Then, deliberately, and of purpose, she turned round on her sofa and looked straight in front of her, away from him. By an unerring instinct she knew that he must be left alone with that a little while, till it became familiar to him. But as she looked out over the gray-brown fields below and across to the black pines of the hillside opposite there was nothing sad in her face. It was more than patient—it was content even, for nothing could stand against the alchemy of love which turned all to gold. Already it had turned her own meannesses and smallness to gold, to itself: this was far easier.
Then she felt Hugh’s head rest on hers, and she looked at him and smiled at him. And though his smile was tremulous and quivered, it was there.
“Well, Hughie, it is a difficulty,” she said. “These stupid lungs of mine want dry and exhilarating air, or they will strike, and this absurd heart of mine wants slack and languid air, where it doesn’t feel compelled to work so hard. And one doesn’t quite know where such air is to be found as will suit them both.”
Again she waited till this sank in: purposely she told all the worst first. What followed was rather better.
“Now, there is this chance,” she said, “that before winter comes again, when the air here is most stimulating, my lungs may be so much better that I can safely go to some much lower place—go to England even—and lead a very out-door life, and so give my heart a chance. But stopping here depends on how it behaves. If it goes from—from bad to worse, I shall have to go. On the other hand, perhaps it won’t, and perhaps my lungs will begin to get better again, so that I can go without hurting them. But that’s the situation. I am rather like a flying-fish that is supposed to die in the water and can’t live on the land. Isn’t it a nuisance? But it isn’t my fault, my darling. I asked him that. And he said I had been a model patient. There! Respect me, please!”
Oh, but Edith, the real Edith had come back to him! He had not known how dreadful the absence of this serenity, this big outlook, had been till it came back now, bigger, serener than ever. It was scarcely possible to be sad in the presence of that sunlit calm. His heart bowed down not in grief and regret, but in adoration. Bitter tears, no doubt, would come, and sorrow to heartrending, but not just now.
Edith paused a moment. In the autumn she had strung herself up to the highest optimism; she had been determined to get well, and looked in no other direction. She still wanted to, she still would leave undone no effort that could conduce to that; but the situation had changed. She had to regard another possibility; Hugh had to regard it, too. But the bitterness of it was already past, if they looked there together.
“But, supposing my heart does get worse, Hughie,” she said, “and in the interval my lungs don’t get better, what shall we do? I asked Dr. Harris what he recommended, and we talked quite openly about it. You see, it is one thing to be cured; it is quite another just to prolong life. He said something about a long sea voyage, but I asked if that was cure or prolongation. It was prolongation. Now, I hate the sea, and I hate ships, and I am sea-sick, and I can’t bear being cooped up. Do you think it is worth while? Personally I don’t, but if you do say so, and we will voyage madly round the earth for as long as you wish. If it meant cure I should insist on doing it for my sake; make no mistake about that. But if one is not going to get better, is it worth it? It is so dreadfully uncomfortable. Would you sit in a dentist’s chair for a minute if you knew that you were going to die as soon as you got up? I wouldn’t. And I wouldn’t wish you to. I think it is cowardly to cling to life under outrageous conditions.”
Hugh hid his face in his hands a moment. The glory of the great calm still encompassed him.