“I have come home to make it all up to you,” she repeated, and he scarcely dared to understand her.
They approached a lecture-room; the door was open, the room was empty, they went in and stood near the platform. The place was arranged like a tiny theatre, tiers of desks rising in half-circles on three sides high up towards the ceiling. A small platform with a lecturer’s desk confronted the rising tiers; on the wall behind it a large white sheet; a magic lantern on a pedestal was near and a blackboard on an easel. A pencil of white chalk lay broken on the floor. Behind the easel was a piano, a new piano with a duster on its lid. The room smelled of spilled acids. The lovers’ steps upon the wooden floor echoed louder than ever after their peregrinations upon the flagstones; they were timid of the sound and stood still, close together, silent. He touched her bosom and pressed her to his heart, but all her surrender seemed strange and nerveless. She was almost violently different; he had liked her old rejections, they were fiery and passionate. He scarce knew what to do, he understood her less than ever now. Dressed as she was in thick winter clothes it was like embracing a tree, it tired him. She lay in his arms waiting, waiting, until he felt almost stifled. Something like the smell of the acids came from her fur necklet. He was glad when she stood up, but she was looking at him intently. To cover his uneasiness he went to the blackboard and picking up a piece of the chalk he wrote the first inconsequent words that came into his mind. Kate stood where he had left her, staring at the board as he traced the words upon it:
We are but little children weak
Laughing softly she strolled towards him.
“What do you write that for? I know what it is.”
“What it is! Well, what is it?”
She took the chalk from his fingers.
“It’s a hymn,” she went on, “it goes....”
“A hymn!” he cried, “I did not know that.”
Underneath the one he had written she was now writing another line on the board.