In the hall—he seemed to be there without any interval of time—he saw her going out; the swinging doors were closing just behind her. The Polish friends, having said good-bye, were already rising past him in the lift. A minute later he was in the street. He realised that, because he felt the cool night air upon his cheeks. He was beside her—looking down into her face.
'May I see you back—home—to your hotel?' he heard himself saying. And then the queer voice—it must have been his own—added abruptly, as though it was all he really had to say: 'You haven't forgotten me really. I'm Tommy—Tom Kelverdon.'
Her reply, her gesture, what she did and showed of herself in a word, was as queer as in a dream, yet so natural that it simply could not have been otherwise: 'Tom Kelverdon! So it is! Fancy—you being here!' Then: 'Thank you very much. And suppose we walk; it's only a few minutes—and quite dry.'
How trivial and commonplace, yet how wonderful!
He remembers that she said something to a coachman who immediately drove off, that she moved beside him on this Montreux pavement, that they went up-hill a little, and that, very soon, a brilliant door of glass blazed in front of them, that she had said, 'How strange that we should meet again like this. Do come and see me—any day—just telephone. I'm staying some weeks probably,'—and he found himself standing in the middle of the road, then walking wildly at a rapid pace downhill, he knew not whither, that he was hot and breathless, that stars were shining, and swans, like bundles of white newspaper, were asleep on the lake, and—that he had found her.
He had walked and talked with Lettice. He bumped into more than one irate pedestrian before he realised it; they knew it better than he did, apparently. 'It was Lettice Aylmer, Lettice…' he kept saying to himself. 'I've found her. She shook hands with me. That was her voice, her touch, her perfume. She's here—here in little Montreux—for several weeks. After all these years! Can it be true—really true at last? She said I might telephone—might go and see her. She's glad to see me— again.'
How often he paced the entire length of the deserted front beside the lake he did not count: it must have been many times, for the hotel door, which closed at midnight, was locked and the night-porter let him in. He went to bed—if there was rose in the eastern sky and upon the summits of the Dent du Midi, he did not notice it. He dropped into a half-sleep in which thought continued but not wearingly. The excitement of his nerves relaxed, soothed and mothered by something far greater than his senses, stronger than his rushing blood. This greater Rhythm took charge of him most comfortably. He fell back into the mighty arms of something that was rising irresistibly—something inevitable and—half-familiar. It had long been gathering; there was no need to ask a thousand questions, no need to fight it anywhere. From the moment when he glanced idly into the Lounge he had been aware of it. It had driven him downstairs without reflection, as it had driven him also uphill till the blazing door was reached. He smelt it, heard it, saw it, touched it. It was the Wave.
Time certainly proved its unreality that night; the hours seemed both endless and absurdly brief. His mind flew round and round in a circle, lingering over every detail of the short interview with a tumultuous pleasure that hid pain very thinly. He felt afraid, felt himself on the brink of plunging headlong into a gigantic whirlpool. Yet he wanted to plunge.… He would.… He had to.… It was irresistible.
He reviewed the scene, holding each detail forcibly still, until the last delight had been sucked out of it. At first he remembered next to nothing—a blur, a haze, the houses flying past him, no feeling of pavement under his feet, but only her voice saying nothing in particular, her touch, as he sometimes drew involuntarily against her arm, her eyes shining up at him. For her eyes remained the chief impression perhaps—so kind, so true, so very sweet and frank—soft Irish eyes with something mysterious and semi-eastern in them. The conversation seemed to have entirely escaped recovery.
Then, one by one, he remembered things that she had said. Sentences offered themselves of their own accord. He flung himself upon them, trying to keep tight hold of their first meaning—before he filled them with significance of his own. It was a desperate business altogether; emotion distorted her simple words so quickly. 'I was thinking of you only to-day. I had the feeling you were here. Curious, wasn't it?' He distinctly remembered her saying this. And then another sentence: 'I should have known you anywhere; though, of course, you've changed a lot. But I knew your eyes. Eyes don't change much, do they?' The meanings he read into these simple phrases filled an hour at least; he lost entirely their simple first significance. But this last remark brought up another in its train. As the tram went past them she had raised her voice a little and looked up into his face—it was just then they had cannonaded. People who like one another always cannonade, he reflected. And her remark—'Ah, it comes back to me. You're so very like your sister Mary. I've seen her several times since the days in Cavendish Square. There's a strong family likeness.'