.”
“Yes, it’s grown quite dark. I was here early. You never gave me a good word for it.”
“I didn’t notice. There’s a light in the dining-room, we’ll go there.”
They went into the dining-room. She stood by the piano and carefully took off the wrap. Then she wandered listlessly about the room for a minute.
“Aren’t