They sat down on the bench that was shaded by the old elderberry tree. Visually, the situation had all the characteristics of an idyllic courtship.
“I suppose it’s Alicia’s engagement,” she said, smiling reflectively, “that’s put me off my game. They do upset you, those things do, and you don’t know why... It isn’t as if Alicia was the first—I mean of us girls. There was Marian; but then, of course, that was so long ago, and I was only a chit.”
“Yes,” he murmured vaguely; and though she seemed to be waiting for him to say more, he merely repeated, “Yes.”
Such was his sole contribution to this topic, so suitable to the situation, so promising, so easy of treatment. They were so friendly that he was under no social obligation to talk for the sake of talking.
That was it: they were too friendly. She sat within a foot of him, reclining against the sloping back of the bench, and idly dangling one white-shod foot; her long hands lay on her knees. She was there in all her perfection. But by some sinister magic, as she had approached him and their paths had met at the bench, his vision had faded. Now, she was no longer a woman and he a man. Now, the curvings of her drapery from the elegant waistband were no longer a provocation. She was immediately beneath his eye, and he recognised her again for what she was—Janet! Precisely Janet—no less and no more! But her beauty, her charm, her faculty for affection—surely... No! His instinct was deaf to all ‘buts.’ His instinct did not argue; it cooled. Fancy had created a vision in an instant out of an idea, and in an instant the vision had died. He remembered Hilda with painful intensity. He remembered the feel of her frock under his hand in the cubicle, and the odour of her flesh that was like fruit. His cursed constancy! ... Could he not get Hilda out of his bones? Did she sleep in his bones like a malady that awakes whenever it is disrespectfully treated?
He grew melancholy. Accustomed to savour the sadness of existence, he soon accepted the new mood without resentment.
He resigned himself to the destruction of his dream. He was like a captive whose cell has been opened in mistake, and who is too gentle to rave when he sees it shut again. Only in secret he poured an indifferent, careless scorn upon Auntie Hamps.
They played a whole interminable set, and then Edwin went home, possibly marvelling at the variety of experience that a single hour may contain.