The Flaw in the Crystal Part 9

He glanced at her under his bent brows.

"I don't know," he said, "that I want to see it. _That_ isn't what's the matter with me. You don't understand the situation. It isn't all over.

She's only being good about it. She doesn't care a rap about me. She _can't_. And what's more I don't want her to."

"You--don't--want her to?"

He burst out. "My G.o.d, I want nothing in this world but _you_. And I can't have you. That's what's the matter with me."

"No, no, it isn't," she cried. "You don't know."

"I do know. It's hurting me. And----" he looked at her and his voice shook--"it's hurting _you_. I won't have you hurt."

He started forward suddenly as if he would have taken her in his arms.

She put up her hands to keep him off.

"No, no!" she cried. "I'm all right. I'm all right. It isn't that. You mustn't think it."

"I know it. That's why I came."

He came near again. He seized her struggling hands.

"Agatha, why can't we? Why shouldn't we?"

"No, no," she moaned. "We can't. We mustn't. Not _that_ way. I don't want it, Rodney, that way."

"It shall be any way you like. Only don't beat me off."

"I'm not--beating--you--off."

She stood up. Her face changed suddenly.

"Rodney--I forgot. They're coming."

"Who are they?"

"The Powells. They're coming to lunch."

"Can't you put them off?"

"I can, but it wouldn't be very wise, dear. They might think----"

"Confound them--they _would_ think."

He was pulling himself visibly together.

"I'm afraid, Aggy, I ought----"

"I know--you must. You must go soon." He looked at his watch.

"I must go _now_, dear. I daren't stay. It's dangerous."

"I know," she whispered.

"But when is the brute going?"

"Poor darling, he's going next week--next Thursday."

"Well then, I'll--I'll----"

"Please, you must go."

"I'm going."

She held out her hand.

"I daren't touch you," he whispered. "I'm going now. But I'll come again next Friday, and I'll stay."

As she saw his drawn face there was not any strength in her to say "No."

CHAPTER EIGHT

He had gone. She gathered herself together and went across the field to meet the Powells as if nothing had happened.

Milly and her husband were standing at the gate of the Farm. They were watching; yes, they were watching Rodney Lanyon as he crossed the river by the Farm bridge which led up the hill by the field path that slanted to the farther and western end of the wood. Their att.i.tude showed that they were interested in his brief appearance on the scene, and that they wondered what he had been doing there. And as she approached them she was aware of something cold, ominous, and inimical, that came from them, and set towards her and pa.s.sed by. Her sense of it only lasted for a second, and was gone so completely that she could hardly realise that she had ever felt it.

For they were charming to her. Harding, indeed, was more perfect in his beautiful quality than ever. There was something about him moreover that she had not been prepared for, something strange and pathetic, humble almost and appealing. She saw it in his eyes, his large, dark, wild animal eyes, chiefly. But it was a look that claimed as much as it deprecated; that a.s.sumed between them some unspoken communion and understanding. With all its pathos it was a look that frightened her.

Neither he nor his wife said a word about Rodney Lanyon. She was not even sure, now, that they had recognised him.

They stayed with her all that afternoon; for their time, they said, was getting short; and when, about six o'clock, Milly got up to go she took Agatha aside and said that, if Agatha didn't mind, she would leave Harding with her for a little while. She knew he wanted to talk to her.

Agatha proposed that they should walk up the hill through the wood. They went in a curious silence and constraint; and it was not until they had got into the wood and were shut up in it together that he spoke.

"I think my wife told you that I had something to say to you?"

"Yes, Harding," she said; "what is it?"

"Well, it's this--first of all I want to thank you. I know what you're doing for me."

"I'm sorry. I didn't want you to know. I thought Milly wasn't going to tell you."

"She didn't tell me."

Agatha said nothing. She was bound to accept his statement. Of course, he must have known that Milly had broken her word, and he was trying to shield her.

"I mean," he went on, "that whether she told me or not, it's no matter.