Tom opened the door for Manvers and shut it again after they had entered. The sun was already getting low, and a great blaze of light came in almost horizontally through the open window and shone full on the statue. Tom sat down opposite it, and Manvers stood near him. In the ruddy glow of the evening the white marble was flushed with delicate red, and for the first time Manvers really appreciated the noble conception of it—about the execution he had never had any doubt.
They sat there in silence for some time, and then Tom got up.
“Do you see,” he said rather huskily, “do you see what I mean when I say that I might have—might have——”
He turned abruptly. On the floor was lying the sheet in which the statue had been wrapped. He took it up quickly and flung it over it.
“We all have ghosts in our houses,” he said; “but we can at least veil them a little. Besides,” he added, “to go back to what I was saying about my optimism, I have had three crises, three revelations—unimportant little revelations no doubt—in my life. I think I told you and Maud Wrexham about them one evening, oh, ever so long ago!”
“I remember,” said Manvers.
“Well, to have had a crisis is in itself a most delightful experience, but if your crisis remains, so to speak, critical, you ought to be perfectly happy. Two of my crises were still-born. The crisis I had when I saw the Hermes at Olympia has come to nothing.”
“Do you call that nothing?” said Manvers, pointing to the shrouded Demeter.
“Worse than nothing. It is a dead child. It had better never have been born. And the crisis I had, or thought I had, when the baby was born is—is yet unfulfilled. But my third crisis remains critical. I met May, I loved her, I love her. But the ghosts, the ghosts——”
They left the room. In the hall was the three-year-old Thomas, being towed sideways across the hall by his nurse, going out for a walk. Tom took the youngster up in his arms and turned to Manvers with a smile.