“Scold! It’s she that scolds. She bullies me.”
“Ah, not to-night!” she repeated gaily.
He peered down at her. “Yes, you are rather like her in the face, specially when you laugh. Better looking, though,” he added mournfully.
“Don’t tell her that.”
“Mustn’t I? Well, I don’t suppose I shall think of it again.”
“Remember that for you she is the best and most beautiful woman in the world. You can tell her that.”
“The best and most beautiful—yes,” he said. “All right. But you’ll see—I’ll lose her. Bound to,” he muttered.
She put her hand on his arm. “You’ll bring her home,” she said firmly, and she left him standing monumentally, with his hat awry.
Charles stood obediently in the place assigned to him, where the shelter of the Malletts’ garden wall made his own bulk less conspicuous and whence he could see the gate. The night was mild, but a little wind had risen, gently rocking the branches of the trees which, in the neighbourhood of the street lamps, cast their shadows monstrously on the pavements. Their movements gradually resolved themselves into melody in Charles Batty’s mind: the beauty of the reflected and exaggerated twigs and branches was not consciously realized by his eyes, but the swaying, the sudden ceasing, and the resumption of that delicate agitation became music in his ears. He, too, swayed slightly on his big feet and forgot his business, to remember it with a jerk and a fear that Henrietta had escaped him. Rose had told him he must not make music in his head. How had she known he would want to do that? She must have some faculty denied to him, the same faculty which warned her that Henrietta was going to do something strange to-night.
He felt in his pocket to assure himself of the money’s safety. He rearranged his hat and determined to concentrate on watching. The pain which, varying in degrees, always lived in his bosom, the pain of misunderstanding and being misunderstood, of doing the wrong thing, of meaning well and acting ill, became acute. He was bound to make a mistake; he would lose Henrietta or incense her, though now he was more earnest to do wisely than he had ever been. He had told her he was going to make an art of love, but he knew that art was far from perfected, and she was incapable of appreciating mere endeavour. He was afraid of her, but to-night he was more afraid of failing.