Larry Coppinger did not attempt to fly, even though he knew as precisely the moment when the fever struck him, as did Peter's wife's mother when her fever left her. Perhaps he might then have tried to escape; he knew it was too late now. That fatal rapturous moment had been when he saw Christian setting forth, a lonely, piteous figure, to fetch Carmody's gun. He had followed her, and his entreaties to her to let him deal with the matter had prevailed. She had turned back, and kneeling down again, kissed the white star on Nancy's forehead, murmuring something to her that Larry could not hear. He had put her saddle on his own horse; when he mounted her, she had stooped down from the tall horse's back, and had whispered: "'That thou hast to do, do quickly.'" He went over it all in his mind; that was all she had said, and he had not seen her since.
On that afternoon as he moved about the room he had chosen for his studio, and unpacked the monster cases he had brought from Paris, he remembered how, long ago, Mrs. Twomey had laughed at him when he told her he was never going to marry.
"Wait awhile!"' mocked Mrs. Twomey, "one day it'll sthrike ye all in the minute—the same as a pairson'd get a stitch when they'd be leaning-over a churn!"
Well, it had so struck him, and struck him hard, and he was reeling from the blow.
Her courage, oh God! her courage! How she had ridden that little mad devil of a mare! There wasn't a man out who would have got her over that big country as she had! And then, when that cur had done his dirty work and bolted, was there a whimper or a cry from her? She had faced the music; she had started off to get the gun herself. He knew, just a little, just dimly, he told himself humbly, what the sight of suffering was to her, and she had stood up to it. She, with her passion for animals; she, with her tender, tender heart! Larry, who believed himself to be profoundly introspective, did not know that it was his own flawless physical courage, finding and recognising its fellow in Christian, that had first lit the flame. He thought it was her face, with its delicate charm, its faint, elusive loveliness, that had felled him, laid him low, devastated him. He pleased himself in reiterating his overthrow, in enumerating its causes, while he banged bundles of canvases on to the floor, and pitched clattering sketching-easels and stools into corners, and covered tables and chairs with the myriad colour-boxes, sketch-books, palettes of every shape and variety, brushes, bottles, all the snares that the ingenious marchand à couleurs spreads in the sight of the bird, and into which the bird, especially if he be, like Larry, a rich amateur, cheerfully hops. He hardly was aware of what he was doing, his hot thoughts raced in his brain. It seemed to him now to have been years ago that he saw her, in the grey light, riding towards him on Nancy. She had said that he might paint her; that was all that he had thought of then. Much had happened since then; the supreme thing had happened since then! Nothing else really mattered, he thought, sitting down on the edge of a half-empty packing case, and lighting a cigarette, not even the shooting of Nancy. He would give her a dozen Nancys if she wanted them! The first and most important thing in the world was to see her again; and he had to arrange how, and when, and where he should paint her. Obviously he must at once proceed to Mount Music.
There is a saying among Larry's countrymen: "If a man want a thing he mus' have it!" Fortune had, so far, been kind to Larry, and those things that he had wanted sufficiently, he had had. It now remained to be proved if the rule were to have an exception.
"I'm going over to Mount Music just now," he said to Frederica at tea time. "I want to see them all. Will you come, Aunt Freddy?"
Aunt Freddy looked perturbed.
"You haven't seen Cousin Dick yet, have you?"
"No. How could I? He wasn't out. I've seen no one yet but Christian."