Clearly, as it were yesterday, he remembered the day she had declared to him her choice. In the Cathedral cloisters. Walking together. And suddenly, in the midst of indifferent things, she told him, "I say, Marko, I'm going to marry Lord Tybar."
And his reply, the model of indifference. "Are you, Nona?"
Nothing else said of it between them. There would certainly have been more discussion if she had said she was going to buy a packet of hairpins. And his thought had immediately been, not this nor that nor the other of a hundred thoughts proper to a blow so stunning, but merely and immediately and precisely that he would tell his father Yes to what that very morning he had told him No,—that he would go into the Fortune, East and Sabre business. Extraordinary effect from such a cause! Grotesque. Paradoxical. Going into Fortune, East and Sabre meant "settling down"; marriage conventionally involved settling down; yet, while he had visioned marriage with Nona, settling down had been the last thing in the world to think of,—because he projected marriage with Nona, he had that very morning rejected settling down. He was not to marry her; therefore, yes, he would settle down. Amazing. He had not realised how amazing till now.
And catastrophic. Not till now had he realised to what catastrophe he then had plunged. He thought, "The fact was Nona touched things in me that helped me. Without her I just shut down—I just go about—longing, longing, and all shut up, day after day, year after year—all shut up. And now there's this—she's come back like this—"
He came upon the picture of himself alone with Nona—alone with her watching her beautiful face—and saying to her, "Look here, there were three things you said, three expressions you used. Explain them, Nona. Explain 'There!' with your glove off. Explain 'Flotsam.' Explain 'Well, I had to come.' Explain them, Nona—for God's sake."
CHAPTER V
I
But it was October before he asked her to explain them. The Tybars, as he learnt when next he met her, a week after her visit to the office, were only at Northrepps for a breathing space after their foreign tour. Through the summer they were going the usual social round, ending in Scotland. Back in October for the shooting, and wintering there through the hunting season.
So she told him; and he thought while she was speaking, "All right. I'll accept that. That helps to stop me asking her. If an opportunity occurs before she goes I'll ask her. I must. But if it doesn't occur I'll accept that. I won't make an opportunity."
It did not occur, and he abode by his resolution. He met her once or twice, always in other company. And she was always then particularly gay, particularly airy, particularly bantering. But answering her banter he once caught an expression behind her airiness. He thought, "It is a shield"; and he turned away abruptly from her. He could not bear it.