The New Warden Part 56

"And the Glory of the Lord shall be all in all."

She read the poem through and through again. It took hold of her.

She sat musing over it. The clock struck ten. To sit on and on was like waiting for him! She resented the thought bitterly. She rose from her chair, meaning to take the book up with her to her room. To have it beside her would be a little consolation. She would read it through again the last thing before trying to sleep. She was already walking to the door, very slowly, her will compelling unwilling limbs.

"You are just going?" said the Warden's voice. He had suddenly opened the door and stood before her.

"I was going," she said, and held on to the book, open as it was at the last page. "Have you just come back from dinner?"

"I have just come back," he said, and he closed the door behind him. But he stayed near the door, for May was standing just where she had stood when he came in, the book in her hand. "I regretted very much that you should be alone this last evening of your stay----" He paused and looked at her.

"I ought to have asked some one to dine with you. I am so little accustomed to guests, but I ought to have thought of it."

"I am used to being alone in the evening," said May, now smoothing the page of her book with her free hand. "Except on Sat.u.r.days and Sundays, when I go to friends of mine, I am usually alone--and generally glad to be, after my day's work. Besides, I have been with Aunt Lena this evening. I only left her an hour ago."

He came nearer and stood looking at her and at the book in her hands. He seemed suddenly to recognise the book, and saw that it was open at the last page.

"I ought not to have quoted that to you," he said in a low voice; "those words of that poem--there under your hand."

"Why not?" she asked, shutting the book up and holding it closed between her hands. "Why shouldn't you have quoted it?" and she looked at the book intently, listening for his voice again.

"Because it savoured of self-righteousness, and that was not becoming in a man who had brought his own troubles upon himself."

May did not look up at him; she felt, too keenly the poignancy of that brief confession, dignified in its simplicity, a confession that a weaker man would have been afraid to make, and a man of less intelligence could not have made because he would not have understood the dignity of it. May found no words with which to speak to him; she could only look at the carpet stupidly and admire him with all the pulses in her body.

"Your interpretation of 'the Glory of the Lord' is the right one; I think--I feel convinced of it."

He stood before her, wearing a curiously pathetic expression of diffidence.

That moment pa.s.sed, and then he seemed to force himself back into his old att.i.tude of courteous reserve.

"You were just going when I came in," he said, moving and putting out his hand to open the door for her. "I am keeping you."

"I was going," said May, "but, Dr. Middleton----"

He let his arm drop. "Yes?" he said.

"You have, I am afraid, a totally wrong idea of me."

He stared straight into her face as she spoke, but it was his veiled stare, in which he held himself aloof for reasons of his own.

"I don't think so," he said quickly.

"I talked about 'my interpretation' of the words you quoted," she said, "just as if I spoke from some special knowledge, from personal experience, I mean. I had no intention of giving you that idea; it was merely a _thought_ I expressed."

How could she say what her heart was full of without betraying herself?

He was waiting for her to speak with a strained look in his eyes.

"And, of course, any one can 'think.' I am afraid----Somehow--I find it impossible to say what I mean--I--I am horribly stupid to-night."

She moved forward and he opened the door, and held it open for her. She went out with only a brief "Good-night," because no more words would come. She had said all she was able to say, and now she walked along trying to get her breath again. In the corridor she came upon Louise, who seemed to have sprung suddenly from nowhere.

"Can I a.s.sist Madame?" said Louise, her face full of unrestrained curiosity. "Can I brush Madame's hair?"

May made one or two more steps without finding her voice, then she said--

"No, thank you, Louise." And feeling more than seeing the Frenchwoman's ardent stare of interrogation, she added: "Louise, you may bring back my travelling things, please, the first thing to-morrow morning. I shall want them."

Louise was silent for a moment, just as a child is voiceless for a moment before it bursts into shrieks. She followed May to her door.

"I shall pack everything for Madame," she exclaimed, and her voice tw.a.n.ged like steel. She followed May into her bedroom. "I shall pack everything when Madame goes truly." Here she glanced round the room, and her large dark eyes rested with wild indignation on the little stained figure of St. Joseph standing on the table by the bed.

The small pathetic saint stood all unconscious, its machine-made face looking down amiably upon the branch of lilies in its hands.

"I want them early," said May, "because I prefer to pack myself, Louise.

You are such a kind creature, but I really prefer waiting upon myself."

"I shall pack for Madame," repeated Louise.

May went to the toilet table and put down the book that she was carrying.

"Good night, Louise," was all she said.

Louise moved. She groaned, then she took hold of the door and began to withdraw herself behind it.

"I wish Madame a good repose. I shall pack for Madame, comme il faut,"

she said with superb obstinacy, and she closed the door after her.

Good repose! Repose seemed to May the last word that was suitable. Fall asleep she might, for she was strong and full of vigour, but repose----!

She read the poem once again through when she was in bed. Then she laid the book under the pillow and turned out the light.

How many hours had she still in Oxford? About seventeen hours. And even when she was back again at her work--sundered for ever from the place that she had learned to love better than any other place in the world--she would have something precious to remember. Even if they never met again after those seventeen hours were over, even though they never saw each other's faces again, she would have something to remember: words of his spoken only to her, words that betrayed the fineness of his nature. Those words of his belonged to her.

And it was in this spirit of resignation, held more fully than before, that she met him again at breakfast. She was in the breakfast-room first and seized the paper, determined to behave as cheerfully as if she had arrived, and not as if she was going away. She was going to make a successful effort to start her new life at once, her life with Oxford behind her. She was not going to be found by him, when he entered, silent and reminiscent of last evening.

When the Warden came in she put down the paper with the air of one who has seen something that suggests conversation.

"I suppose," she said, starting straight away without any preliminary but a smile at him and an inclination of her head in answer to his old-fashioned courteous bow as he entered--"I suppose when I come back to Oxford--say in ten years' time, if any one invites me--I shall find things changed. The New Oxford we talked of with Mr. Bingham will be in full swing. You will perhaps be Vice-Chancellor."

The Warden did not smile. "Ah, yes!" he remarked, and he looked abstractedly at the coffee-pot and at the chair that May was about to seat herself in. "Ah, yes!" he said again; then he added: "Have I kept you waiting?"

"Not a bit," said May.

"I ran in to see Lena," he explained.