The Sacred Fount

to do it too quickly; in spite of which I found my friends, even after an interval, still distinguishable as separating for the avoidance of comment. Gilbert Long, rising directly aft

on my forthwith going to her.

lone? Shall I

fashion I should certainly not have been able to define on the spot; with an expression, in short, that struck me as taking refuge in a general reminder that not my convenience, but her own, was in question, she replied: “Oh, no — but before it’s too late. A few minutes hence. Where shall you be?” she ask

haven’t thou

o think that any little journey was to be thought of again in those conditions. It came over me that this might have been quite a matter discussed by her, discussed and settled, with her interlocutor on the sofa. It came over me that if, before our break-up for the night, I should happen also to have a minute’s talk with that interlocutor, I would equally get from it the sense of an intention unfavourable to our departing in the same group. And I wondered if this, in that case, wouldn’t affect me as marking a change back to Long’s old manner — a forfeiture of the conditions, whatever view might be taken of them, that had made him, at Paddington, suddenly show himself as so pos

ntification of the woman. That call had been what I looked for from her after she had seen me break with Lady John; my first idea then could only be that I must come, as it were, to time. It was strange that, the next minute, I should find myself sure that I was, as I may put it, free; it was at all events indisputable that as I stood there watching her recede and fairly studying, in my preoccupation, her handsome affirmative back and the special sweep of her long dress — it was indisputable that, on some intimation I could, at the instant, recognise but not seize, my consciousness was aware of having performed a full revolution. If I was free, that was what I had been only so short a time before, what I had been as I drove, in London, to the station. Was this now a foreknowledge that, on the morrow,

e was to yield — the impression that is my reason for speaking of myself as having at the juncture in question “studied” Mrs. Brissenden’s back. Study of a profound sort would appear needed in truth to account for it. It was as handsome and affirmative that she at once met and evaded my view, but was not the affirmation (as distinguished from the handsomeness, which was a matter of stature and mass,) fairly downright and defiant? Didn’t what I saw strike me as saying straight at me, as far as possible, “I am young — I am and I will be; see, see if I’m not; there, there, there!” — with “there’s” as insistent and rhythmical as the undulations of

, at the end opposite the door, the object that all day had been, present or absent, most in my eyes, and that there now could be no fallacy in my recognising. Mrs. Server’s unquenchable little smile had never yet been so far from quenched as when it recognised, on its own side, that I had just had time to note how Ford Obert was, for a change, taking it in. These two friends of mine appeared to have moved together, after the music, to the corner in which I should not have felt it as misrepresenting the matter to say that I surprised them. They owed nothing of the harmony that held them — unlike my other couple — to the constraint of a common seat; a small glazed table, a receptacle for minute objects of price, extended itself between them as if it had offered itself as an occasion for their drawing toward it a pair of low chairs; but their union had nevertheless such an air of accepted duratio

ever, but the prayer has not been answered. I did see her again; I see her now; I shall see her always; I shall continue to feel at moments in my own facial muscles the deadly little ache of her heroic grin. With this, however, I was not then to reckon, and my simple philosophy of the moment could be but to get out of the room. The result of that movement was that, two minutes later, at another doorway, but opening this time into a great corridor, I found myself arrested by a combination that should really have counted for me as the least of my precious anomal

possibilities to choose from. If one of these might be — for her face, in spite of the backward cock of her head, was turned to him — that she was looking her time of life straight at him and yet making love to him with it as hard as ever she could, so another was that he had been already so thoroughly got back into hand that she had no need of asking favours, that she was more splendid than ever, and that, the same poor Briss as before his brief adventure, he was only feeling afresh in his soul, as a response to her, the gush of the sacred fount. Presumptous choice as to these alternatives failed, on my part, in time, let me say, to flower; it rose before me in time that, whatever might be, for the exposed instant, the deep note of their encounter, only one thing concerned

mps; no more free really to alight than if we had been dashing in a locked railway-train across a lovely land. I remember asking myself if I mightn’t still take a turn under them, and I remember that on appealing to my watch for its sanction I found midnight to have struck. That then was the end, and my only real alternatives were bed or the smoking-room. The difficulty with bed was that I was in no condition to sleep, and the difficulty about rejoining the men was that — definitely, yes — there was one of them I desired not again to see. I felt it with sharpness as I leaned on the sill; I felt it with sadness as I looked at the stars; I felt once more what I had felt on turning a final back five minutes before, so designedly, on Mrs. Server. I saw poor Briss as he had just moved away from me, and I knew, as I had known in the other case, that my troubled sense would fain feel I had practically done with him. It would be well, for aught I could do for him, that I should have seen the last of him. What remain

ting on the balustrade of the terrace with a cigarette in his lips, he had given way to a sense of the fragrant gloom. He moved so little that I was sure — making no turn that would have made me draw back; he only smoked slowly in his place and seemed as lost in thought as I was lost in my attention to him. I scarce knew what this told me; all I felt was that, however slight the incident and small the evidence, it essentially fitted in. It had for my imagination a value, for my theory a price, and it in fact constituted an impression under the influence of which this theory, just impatiently shaken off, perched again on my shoulders. It was of the deepest interest to me to see Long in such detachment, in such apparent concentration. These things marked and presented him more than any had yet done, and placed him more than any yet in relation to other matters. They showed him, I thought, as serious, his situation as grave. I cou

t, who had entered the corridor from the other end and was,

ne then di

thers, I believe — wonderful creatures! — have gone to ar

the l

their own quarters. Don’t they too, at these hours, practise sociabilities of sort

n it. But I do see it. Yes — splendid

as they may have left some ‘

any ‘lie’ their ‘soul hath spoke

onder. “‘Linge

t know — in

s waited on our good pleasure and sat up for us. There is nothing like it in fact, the liberal ease at Newmarch. Yet Ob

But since you answer for it that my hope has

ome and smoke with

asked with an idea,

you nothing more that I de

I went on, “will

tle with a smile that I thought just conscious

or thing but mine own! Such as it is, I only ask to keep it for myself, and that is

said as I

t fait — a great glittering crystal palace. How many panes wi

fancy — that he looked at me a trifle harder. “Ho

en went on: “Did you

nt w

they filed up. Was

impatience. “Go an

d. “But suppose I shou

nce of you? Well — I thoug

moment after this we faced each other without more speech, but I pres

brought out. “Take care of your ladies, my de

w have gone to bed without seeing Mrs. Briss; but my renewed impression had suddenly made the difference. If that was the way he struck me, how might not, if I could get at her, she? And she might, after all, in the privacy at last offered us by empty rooms, be waiting for me. I went through them all, however, only to find them empty indeed. In conformity with the large allowances of every sort that were the law of Newmarch, they were still open and lighted, so that if I had believed