One autumn night at the school after the pupils had gone home he walked into the dim lobby for his hat and coat. Kate Forrest was there. She stood with her back to him adjusting her hat. She did not say a word nor did he address her. They were almost touching each other, there was a pleasant scent about her. In the classroom behind the caretaker was walking about the hollow-sounding floor, humming loudly as he clapped down windows and mounted the six chairs to turn out the six gas lamps. When the last light through the glazed door was gone and the lobby was completely dark Kate all at once turned to him, folded him in her arms and held him to her breast for one startling moment, then let him go, murmuring O ... O.... It made him strangely happy. He pulled her back in the gloom, whispering tender words. They walked out of the hall into the dark road and stopped to confront each other. The road was empty and dark except for a line of gas lamps that gleamed piercingly bright in the sharp air and on the polished surface of the road that led back from the hill down past her father’s villa. There were no lamps in the opposite direction and the road groped its way out into the dark country where he lived, a mile beyond the town. It was windy and some unseen trees behind a wall near them swung and tossed with many pleasant sounds.
“I will come a little way with you,” Kate said.
“Yes, come a little way,” he whispered, pressing her arm, “I’ll come back with you.”
She took his arm and they turned towards the country. He could think of nothing to say, he was utterly subdued by his surprise; Kate was sad, even moody; but at last she said slowly: “I am unlucky, I always fall in love with men who can’t love me.”
“O but I can and do, dear Kate,” he cried lightly. “Love me, Kate, go on loving me, I’m not, well, I’m not very wicked.”
“No, no, you do not.” She shook her head mournfully: after a few moments she added: “It’s Julia Tern.”
He was astounded. How could she have known this, how could any one have known—even Julia herself? It was queer that she did not refer to his friendship with Ianthe; he thought that was much more obvious than his love for Julia. In a mood that he only half understood he began to deny her reproachful charge.
“Why, you must think me very fickle indeed. I really love you, dear Kate, really you.” His arm was around her neck, he smoothed her cheek fondly against his own. She returned his caresses but he could glimpse the melancholy doubt in her averted eyes.
“We often talk of you, we often talk of you at night, in bed, often.”
“What do you say about me—in bed? Who?”