“You suppose nothing of the sort,” said he, losing his temper. “When have I concealed any of my affairs from you?”
“Then you do not really intend to — I mean, the person you said you were in love with, is a myth.”
“Pshaw! I never said I was in love with anyone.”
“I might have known as much if I had thought for a moment. I am very dull sometimes.”
This speech did not satisfy Jack. “What do you mean by that,” he said testily. “Why might you have known? I never said I was in love, certainly. Have I said I was not in love?
“Come,” she said gaily. “You shall not play shuttlecock with my brains any longer. Answer me plainly. Are you in love?”
“I tell such things as that to sincere friends only.”
Mary suddenly ceased to smile, and made no reply.
“Well, if you are my friend, what the devil do you see in my affairs to laugh at? You can be serious enough with other people.”
“I did not mean to laugh at your affairs.”
“What are you angry about?”
“I am not angry. moment ago you reproached me because I thought you wished to repel my curiosity. The reproach seemed to me to imply that you considered me a friend worthy of your confidence.”
“So I do.”
“And now you tell me that I am an insincere friend.”
“I never said anything of the kind.”
“You implied it. However, there is no reason why you should tell me anything unless you wish to. I do not complain, of course; your affairs are your affairs and not mine. But I do not like to be accused of insincerity. I have always been as sincere with you as I know how to be.”
For the next minute Jack walked on in silence, with his hands clasped behind him, and his head bent towards the ground. They were crossing a treeless part of the park, unoccupied save by a few sooty sheep. The afternoon sun had driven the loiterers into the shade; and there was no sound except a distant rattle of traffic from the north, and an occasional oar-splash from the south. Jack stopped, and said without looking up: “Tell me this. Is all that business between you and Herbert broken off and done with?”
“Completely.”
“Then listen to me,” he said, taking an attitude in which she had seen him once or twice before, when he had been illustrating his method of teaching elocution. “I am not a man to play the part of a lover with grace. Nature gave me a rough frame that I might contend the better with a rough fortune. Nevertheless I have a heart and affections like other men; and those affections have centred themselves on you.” Mary blanched, and looked at him in terror. “You are accustomed to my ardent temper; but I do not intend that you shall suffer from bad habits of mine, engendered by a life of solitude and the long deferring of my access, through my music, to my fellow creatures. No: I am aware of my failings, and shall correct them. You know my position; and so I shall make no boast of it. You may think me incapable of tenderness,but I am not: you will never have to complain that your husband does not love you.” He paused and looked at Mary’s face.
She had never had a thought of marrying Jack. Now that he had asked her to do so she felt that refusal would cause a wound she dared not inflict: she must must sacrifice herself to his demand. To fill the empty place in Jack’s heart seemed to her a duty laid on her. She summoned all her courage and endurance to say yes with the thought that she would not live long. Meanwhile, Jack was reading her face.
“I have committed my last folly,” he said, in a stirring voice, but with. his habitual abruptness. “Henceforth I shall devote myself to the only mistress I am fitted for, Music. She has not many such masters.
Mary, yielding to an extraordinary emotion, burst into tears.
“Come,” he said: “it is all over. I did not mean to to frighten you. I have broken with the world now; and my mind is the clearer and the easier for it. Why need you cry?”
She recovered herself, trying to find something to say to him. In her disquietude she began to speak before her agitation had subsided. “It is not,” she said with difficulty, “that I am ungrateful or insensible. But you do not know how far you stand beyond other—”
“Yes, yes,” he said soothingly. “I understand. You are right: I have no business in the domestic world, and must stick to music and Mrs Simpson to the end of the chapter. Come along; and think no more of it. I will put you into a cab and send you home.”
She turned with him; and they went together towards the Marble Arch: he no longer moody, but placid and benevolent: she disturbed, silent, and afraid to meet his gaze. It was growing late. One of the religious congregations which hold their summer meetings in the park had assembled; and their hymn could be heard, softened by distance. Jack hummed a bass to the tune, and looked along the line of trees that shut out the windows of Park Lane, and led away to the singular equestrian statue which then stood at Hyde Park Corner.
“This is a pretty place, after all,” he said. “There is enough blue sky and green sward here to compensate for a good deal of brick and mortar. Down there in the hollow there is silver water with white swans on it. I wonder how the swans keep themselves white. The sheep can’t.”
“Yes, it is an exquisite day,” said Mary, trying hard to interest herself in the scene, and to speak steadily, “There will be a fine sunset.”
“There is a good view of the Duke of Wellington here.”
“Happily, I cannot see so far. But I can imagine the monster swimming sooty in the ether.”
“Leave him in peace,” said Jack. “He is the only good statue in London: that is why no one has the courage to say a word in his defence. His horse is like a real horse with real harness. He is not exposed bareheaded in the weather, but wears a hat as any other man in the street does. He is not a stupid imitation of an antique bas-relef. He is characteristic of the century that made him; and he is unique, as a work of art should be. He is picturesque too, The — Come, come, Miss Mary, You have no more cause to to be unhappy than those children swinging on the rail there. What are those tears for?
“Not because I am unhappy,” she replied in a broken voice. “Perhaps because I have such a reason to be proud. Pray, do not mind me. I cannot help it.”
They were now close to the Marble Arch; and Jack hurried on that she might the sooner escape the staring of the loungers there. Outside he called a cab and assisted her to enter.
“You will never be afraid of me any more, I hope.” He said, pressing her hand. She attempted to speak; gulped down a sob; and nodded and smiled as gaily as she could, her tears falling meanwhile. He watched the cab until it was no longer distinguishable among the crowd of vehicles on Oxford Street, and then reentered the Park and turned to the West, which was now beginning to glow with the fire of evening. When he reached the bridge at which the Serpentine of Hyde Park is supposed to turn into the Long Water of Kensington Gardens, he stopped to see the sun set behind the steeple of Bayswater Church, and to admire the clear depths of hazel green in the pools underneath the foliage on the left bank. “I hanker for a wife” he said, as he stood bolt upright, with his knuckles resting lightly on the parapet. I grovel after money! What dogs appetites have this worldly crew infected me with! No matter, I am free: I am myself again. Back to the holy garret, oh my soul.” And having stared the sunset out of countenance, which is soon done by a man old enough to have hackneyed the sentimentality it inspires, he walked steadfastly away, his mood becoming still more tranquil as the evening fell darker.
On reaching Church Street, he called for Mrs Simpson; gave her a number of postage stamps which he had just purchased; and ordered her to write in his name to all his pupils postponing their lessons until he should write to them again. Being an indifferent speller and a slovenly writer, she grumbled that he was risking his income by treating