She lived in his thoughts as a phantom—too little as a creature of flesh and blood. Within the brief space that had elapsed since he had touched her, she had become again a faery’s child. The sound of her laughter was in his ears. He imagined how her finger had gone up to her mouth and the babies had come into her eyes, each time the bell had rung and something fresh had been handed in to her. “Very queer and dear of him,” she had said—something like that.
It was nearly twelve. He was torn between his anxiety to see her and his shyness at intruding. If he had had only her to face, he would have gone to Euston; but she’d be surrounded by friends. When it was too late, he cursed his lack of enterprise.
Perhaps she had sent him an answer to his telegrams. He hurried back to Eden Row. As he came in sight of the tree-shadowed street, with the river gleaming along its length and the staid, sleepy houses lining its pavement, the calm normality of an orderly world again accused him. To have suggested to Eden Row a trip to America merely to see a girl would have sounded like an affront to its sanity. As he passed by Orchid Lodge, the carriage-and-pair was waiting for Mrs. Sheerug to come out. For fifteen years she had been going through the same curriculum of self-imposed duties—playing her harp, working at her tapestries, scattering her philanthropies. How could he say to her, “I’m going to America,” without stating an adequate reason?
His mother met him in the hall. “Why, Teddy, back! What’s the matter? You didn’t send us warning.”
“I got tired of roving,” he said. “Has anything come?”
“Come! No. I forwarded your last letters to Glastonbury. I thought you were to be there this morning.”
“So I was to have been, but—I changed my mind suddenly.”
“You look awfully tired.”
“I am.” He forced a laugh. “I haven’t slept. I drove all night for the fun of it. I think I’ll go and lie down.” In the room where he had passed his boyhood dreaming of her, he sat down to wait for her message. He looked out of the window. How unaltered everything was, and yet how different! The pigeons fluttered. In the studio at the bottom of the garden he could make out the figure of his father, standing before his easel. Across the wall, Mr. Yaffon carried cans of water back and forth among his flowers. He remembered the great dread he had had that nothing would ever happen. And now it had happened—money, reputation, and at last Desire. He ought to be feeling immensely glad; he was in love—the make-believe passions of childhood on which he had fed his imagination were ended. The real thing had come. If he could only have one sign from her that she cared——
He listened. Every time he heard the bell ring he went out on to the landing and called, “Anything for me? What is it?”