Again I made signs of agreement which were not strictly honest.
On Sunday afternoon we both drank our tea under the copper beeches at Deene Place. I deliberately monopolised Cynthia's attention as long as I possibly could, and then devoted myself to the cold-blooded study of the man she was to marry. I found him very good-natured, gifted with abundant high spirits, agreeably modest, and, as it seemed to me, intellectually about on a par with a race-horse or a handsome St. Bernard dog.
'Cynthia tells me we are to bully you into coming out of your hermitage,' he said to me with a sunny smile. 'A good idea, too, you know. After all, being a recluse can't be good for one's health; and I suppose if a man isn't fit, it tells--er--even in literary work, doesn't it?'
I felt towards him as one feels towards some bright, handsome schoolboy. And yet, in many ways, I doubt not he had more of wisdom than I had. I had spoken to Cynthia of Leith Hill, and she had said that, when staying at Deene Place, she walked almost every day either on the hill or the common. Upon that I had relinquished her attention with a fair grace.
Of course, I was entirely unused to the amenities of society. I used no subterfuges, and made no attempt to disguise my interest in Cynthia, or to pretend to other interests. I dare say my directness was smiled upon, as part of the eccentricity of these literary people; one of Ernest's friends, quite a recluse, and so forth. I gathered as much a little later on.
Looking back upon it I must suppose that my conduct during the next week or so would be condemned by most right-thinking people as ungentlemanly and even dishonourable. I have no inclination to defend it; and I could not affirm that, at the time, I loved honour more than Cynthia Lane. To speak the naked truth, I believe I would have committed forgery, if by doing so I could have won Cynthia for my wife. The one and only way in which I showed any discretion (and that, not from any moral scruple, but purely as a matter of tactics) was in withholding any open declaration to Cynthia herself.
My feeling was that my chance of a life's happiness was confined to the cruelly short period of a week or two. There was no time for taking risks. There must be no refusals. I must use my time, every day of it, I thought, in the effort to win her heart; and trust to the very end to win her consent. I availed myself fully of my advantage in living in Dorking while my rival spent his days in London. The obstacles in my path were such as to justify me in grasping every possible advantage within reach, I told myself. Every day we met. Every day I walked and talked with Cynthia. Every day love possessed me more utterly. And, I believe I may say it, every day Cynthia drew nearer to me. No word did I breathe of marriage; that which was arranged, or that which I desired. It seemed to me that every available moment must be given to the moulding of her heart, to preparation for the last crucial test, when I should ask her to sacrifice everything, and cross the Channel and the Rubicon with me.
There is no need for me to burke the words. Cynthia did love me when she left Dorking for her parents' house in London; not, perhaps, with the absorbing passion she had inspired in me; yet well enough, as I was assured, to face social disaster and a break with her family, in order that she might entrust her life to me.
'Cynthia,' I said, at the end of that last walk, 'London is not to rob me of you? Promise me!'
'If you call me, I will come,' she said, looking at me through tears, and well I knew that perfect truth shone in those dear eyes.