'They come out of the sea, you mean?'
'That's very well expressed, Tom. They come out of the sea of human nature, which is everywhere the same, yes.'
The compliment seemed to annoy the boy.
'Of course,' he said bluntly. 'But—if it hurts?' The words were sharply emphasised.
'Association of ideas again. Toothache suggests the pincers. You want to get rid of the pain, but the pain has to get worse before it can get better. You know that, so you face it gladly—to get it over.'
'You face it, yes,' said Tom. 'It makes you better in the end.'
It suddenly dawned upon him that his learned father knew nothing, nothing at least that could help him. He knew only what other people knew. He turned then, and asked the ridiculous question that lay at the back of his mind all the time. It cost him an effort, for his father would certainly deem it foolish.
'Can a thing happen before it really happens?'
Dr. Kelverdon may or may not have thought the question foolish; his face was hidden a moment as he bent down to put the Indian rug straight with his hand. There was no impatience in the movement, nor was there mockery in his expression, when he resumed his normal position. He had gained an appreciable interval of time—some fifteen seconds. 'Tom, you've got good ideas in that head of yours,' he said calmly; 'but what is it that you mean exactly?'
Tom was quite ready to amplify. He knew what he meant:
'If I know something is going to happen, doesn't that mean that it has already happened—and that I remember it?'
'You're a psychologist as well as engineer, Tom,' was the approving reply. 'It's like this, you see: In emotion, with desire in it, can predict the fulfilment of that desire. In great hunger you imagine you're eating all sorts of good things.'
'But that's looking forward,'; the boy pounced on the mistake. 'It's not remembering.'
'That is the difficulty,' explained his father; 'to decide whether you're anticipating only—or actually remembering.'
'I see,' Tom said politely.
All this analysis concealed merely: it did not reveal. The thing itself dived deeper out of sight with every phrase. He knew quite well the difference between anticipating and remembering. With the latter there was the sensation of having been through it. Each time he remembered seeing Lettice the sensation was the same, but when he looked forward to seeing her again the sensation varied with his mood.
'For instance, Tom—between ourselves this—we're going to send Mary to that Finishing School in France where Lettice is.' The doctor, it seemed, spoke carelessly while he gathered his papers together with a view to going out. He did not look at the boy; he said it walking about the room. 'Mary will look forward to it and think about it so much that when she gets there it will seem a little familiar to her, as if—almost as if she remembered it.'
'Thank you, father; I see, yes,' murmured Tom. But in his mind a voice said so distinctly 'Rot!' that he was half afraid the word was audible.
'You see the difficulty, eh? And the difference?'
'Rather,' exclaimed the boy with decision.
And thereupon, without the slightest warning, he looked out of the window and asked certain other questions. Evidently they cost him effort; his will forced them out. Since his back was turned he did not see his father's understanding smile, but neither did the latter see the lad's crimson cheeks, though possibly he divined them.
'Father—is Miss Aylmer older than me?'
'Ask Mary, Tom. She'll know. Or, stay—I'll ask her for you—if you like.'
'Oh, that's all right. I just wanted to know,' with an assumed indifference that barely concealed the tremor in the voice.
'I suppose,' came a moment later, 'a Member of Parliament is a grander thing than a doctor, is it?'
'That depends,' replied his father, 'upon the man himself. Some M.P.'s vote as they're told, and never open their mouths in the House. Some doctors, again——'
But the boy interrupted him. He quite understood the point.
'It's fine to be an engineer, though, isn't it?' he asked. 'It's a real profession?'
'The world couldn't get along without them, or the Government either. It's a most important profession indeed.'
Tom, playing idly with the swinging tassel of the window-blind, asked one more question. His voice and manner were admirably under control, but there was a gulp, and his father heard and noted it.
'Shall I have—shall I be rich enough—to marry—some day?'
Dr. Kelverdon crossed the room and put his hand on his son's shoulder, but did not try to make him show his face. 'Yes,' he said quietly, 'you will, my boy—when the time comes.' He paused a moment, then added: 'But money will not make you a distinguished man, whereas if you become a famous engineer, you'll have money of your own and—any nice girl would be proud to have you.'
'I see,' said Tom, tying the strings of the tassel into knots, then untying them again with a visible excess of energy—and the conversation came somewhat abruptly to an end. He was aware of the invitation to talk further about Lettice Aylmer, but he resisted and declined it. What was the use? He knew his own mind already about that.
Yet, strictly speaking, Tom was not imaginative. It was as if an instinct taught him. More and more, the Wave, with its accompanying details of Eyes and Whiff, seemed to him the ghost of some dim memory that brought a forgotten warning in its train—something missed, something to be repeated, something to be faced and learned and—mastered. …
His father, meanwhile, went forth upon his rounds that day, much preoccupied about the character of his eldest boy. He felt a particular interest in the peculiar obsession that he knew overshadowed the young, growing life. It puzzled him; he found no clue to it; in his thought he was aware of a faint uneasiness, although he did not give it a definite name—something akin to what the mother felt. Admitting he was baffled, he fell back, however, upon such generalities as prenatal influence, ancestral, racial, and so eventually dismissed it from his active mind.
Tom, meanwhile, for his part, also went along his steep, predestined path. The nightmare had entirely deserted him, he now rarely dreamed; and his outer life shaped bravely, as with a boy of will, honesty, and healthy ambition might be expected. Neither Wavy feeling, Eyes, nor Whiff obtruded themselves: they left him alone and waited: he never forgot them, but he did not seek them out. Things once firmly realised remained in his consciousness; he knew that his life was rising like a wave, that all his energies worked in the form of waves, his moods and wishes, his passions, emotions, yearnings—all expressed themselves by means of this unalterable formula, yet all contributed finally to the one big important Wave whose climax would be reached only when it fell. He distinguished between Wave and Ripples. He, therefore, did not trouble himself with imaginary details; he did not search; he waited. This steady strength was his. His firm, square jaw and the fearless eyes of grey beneath the shock of straight dark hair told plainly enough the kind of stuff behind them. No one at school took unnecessary liberties with Tom Kelverdon.
But, having discovered one pair of Eyes, he did not let them go. In his earnest, dull, inflexible way he loved their owner with a belief in her truth and loyalty that admitted of no slightest question. Had his mother divined the strength and value of his passion, she would surely have asked herself with painful misgiving: 'Is she—can she be—worthy of my boy?' But his mother guessed it as little as any one else; even the doctor had forgotten those early signs of its existence; and Tom was not the kind to make unnecessary confidences, nor to need sympathy in any matter he was sure about.