He was taking her in the wrong direction. Why? To reach the Red Lion he should have steered upstream. Far behind, chiseled out by the moonlight, the town stood sharp against the star-strewn sky—sagging roofs, twisted chimney-pots and tall spires. From its walls came the shouts of roisterers and the sound of discordant singing, which broke off abruptly, only to commence again more faintly.
She was inclined to be penitent. She was both annoyed and amused with herself for what she had done. On the spur of the moment she was always doing wild things like that to people she cared for—doing them that she might measure their love by her power to hurt them. She wondered whether he blamed her, and how long he would keep silent.
The river had become a pathway of ebony, inlaid with silver by the moonlight. Along its banks illuminations smoldered, scorching red wounds in the shadows. Here and there a candle flared, sank and died, like a heart which had broken itself with longing. Craft drifted like logs through the blackness. They seemed deserted, unpiloted; yet they bore with them the sense of lips that whispered against other lips and of hands that touched. “To-morrow!” everything seemed to say. “To-morrow! But there is still to-night.”
To-morrow lovers would have vanished. Faces, which in the past week one had learnt to recognize, about which one had built up fancies, would be seen no more. The haunting poignancy of parting was in the night, the memory of things exquisite and unlasting.
And Peter, he couldn’t understand what had happened to him. It seemed a dream from which he was waking; he wanted to sleep again and recapture the illusion. From the first he had recognized an atmosphere of danger in her presence. She was so foreign to his experience; it was scarcely likely that a friendship with her would lead to happiness. And yet he could not do without her. On those sunlit mornings aboard The Skylark, when he had opened his eyes to hear the river tapping, had looked out of his window to see the breeze whipping the water and the plumed trees nodding, there had been no rest in the day’s gladness till he had heard her tripping footsteps. She had crept into his blood. All past things were unremembered—past ambitions and past loyalties. Every beauty grouped itself about her. The grayness of her eyes drew his soul out. The soft, slurring notes of her voice were for him the finest music. Had he been offered the joy of one month with her, for which all the years of his life should be forfeit, he would willingly have accepted. The thought of marriage had already occurred to him. That he should be only nineteen was a tragedy. Would she wait for him? With no more than a week’s acquaintance by which to judge he knew that she would wait for no one. She was elusive—one moment a child, the next a woman. And she sat there gazing at him through the shadows, her hands folded meekly on her breast—a nunlike trick which she had learnt at the convent. It gave her an appearance of piety, which the red defiance of her mouth and gray challenge of her eyes negatived. She was the first woman he had loved. He loved her uncalculatingly, with his soul and body, as a man loves but once, when he is young.
They had passed The Skylark and were nearing the island. All the other boats were left behind. Her voice came to him throbbingly, like a harp fingered softly. “You’re disappointed in me. You’ll often be disappointed.”
He could not bear that she should blame herself. He drew in his paddle. “I’m not, only——”
“Only what? A man always says ‘only’ when he’s trying to deceive himself.”
“Only, why did you do it?”
She didn’t answer his question. How could she tell why? Because she was young; because she knew that she was pretty. “You looked splendid,” she said, “when you struck him.” And then she mentioned the one thing concerning which he, as a man, would have kept silent. “You kissed me, Peter.”