“Perhaps Mr. Elliot sees me meanwhile?”
The parlour-maid looked blank. Mr. Elliot had not said so. He had been with Mrs. Elliot and Mr. Pembroke in the study. Now the gentlemen had gone upstairs.
“All right, I can wait.” After all, Rickie was treating him as he had treated Rickie, as one in the grave, to whom it is futile to make any loving motion. Gone upstairs—to brush his hair for dinner! The irony of the situation appealed to him strongly. It reminded him of the Greek Drama, where the actors know so little and the spectators so much.
“But, by the bye,” he called after Stephen, “I think I ought to tell you—don’t—”
“What is it?”
“Don’t—” Then he was silent. He had been tempted to explain everything, to tell the fellow how things stood, that he must avoid this if he wanted to attain that; that he must break the news to Rickie gently; that he must have at least one battle royal with Agnes. But it was contrary to his own spirit to coach people: he held the human soul to be a very delicate thing, which can receive eternal damage from a little patronage. Stephen must go into the house simply as himself, for thus alone would he remain there.
“I ought to knock my pipe out? Was that it?” “By no means. Go in, your pipe and you.”
He hesitated, torn between propriety and desire. Then he followed the parlour-maid into the house smoking. As he entered the dinner-bell rang, and there was the sound of rushing feet, which died away into shuffling and silence. Through the window of the boys’ dining-hall came the colourless voice of Rickie—“‘Benedictus benedicat.’”
Ansell prepared himself to witness the second act of the drama; forgetting that all this world, and not part of it, is a stage.
XXVII