The Unclassed Part 17

"A teacher. But I suppose you'll get another place."

"No. I've given it up because I couldn't endure it any longer."

"And how are you going to live?"

"I have no idea."

"Then you must have been very foolish to give away your money like that to-night."

"I don't pretend to much wisdom. If I had had another sovereign in my pocket, no doubt I should have given it you before this, and you wouldn't have refused it."

"How do you know?" she asked sharply. "Why should you think me selfish?"

"Certainly I have no reason to. And by the by, I already owe you money for the supper. I will send it you to-morrow."

"Why not bring it?"

"Better not. I have a good deal of an unpleasant quality which people call pride, and I don't care to make myself uncomfortable unnecessarily."

"You can't have more pride than I have. Look." She held out her hands.

"Will you be my friend, really my friend? You understand me?"

"I think I understand, but I doubt whether it is possible."

"Everything is possible. Will you shake hands with me, and, when you come to see me again, let us meet as if I were a modest girl, and you had got to know me in a respectable house, and not in the street at midnight?"

"You really wish it? You are not joking?"

"I am in sober earnest, and I wish it. You won't refuse?"

"If I did I should refuse a great happiness."

He took her hand and again released it.

"And now look at the time," said she, pointing to a clock on the mantelpiece. "Half-past one. How will you get home?"

"Walk. It won't take me more than an hour. May I light my pipe before I start?"

"Of course you may. When shall I see you again?"

"Shall we say this night next week?"

"Very well. Come here any time you like in the evening. I will be at home after six. And then I can give you your book back."

Waymark lit his pipe, stooped to give Grim a stroke, and b.u.t.toned up his coat. Ida led the way downstairs. They shook hands again, and parted.

CHAPTER XII

RENT DAY

It was much after his usual hour when Waymark awoke on Good Friday morning. He had been troubled throughout the night with a strangely vivid dream, which seemed to have repeated itself several times; when he at length started into consciousness the anguish of the vision was still upon him.

He rose at once, and dressed quickly, doing his best to shake off the clinging misery of sleep. In a little while it had pa.s.sed, and he tried to go over in his mind the events of the preceding day. Were they, too, only fragments of a long dream? Surely so many and strange events could not have crowded themselves into one period of twelve hours; and for him, whose days pa.s.sed with such dreary monotony. The interview with Maud Enderby seemed so unnaturally long ago; that with Ida Starr, so impossibly fresh and recent. Yet both had undoubtedly taken place. He, who but yesterday morning had felt so bitterly his loneliness in the world, and, above all, the impossibility of what he most longed for--woman's companionship--found himself all at once on terms of at least friendly intimacy with two women, both young, both beautiful, yet so wholly different. Each answered to an ideal which he cherished, and the two ideals were so diverse, so mutually exclusive. The experience had left him in a curious frame of mind. For the present, he felt cool, almost indifferent, to both his new acquaintances. He had asked and obtained leave to write to Maud Enderby; what on earth could he write about? How could he address her? He had promised to go and see Ida Starr, on a most impracticable footing. Was it not almost certain that, before the day came round, her caprice would have vanished, and his reception would prove anything but a flattering one? The feelings which both girls had at the time excited in him seemed artificial; in his present mood he in vain tried to resuscitate his interest either in the one or the other. It was as though he had over-exerted his emotional powers, and they lay exhausted. Weariness was the only reality of which he was conscious. He must turn his mind to other things. Having breakfasted, he remembered what day it was, and presently took down a volume of his Goethe, opening at the Easter morning scene in Faust, favourite reading with him. This inspired him with a desire to go into the open air; it was a bright day, and there would be life in the streets. Just as he began to prepare himself for walking, there came a knock at his door, and Julian Casti entered.

"Halloa!" Waymark cried. "I thought you told me you were engaged with your cousin to-day."

"I was, but I sent her a note yesterday to say I was unable to meet her."

"Then why didn't you write at the same time and tell me you were coming? I might have gone out for the day."

"I had no intention of coming then."

"What's the matter? You look out of sorts."

"I don't feel in very good spirits. By the by, I heard from the publishers yesterday. Here's the note."

It simply stated that Messrs. So-and-so had given their best attention to the play of "Stilicho," which Mr. Casti had been so good as to submit to them, and regretted their inability to make any proposal for its publication, seeing that its subject was hardly likely to excite popular interest. They thanked the author for offering it to them, and begged to return the MS.

"Well, it's a disappointment," said Waymark, "but we must try again. I myself am so hardened to this kind of thing that I fear you will think me unsympathetic. It's like having a tooth out. You never quite get used to it, but you learn after two or three experiments to gauge the moment's torture at its true value. Re-direct your parcel, and fresh hope beats out the old discouragement."

"It wasn't altogether that which was making me feel restless and depressed," Casti said, when they had left the house and were walking along. "I suppose I'm not quite right in health just at present. I seem to have lost my natural good spirits of late; the worst of it is, I can't settle to my day's work as I used to. In fact, I have just been applying for a new place, that of dispenser at the All Saints'

Hospital. If I get it, it would make my life a good deal more independent. I should live in lodgings of my own, and have much more time to myself."

Waymark encouraged the idea strongly. But his companion could not be roused to the wonted cheerfulness. After a long silence, he all at once put a strange question, and in an abashed way.

"Waymark, have you ever been in love?"

Osmond laughed, and looked at his friend curiously.

"Many thousand times," was his reply.

"No, but seriously," urged Julian.

"With desperate seriousness for two or three days at a time. Never longer."

"Well now, answer me in all earnestness. Do you believe it possible to love a woman whom in almost every respect you regard as your inferior, who you know can't understand your thoughts and aspirations, who has no interest in anything above daily needs?"

"Impossible to say. Is she good-looking?"

"Suppose she is not; yet not altogether plain."

"Then does she love you?"

Julian reddened at the direct application.