“I have got to go and meet Helena at Wimbledon,” he said to himself, and instantly he felt a peculiar joy, as if he had laughed somewhere. “But I must be getting ready. I can’t disappoint her,” said Siegmund.
The idea of Helena woke a craving for rest in him. If he should say to her, “Do not go away from me; come with me somewhere,” then he might lie down somewhere beside her, and she might put her hands on his head. If she could hold his head in her hands—for she had fine, silken hands that adjusted themselves with a rare pressure, wrapping his weakness up in life—then his head would gradually grow healed, and he could rest. This was the one thing that remained for his restoration—that she should with long, unwearying gentleness put him to rest. He longed for it utterly—for the hands and the restfulness of Helena.
“But it is no good,” he said, staring like a drunken man from sleep. “What time is it?”
It was ten minutes to nine. She would be in Wimbledon by 10.10. It was time he should be getting ready. Yet he remained sitting on the bed.
“I am forgetting again,” he said. “But I do not want to go. What is the good? I have only to tie a mask on for the meeting. It is too much.”
He waited and waited; his head dropped forward in a sort of sleep. Suddenly he started awake. The back of his head hurt severely.
“Goodness,” he said, “it’s getting quite dark!”
It was twenty minutes to ten. He went bewildered into the bathroom to wash in cold water and bring back his senses. His hands were sore, and his face blazed with sun inflammation. He made himself neat as usual. It was ten minutes to ten. He would be very late. It was practically dark, though these bright days were endless. He wondered whether the children were in bed. It was too late, however, to wonder.
Siegmund hurried downstairs and took his hat. He was walking down the path when the door was snatched open behind him, and Vera ran out crying:
“Are you going out? Where are you going?”