“And that?” she asked.
“What you have just so kindly promised me—your friendship. I place it first, I think, not third.”
She laughed again, still a little nervously, and conscious of a determination not to let the conversation get more intimate than this. But for the moment it was out of her hands, for he went on in that cool, quiet voice, separating each word from its neighbours, giving to each its individual value.
“People who have once been friends,” he said, “and after an interval come together again, often make a great mistake in wondering and worrying about the past. Please do not suspect me of such a stupidity; I am more than content to take up the present, just as it is, fragrant with the promise of your friendship, and fragrant with the knowledge that you have been, and are, happy. I would have given my whole life, as you know, to make you that, and now that it has come to you without any effort on my part, why, let us rejoice over the economy of my energy.”
They had come to the end of the path by the river, where an ironwork gate gave onto the highroad outside, and paused a moment before retracing their steps. A big yellow moon had risen over the trees to the east, so that while the western part of the sky still glowed with sunset, the east was flooded with that cold white flame that turns every colour into ivory or ebony. And this strange effect was reproduced on his face, for the warmth of the west shone on one cheek, while on the other was the white coldness of the moon. And fantastically enough she felt herself for the moment reading his words in this double light. They seemed capable of two interpretations.
But instantly she told herself that she was utterly unjustified in such a conjecture. His words had been absolutely guileless, nor had she the smallest cause for interpreting them otherwise. What she had done was to read into them the knowledge that twelve years ago she had treated him shabbily, and now credited him with an impulse of revenge. Yet she feared him a little. Beneath his quiet, kind words there was something white-hot and keen-edged. As he had said, he wanted things and got them. What, then, did he want of her? He had told her—her friendship.
It was like him, too, like his consummate cleverness, which it required cleverness to perceive at all, so subtle and natural was it, to say these strong and serious things about her happiness and her friendship—things which he must know would remain in her mind—and then round off the sentence with a pure triviality about the economy of energy. It gave her, however—as, no doubt, he meant it to do, since he had said his say—an opportunity for altering the direction of the conversation without abrupt transition.
“I really don’t know if one ought to rejoice in economy of energy,” she said, as they turned to walk back. “There is such an enormous lot of energy in the world, and I think there would be less trouble if it was scarcer. I know I have quite as much as I have any use for. I should find more of it embarrassing.”
“You are admirable,” he said. “I believe there is never a scheme to help and relieve distress brought before you to which you do not give real support—not the mere buttress of your name, but your time, your pains, your energy. But, you see, you economise energy in other directions.”
“What directions?” she asked.