The Moonlit Way Part 67

"Now," he said, "we are going to discuss a situation. This is the situation: I am deeply in love. And you're quite right, it's no funeral; it's a joyous thing to be in love. It's a delight, a gaiety, a happy enchantment. Isn't it?"

She cast a rather shy and apprehensive glance at him, but nodded slightly.

"Very well," he said, "I'm in love, and I'm happy and proud to be in love. What I wish then, naturally, is marriage, a home, children----"

"Please, Jim!"

"But I can't have 'em! Why? Because I'm going to France. And the girl I wish to marry is going also. And while I bang away at the boche she makes herself useful in canteens, rest-houses, hospitals, orphanages, everywhere, in fact, where she is needed."

"Yes."

"And after it's all over--all over--and ended----"

"Yes?"

"Then--then if she finds out that she loves me----"

"Yes, Jim--if she finds that out.... And thank you for--asking me--so sweetly."... She turned sharply and looked out over a valley suddenly blurred.

For it had been otherwise with her in years gone by, and men had spoken then quite as plainly but differently. Only d'Eblis, burnt out, done for, and obsessed, had wearily and unwillingly advanced that far.... And Ferez, too; but that was unthinkable of a creature in whom virtue and vice were of the same virus.

Looking blindly out over the valley she said:

"If my Government deals justly with me, then I shall go to France with you as your comrade. If I ever find that I love you I will be your wife.... Until then----" She stretched out her hand, not looking around at him; and they exchanged a quick, firm clasp.

And so matters progressed between, these two--rather ominously for Barres, in case he entertained any really serious sentiments in regard to Thessalie. And, recently, he had been vaguely conscious that he entertained something or other concerning the girl which caused him to look with slight amazement and unsympathetic eyes upon the all too obvious behaviour of his comrade Westmore.

At present he was standing in the summer house which terminated the blossoming tunnel of the rose arbour, watching water falling into a stone basin from the fishy mouth of a wall fountain, and wondering where Thessalie and Westmore had gone.

Dulcie, in a thin white frock and leghorn hat, roaming entranced and at hazard over lawn and through shrubbery and garden, encountered him there, still squinting abstractedly at the water spout.

It was the first time the girl had seen him since their arrival at Foreland Farms. And now, as she paused under the canopy of fragrant rain-drenched roses and looked at this man who had made all this possible for her, she suddenly felt the change within herself, fitting her for it all--a subtle metamorphosis completing itself within her--the final accomplishment of a trans.m.u.tation, deep, radical, permanent.

For her, the stark, starved visage which Life had worn had relaxed; in the grim, forbidding wall which had closed her horizon, a door opened, showing a corner of a world where she knew, somehow, she belonged.

And in her heart, too, a door seemed to open, and her youthful soul stepped out of it, naked, fearless, quite certain of itself and, for the first time during their brief and earthly partnership, quite certain of the body wherein it dwelt.

He was thinking of Thessalie when Dulcie came up and stood beside him, looking down into the water where a few goldfish swam.

"Well, Sweetness," he said, brightening, "you look very wonderful in white, with that big hat on your very enchanting red hair."

"I feel both wonderful and enchanted," she said, lifting her eyes. "I shall live in the country some day."

"Really?" he said smiling.

"Yes, when I earn enough money. Do you remember the crazy way Strindberg rolls around? Well, I feel like doing it on that lawn."

"Go ahead and do it," he urged. But she only laughed and chased the goldfish around the basin with gentle fingers.

"Dulcie," he said, "you're unfolding, you're blossoming, you're developing feminine snap and go and pep and je-ne-sais-quoi."

"You're teasing. But I believe I'm very feminine--and mature--though you don't think so."

"Well, I don't think you're exactly at an age called well-preserved,"

he said, laughing. He took her hands and drew her up to confront him.

"You're not too old to have me as a playmate, Sweetness, are you?"

She seemed to be doubtful.

"What! Nonsense! And you're not too old to be bullied and coaxed and petted----"

"Yes, I am."

"And you're not too old to pose for me----"

She grew pink and looked down at the submerged goldfish. And, keeping her eyes there:

"I wanted to ask you," she said, "how much longer you think you would require me--that way."

There was a silence. Then she looked at him out of her frank grey eyes.

"You know I'll do what you wish," she said. "And I know it is quite all right...." She smiled at him. "I belong to you: you made me....

And you know all about me. So you ought to use me as you wish."

"You don't want to pose?" he said.

"Yes, except----"

"Very well."

"Are you annoyed?"

"No, Sweetness. It's all right."

"You are annoyed--disappointed! And I won't have it. I--I couldn't stand it--to have you displeased----"

He said pleasantly:

"I'm not displeased, Dulcie. And there's no use discussing it. If you have the slightest feeling that way, when we go back to town I'll do things like the Arethusa from somebody else----"

"Please don't!" she exclaimed in such nave alarm that he began to laugh and she blushed vividly.

"Oh, you are feminine, all right!" he said. "If it isn't to be you it isn't to be anybody."

"I didn't mean that.... _Yes_, I did!"

"Oh, Dulcie! Shame! _You_ jealous!--even to the verge of sacrificing your own feelings----"