“It’s too strong for us,” she said. “We can’t help it. I will face anything with you. We will go right away, Lyndhurst, and live, instead of being starved like this.”
She took both his hands in hers, completely carried away for the first time in her life by something outside herself. Treacherous and mean as was that course on which she was determined, she was, perhaps, a finer woman at this moment of supreme disloyalty than in all the years of her blameless married life.
“I’ve never loved before, Lyndhurst,” she said quietly, “nor have I ever known what it meant. Now I can’t consider anything else; it doesn’t matter what happens to Wilfred and Elsie. Nothing matters except you.”
This time it was not he who kissed her; it was she who pressed her mouth to his.
There was but little to settle, their plans were perfectly simple and ruthless. They would cross over to Boulogne that night, and, as soon as the law set them free, marry each other. A train to Folkestone left Riseborough in a little over an hour’s time, running in connection with the boat. They could easily catch it. But it was wiser not to go to the station together: they would meet there.
As he walked home through the gleaming October afternoon, Major Ames was conscious neither of struggle nor regret. The power which Millie had had over him all these months, so that it was she always who really took the lead, and urged him one step forward and then another, gripped him and led him on here to the last step of all. He still obeyed and followed that slender, fragile woman who so soon would be his; it was as necessary to do her bidding here as it had been to kiss her, when first, under the mulberry-tree, she had put up her face towards his. These last days seemed to have killed all sense of loyalty and manhood within him; he gave no thought at all to his wife, and thought of Harry only as Amy’s son. Besides, he was not responsible: man though he was, he was completely in the hands of this woman. All his life he had had no real principles to direct him, he had lived a decent life only because no temptation to live otherwise had ever really come near him, and even now it was in no way the wickedness of what he purposed that at all dragged him back; it was mere timidity at taking an irrevocable step.
Amy, he knew, was out: at breakfast she had announced to him that she did not expect to be in till dinner-time, and he had told her that he would be out for dinner. Such sentences dealing with household arrangements had been the sum of their discourse for the last days, and they were spoken not so much to each other as to the air, heard by, rather than addressed to any one in particular.
And yet the prospect of the life that should open for him, when once this irrevocable step had been taken, did not fill him with the resistless longing which, though it cannot excuse, at any rate accounts for the step itself. Millie, though throughout she had led him on until the climax was reached, had at least the authentic goad to drive her: life with him seemed to her to be real life: it was passionately that she desired it. But with him, apart from the force with which she dominated him, it was the escape from the very uncomfortable circumstances of home that chiefly attracted him. In a way, he loved her; he felt for her a warmth and a tenderness of stronger quality than he could remember having ever experienced before, and since it is not given to all men to love violently, it may be granted that he was feeling the utmost fire of which his nature was capable. But it was of sufficient ardour to burn up in his mind the rubbish of minor considerations and material exigencies.
Cabs were of infrequent occurrence at this far end of St. Barnabas Road, and meeting one by hazard just outside his house, he told the driver to wait. Then, letting himself in, he went straight up to his dressing-room. There was not time for him to pack his whole wardrobe, and a moderate portmanteau would be all he really needed. And here the trivialities began to wax huge and engrossing: though the afternoon was warm, it would no doubt be fresh, if not chilly on the boat, and it would certainly be advisable to take his thick overcoat, which at present had not left its summer quarters. Those were in a big cupboard in the passage outside, overlooking the garden, where it was packed away with prophylactic little balls of naphthaline. These had impregnated it somewhat powerfully, but it was better to be odorously than insufficiently clad. Passing the window he saw that the chrysanthemums had responded bravely to his comforting a few mornings ago: if there was no more frost they would be gay for another fortnight yet. Should he take a bouquet of them with him? He did not see why he should not have the enjoyment of them. Yet there was scarcely time to pick them: he must hurry on with the packing of his small portmanteau, which presented endless problems.
A panama hat should certainly be included; also a pair of white tennis shoes, in which he saw himself promenading on the parade: a white flannel suit, though it was October, seemed to complete the costume. He need not cumber himself with a dress coat: a dinner jacket was all that would be necessary. She had told him she had six hundred a year of her own: he had another three. It was annoying that his sponge was rather ragged; he had meant to buy a new one this morning. Perhaps Parker could draw it together with a bit of thread. An untidy sponge always vexed him: it was unsoldierly and slovenly. “Show me a man’s washhand-stand,” he had once said, “and I’ll tell you about the owner.” His own did not invite inspection, with its straggly sponge.