Yet I fidgeted about the room, loth to depart. Lettie came down, dressed in white — or cream — cut low round the neck. She looked very delightful and fresh again, with a sparkle of the afternoon’s excitement still.
“I’ll put some of these violets on me,” she said, glancing at herself in the mirror, and then taking the flowers from their water, she dried them, and fastened them among her lace.
“Don’t Lettie and I look nice tonight?” she said, smiling, glancing from me to her reflection which was like a light in the dusky room.
“That reminds me,” I said, “George Saxton wanted to see you this evening.”
“Whatever for?”
“I don’t know. They’ve got notice to leave their farm, and I think he feels a bit sentimental.”
“Oh, well — is he coming here?”
“He said would you go just a little way in the wood to meet him.”
“Did he! Oh, indeed! Well, of course I can’t.”
“Of course not — if you won’t. They’re his violets you’re wearing, by the way.”
“Are they — let them stay, it makes no difference. But whatever did he want to see me for?”
“I couldn’t say, I assure you.”
She glanced at herself in the mirror, and then at the clock.
“Let’s see,” she remarked, “it’s only a quarter to eight. Three-quarters of an hour —! But what can he want me for? — I never knew anything like it.”
“Startling, isn’t it!” I observed satirically.
“Yes.” She glanced at herself in the mirror.
“I can’t go out like this.”
“All right, you can’t then.”
“Besides — it’s nearly dark, it will be too dark to see in the wood, won’t it?”
“It will directly.”
“Well, I’ll just go to the end of the garden, for one moment — run and fetch that silk shawl out of my wardrobe — be quick, while it’s light.”
I ran and brought the wrap. She arranged it carefully over her head.
We went out, down the garden path. Lettie held her skirts carefully gathered from the ground. A nightingale began to sing in the twilight; we stepped along in silence as far as the rhododendron bushes, now in rosy bud.
“I cannot go into the wood,” she said.
“Come to the top of the riding”— and we went round the dark bushes.
George was waiting. I saw at once he was half distrustful of himself now. Lettie dropped her skirts and trailed towards him. He stood awkwardly awaiting her, conscious of the clownishness of his appearance. She held out her hand with something of a grand air.
“See.” she said, “I have come.”
“Yes — I thought you wouldn’t — perhaps”— he looked at her, and suddenly gained courage.
“You have been putting white on — you, you do look nice — though not like —”
“What? — Who else?”
“Nobody else — only I— well, I’d — I’d thought about it different — like some pictures.”
She smiled with a gentle radiance, and asked indulgently, “And how was I different?”
“Not all that soft stuff — plainer.”
“But don’t I look very nice with all this soft stuff, as you call it?”— and she shook the silk away from her smiles.
“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