Carnival Part 51

"I'm very glad of it," he said. "What I mean is that now I've no scruples of my own to get over. This is certain. I know that if anything happens to me, you would be all right. Jenny, you must say 'yes.'"

"I've told you I will one day. Don't keep on asking. Besides, you're going away. You'll have other things to think about besides your little Jenny. Only come back soon, Maurice, because I do love you so."

"Love me!" he scoffed. "Love me! Rot! A woman without the pluck to trust herself to the lover talks of love. It means nothing, this love of yours. It's just a silly fancy. Love hasn't widened your horizon. Love hasn't given your life any great impetus. Look at me--absolutely possessed by my love for you. That's pa.s.sion."

"I don't think it's much else, I don't," said Jenny.

"How like a girl! How exactly like every other girl! Good Lord, and I thought you were different. I thought you wouldn't be so blind as to separate love from pa.s.sion."

"I don't. I do love you. I do want you," she whispered. "Just as much as you want me, but not now. Oh, Maurice, I wish you could understand."

"Well, I can't," he said coldly. "Look here, you've quarreled with your mother. That's one obstacle out of the way."

"But it isn't. She's still alive."

"You've known me long enough to be sure I'm not likely to turn out a rotter. You needn't worry about money, and--you love me or pretend to.

Now why in the name of fortune can't you be sensible?"

"But there'll come a moment, Maurice darling, and I think it will come soon, when I shall say 'yes' of my own accord. And whatever you said or done before that moment couldn't make me say 'yes' now."

"And meanwhile I'm to go on wearing myself out with asking?"

"No," she murmured, afire with blushes at such revelation of himself.

"No, I'll say 'Maurice' and then you'll know."

"And I'm to go off to Spain with nothing to hope for but 'one day, one day'?"

"You'll have other things to think about there."

"You're rather amusing with your proposed diversions for my imagination.

But, seriously, will it be 'yes' when I come back, say, in a fortnight?"

"No, not yet. Not for a little while. Oh, don't ask me any more; you are unkind."

Maurice seemed to give up the pursuit suddenly.

"I sha'n't see you for some time," he said.

"Never mind," Jenny consoled him. "Think how lovely it will be when we do see each other."

"Good-bye," said Maurice bluntly.

"Oh, what an unnatural way to say good-bye."

"Well, I've got to pack up and catch the 6.30 down to Claybridge. I'll write to you."

"You needn't trouble," she told him, chilled by his manner.

"Don't be foolish, I must write. Good-bye, Jenny."

He seemed to offer his embrace more from habit than desire.

"I've got to change first," she said, making no movement towards the enclosure of his arms. It struck them both that they had pa.s.sed through a thousand emotions, he in the sculptor's blouse of his affectation, she in her tarlatan skirt.

"It's like a short story by de Maupa.s.sant," said Maurice.

"Is it? You and your likes! I'm like a soppy girl."

"You are," said Maurice with intention. To Jenny, for the first time, he seemed to be criticising her.

"Thanks," she said, as, with a shrug of the shoulder and curl of the lip, she walked out of the studio, coldly hostile.

The rage was too deep to prevent her from arranging her hair with deliberation. Nor did she fumble over a single hook in securing the skirt of ordinary life. Soon Maurice was tapping at the door, but she could not answer him.

"Jenny," he called, "I've come to say I'm a pig."

Still she did not answer; but, when she was perfectly ready, flung open the door and said tonelessly:

"Please let me pa.s.s."

Her eyes, resentful, their l.u.s.ter fled, were dull as lapis lazuli. Her lips were no longer visible.

"You mustn't go away like this. Jenny, we sha'n't see one another for a fortnight or more. Don't let's part bad friends."

"Please let me pa.s.s."

He stood aside, outfaced by such determination, and Jenny, with downcast eyes intent upon the b.u.t.toning of her glove, pa.s.sed him carelessly.

"Jenny!" he called desperately over the banisters. "Jenny! Don't go like that. Darling, don't; I can't bear it." Then he ran to catch her by the arm.

"Kiss me good-bye and be friends. Do, Jenny. Jenny. Do! Please! I can't bear to see your practice dress lying there on the floor."

Sentiment had its way this time, and Jenny began to cry.

"Oh, Maurice," she wept, "why are you so unkind to me? I hate myself for spoiling you so, but I must. I don't care about anything excepting you. I do love you, Maurice."

In the dusty pa.s.sage they were friends again.

"And now my eyes is all red," she lamented.

"Never mind, darling girl. Come back while I get some things together, and see me off at Waterloo, will you?"

She a.s.sented, as enlaced they went up again to the studio.

"It's all the fault of that rotten statue," he explained. "I was furious with myself and vented it on you. Never mind. I'll begin again when I come back. Look, we'll put the tarlatan away in the drawer I take my things out of. Shall we?"

Soon they were driving in a hansom cab towards the railway station.

"We always seem to wind up our quarrels in cabs," Maurice observed.