Changing Winds Part 66

"Perfectly absurd!" she murmured.

"It isn't absurd. How can you expect me to feel happy when I see you going off with Jimphy? Can't you understand, Cecily? Here I am with you now, but if Jimphy were to come into the room, I should have to ... to give way, to pretend that I'm not in love with you!"

"I can't see what difference it makes," she said. "Jimphy and I don't interfere with each other. It's ridiculous to make all this fuss. I don't see any necessity to go about telling everybody!..."

"I didn't propose that," he interrupted.

"Yes, you did, Paddy, dear! You asked me to run away with you, and what's that but telling everybody?"

He felt angry with her for what seemed to him to be flippancy. "I'm in earnest, Cecily!" he said. "I'm not joking!"

"I'm in earnest, too. I don't want to run away with you ... not because I don't love you ... I do love you, Paddy, very much ... but it's so absurd to run away and make a ... a mountain out of a molehill. We should be awfully miserable if we were to elope. We'd have to go to some horrid place where we shouldn't know anybody and there'd be nothing to do. Really, it's much pleasanter to go on as we are now, Paddy. You can come here and take me to lunch sometimes and go to the theatre with me when Jimphy wants to go to a music-hall, and ... and so on!"

He could not rid himself of the notion that she was "chattering" in the Lensley style.

"It would be decenter to go away together," he said.

She moved away from him angrily. "You're a prig, Paddy!" she exclaimed.

"You can go to Ireland. I don't care!"

He got up as if to go, but did not move away. He stood beside her irresolutely, wishing to go and wishing to stay, and then he bent over her and touched her. "Cecily," he said, "come with me!"

"No!" she answered, keeping her back to him.

"Very well," he said, and he walked across the room towards the door.

His hand was on the handle when she called to him.

"Aren't you going to stay to lunch?" she said.

"You told me to go!..."

"Yes, but I didn't mean immediately. I shall be all alone."

He went back to her very quickly, and sat down beside her and folded her in his arms.

"I loathe you," he cried, with his lips pressed against her cheek. "I loathe you because you're so selfish and brutal. You don't really care for me...."

"Oh, I do, Paddy I ..."

"No, you don't. You were making love to Ninian last night!..."

"So that's it, is it?..."

"No, it isn't. Ninian doesn't care about you or about any woman. He's not like me, a soft, sloppy fool. You don't love me. If I were to leave you now, you'd find some one to take my place quite easily. Lensley or Boltt!..."

"They're too middle-aged, Paddy!"

He pushed her away from him. "d.a.m.n it, can't you be serious!" he shouted at her.

"You're very rude," she replied.

"I'd like to beat you! I'd like to hurt you!..."

She smiled at him and then she put her arms about his neck and drew him towards her. "You don't loathe me, Paddy," she said softly, soothing him with her voice, "you love me, don't you?"

"Will you come away with me? Now?"

"No!" She kissed him and got up. "Let's go to lunch," she said.

He felt that he ought to leave her then, but he followed her meekly enough.

"I don't think I'll stay to lunch," he said weakly.

"Yes, you will!" she replied. "You can take me to a picture gallery afterwards!..."

4

They did not go to a picture gallery. The spring air was so fresh that she declared she must go for a drive.

"Let's go to Hampstead!" he said, signalling to a taxi-driver. "Well have tea at Jack Straw's Castle!"

"Yes, let's!" she exclaimed.

She had tried to persuade him not to return to Ireland, but he had insisted that he must go because of his promise to Gilbert.

"Do you care for Gilbert more than you care for me?" she had asked, making him wonder at the casual way in which she spoke Gilbert's name.

It seemed incredible, listening to her, that Gilbert had been her lover....

"It's hardly the same thing," he replied.

Then, after more pleading and anger, she had given in.

"Very well," she said, "I won't ask you again, and don't let's talk about it any more. Well enjoy to-day anyhow!"

The taxi-cab carried them swiftly to Hampstead.

"Well get out at the Spaniards' Road," he said, "and walk across the Heath. It's beautiful now!"

"All right," she answered.

They did as he said, and walked about the Heath for nearly an hour. The fresh smell of spring exhilarated them, and they sat for a little while on a seat which was perched on rising ground so that they were able to see far beyond the common. Young bracken fronds were thrusting their curled heads upwards through the old brown growth; and the buds on the blackened boughs were bursting from their cases and offering delicate green leaves to the sunlight; and the yellow whins shone like little golden stars on their spiky stems. Henry's capacity for sensuous enjoyment was fully employed, and he would willingly have sat there until dusk, drawing his breath in with as much luxurious feeling as a woman has when she puts new linen on her limbs. He would have liked to strip and bathe his naked body in the Highgate Ponds or run with bare feet over the wet gra.s.s ... but Cecily was tired of the Heath.

"Isn't it time we got some tea?" she said, getting up and looking about her as if she were searching for a tea-shop.

"I suppose it is," he answered reluctantly, and he rose too. "We go this way," he said, moving in the direction of Jack Straw's Castle. "Let's come back to the Heath," he added, "after we've had tea!"

"But why?" she asked.