II.
George followed the pained young woman into the house; set down in the hall the books he carried; left the house again; out through the gate, and so, whistling gaily along roads and lanes, came to the skirts of an outlying copse. By disused paths he twisted this way and that to approach, at length, a hut that once was cottage, whose dilapidated air advertised long neglect.
It was a week after Mary's arrival at Herons' Holt that, quite by chance, George had stumbled upon this hut. He had taken his books into the copse, had somehow lost his way in getting out, and through thick undergrowth had plumped suddenly upon the building. Curiosity had taken him within, shown him an outer and an inner room, and, in the second, a sight that had given him laughter; for he discovered there sundry empty bottles labelled “Old Tom,” a glass, an envelope addressed to Mrs. Major. It was clear that in this deserted place—somehow chanced upon—the masterly woman had been wont, safe from disturbance, to meet the rascal who, taken to Herons' Holt on that famous night, had so villainously laid her by the heels.
Nothing more George had thought of the place until the morning of this day when, leaving for hospital, his Mary had effected a brief whispered moment to tell him that Mr. Marrapit had thought her looking pale, had told her to take a long walk that afternoon. Immediately George gave her directions for the hut; there he would meet her at five o'clock; there not the most prying eye could reach them.
Now he approached noiselessly; saw his pretty Mary, back towards him, just within the threshold of the open door. It was their first secluded meeting since she had come to Herons' Holt.
Upon tip-toe George squirmed up to her; hissed “I have thee, girl”; sprang on his terrified Mary; hugged her to him.
“The first moment together in Paltley Hill!” he cried. “The first holy kiss!”
His Mary wriggled. “George! You frightened me nearly out of my life. It's not holy. You're hurting me awfully.”
“My child, it is holy. Trust in me.”
“George, you are hurting.”
“Scorn that. It is delicious!”
He let her from his arms; but he held her hands, and for a space, looking at one another, they did not speak. Despite he was in wild spirits, despite her roguishness, for a space they did not speak. His hands were below hers and about hers. The contact of their palms was the junction whence each literally could feel the other's spirit being received and pouring inwards. The metals were laid true, and without hitch or delay the delectable thrill came pouring; above, between their eyes, on wires invisible they signalled its safe arrival.
They broke upon a little laugh that was their utmost expression of the intoxication of this draught of love, just as a man parched with thirst will with a little sigh put down the glass that has touched him back to vigour. Dumb while they drank, their innate earthiness made them dumb before effort to express the spiritual heights to which they had been whirled. In that moment when, spirit mingling with spirit through the medium of what we call love, all our baseness is driven out of us, we are nearest heaven. But our vocabulary being only fitted for the needs about us, we have no words to express the elevation. Debase love and we can speak of it; let it rush upwards to its apotheosis and we must be dumb.
With a little laugh they broke.
“Going on all right, old girl?” George asked.
“Splendidly.”
“Happy?”
She laughed and said: “I will give the proper answer to that. How can I be other than happy, oh, my love, when daily I see your angel form?”
“I forgot that. Yes, you're a lucky girl in that way—very, very lucky. Beware lest you do not sufficiently prize your treasure. Cherish it, tend it, love it.”
“Oh, don't fool, George. Whenever we have two minutes together you waste them in playing the goat. Georgie, tell me—about your exam.”
“To-morrow.”
She was at once serious. “To-morrow?”
“To-morrow I thrust my angel form into the examination room. To-morrow my angel voice trills in the examiners' ears.”
“I thought you had a paper first, before the viva?”
“Do not snap me up, girl. I speak in metaphors. To-morrow my angel hand glides my pen over the paper. On Thursday my angel tongue gives forth my wisdom with the sound of a tinkling cymbal.”
“The paper to-morrow, the viva on Thursday?”
He bowed his angel head.
“George, don't, don't fool. Are you nervous? Will you pass?”
“I shall rush, I shall bound. I shall hurtle through like a great boulder.”
“Georgie! Will you?”
He dropped his banter. “I believe I shall, old girl. I really think I shall. I've simply sweated my life out these weeks—all for you.”
She patted his hand. “Dear old George! How I shall think of you! And then?”
“Then—why, then, we'll marry! Mary, I shall hear the result immediately after the viva. Then I shall rush back here and tackle old Marrapit at once. If he won't give me the money I think perhaps he'll lend it, and then we'll shoot off to Runnygate and take up that practice and live happily ever after.”
With the brave ardour of youth they discussed the delectable picture; arranged the rooms they had never seen; planned the daily life of which they had not the smallest experience.
Twice in our lives we can play at Make-Believe—once when we are children, once when we are lovers. And these are the happiest times of our lives. We are not commoners then; we are emperors. We touch the sceptre and it is a magic wand. We rule the world, shaping it as we will, dropping from between our fingers all the stony obstacles that would interfere with its plasticity. Between childhood and love, and between love and death, the world rules us and bruises us. But in childhood, and again in love, we rule the world.
So they ruled their world.