Mary thanked him, and then, as if his amiability were still a little stretched, he suggested that they should defer the consideration of her other proposals, as he had one or two things to see to. So would she, dear old thing that she was, let him kiss her, and then leave him.
She went to him for her kiss, and discovered that he was more upset than she had imagined. His hand trembled as he smoothed back her hair, and he murmured over her head that he was a brute, a savage, a horror to bully the most precious thing in his life. As a rule this emotion of his would have melted her; she would have remembered, with a rush of feeling, that after all a man is only a great child, something very simple and clumsy and pathetic, but to-day she stood apart from his remorse and she found herself laughing lightly, telling him that he was a funny sensitive old thing, and that, if he would only think of what he had promised, he would see that she had every reason to be pleased with herself.
Then she left him, still a little absurdly unassured, and went upstairs to her own room. It was only a quarter of an hour since she had gone downstairs to James's study. Then she had thought of James as the beneficent, all-wise authority from whose words there was no appeal; now she was puzzled about him, thinking him over. Why had he been angry with her—what had made him angry? It wasn't that she had chosen a bad moment, she couldn't believe that it was her manner, for that never annoyed him; why was he angry because she had wanted the girls to have a proper room where they might go? She could understand his rejecting her plan, but not his being angry about it. It was not like him; it did not agree with her conception of him as a man who was not only generous but singularly patient and just. After all these years she couldn't be wrong about that—it was absurd to suggest, merely because he had shown momentary irritation, that he had an unknown side that his work called out, but that she, so far, had never seen. She pulled herself up. It was not loyal of her to hunt after this fashion for faults in James. He had been a little sharp—for a minute—and it was her duty, as it ought to have been her natural instinct, to forget a trifling occurrence which had pained him already far more than was necessary.
The only serious thing about the whole incident was that she was afraid that now she would not get her room. It was a great pity; she still felt that the girls ought to have it, but she must, she really must, remember that James knew best. There was no other basis on which her enterprise could possibly be successful.
Nevertheless she could not force her thoughts away from the picture of James's frowning peremptory face, and as she considered it, the whole interview took on, more and more, a flavour of oddness, of unreason. She had lived in complete intimacy with James for more than twenty years, and yet she was left to infer his real thoughts, in a moment of significant emotion, from the twitch of his mouth, the key of his voice, the physical symbols by which his body betrayed him hardly more successfully, on this occasion, to her than to a stranger. It was strange that she should have no more direct access to him than this method of inference, of guesswork, this clumsy process whereby a thought before it can reach another mind must first translate itself into terms of sense. She had read poems that told of lovers whose spirits flamed so brightly that these dark barriers became translucent, shot through with the soul's light, a medium to its ardour. Those beings had known one another as poets know nature, as mystics know God. But such ecstasies were foreign to her, she felt herself to be too prim, too frail, too anxious, for the great fires of the spirit. Her experience had been—would always be—the common experience of common folk. Her wisdom consisted in the building and maintaining of barriers between herself and the sordid, the vicious, the vulgar. She had built barriers round her love, she had kept it fine and pure, untroubled by anything but its own tenderness. She had not asked for ecstasy, she had not asked for knowledge, she had been content to trust. She must continue to trust, she must realise that she did not know her husband, she must let her affection bridge the gaps in her understanding. That was the way of life she had made for herself.
Then from the deep place in her mind where she had thrust it, her uneasiness returned. Why had he been angry? She stirred in her chair, and the movement made her realise that she was still holding her forlorn little bundle of notes. She rose and put them back into their pigeon-hole with a slight feeling of discomfort. To-morrow was one of Miss Percival's days, and she would have to make her admission of defeat. Miss Percival never said much, but Mary's impression was that she cared a good deal about the room.
The proper thing to do now would have been to turn her mind to something else. Unfortunately Mary's knitting did not hold her attention and she did not get as far as finding her place in the novel which succeeded it. Why had James been unreasonable? Why hadn't he met her calmly with his excellent and conclusive arguments? Must she be prepared for a similar reception when she spoke to him about the girls' dinner? She could not banish her troubled sense of his hostility.
While she was wondering, one of the maids brought her a letter. It was a letter in a mauve envelope, unstamped, and the maid said that it had been delivered by a little boy who wanted to give it to the lady himself. But it being late in the evening the maid had sent him away. The marks left by the little boy's finger and thumb on the paper gave some colour of prudence to her decision.
The sheet of paper inside the mauve envelope was white, and the writing was in pencil. It was not very easy to read.
100, EXE ST.,
Maida Hill.
DEAR AND HONOURED MADAM:
I venture to write to you and Mrs. Black the manager at our place you know was kindly give me your address. Or I should not have known how to find you. Honoured madam might I venture to ask you to grant me an interview? I do not want to Take advantage of your kindness only there is no one I can turn to except Mrs. Black and she must think of her place so will you please forgive me troubling you and don't deny me this.
Your obedient servant in great distress,
FLORRIE WILSON.