“Well,” she thought, stopping in the middle of a line, “how very curious. And that crowd has always bothered me so. I could never understand it.”
And she went on again and never stopped; the whole thing seemed to have gained a broader and a clearer meaning.
But progress in her writing meant sitting up many nights till midnight and after, and next day the constant absorption would tell upon her, and school became a species of martyrdom. The least noise would set every nerve working, and the fidgetiness and ordinary naughtiness of the children tried her almost beyond endurance. She did her best not to show it, since one of the first rules of teaching is “Never be irritable with the children.” Like all other perfect rules it is almost an impossibility. It might with advantage be amended to this—“Be irritable as rarely as possible, and let every offence you commit in that direction translate itself into a firm resolve to guard as much as possible against that error in the future.” The whole force of the precept lies in the second part.
As the story grew Deborah found herself more and more entangled in it and had no wish nor power to draw out. One night there came swimming up in her brain the words of the fortune-teller. She remembered the night well; it had been stormy and heavy, and there had been some peals of thunder and flashes of lightning. Suddenly there had grown up an intense desire to take the part of the leading woman in her book. It was not as if she had ever liked theatres, it was not as if the glamour of footlights and applause had ever appealed to her; no, it grew out of a wild and unrestrained jealousy.
“I love this man,” she said to herself. “I’ve known him for fifteen years and over, and he’s always lived in my other world, and I can’t bear that he should belong to anybody else. I love this woman too, and I’ve always known her, and I know exactly how she looks, and laughs, and moves, and speaks, and I can do everything just as she does—because—I don’t know—because I can.”
And Deborah was happy, for the world showed itself in all its glorious silver light. Each night when she sat up writing alone she would take the plain framed photo from the mantelpiece and set it there on the table by her side, and before she put the light out she always kissed it.
“You’re not quite as good as my man,” she would say, “but you’re the next best thing. And you will find this part just suits you.”
Thus the time flew on till the book was finished. A glorious, rosy, golden time, in which every vision of ambition flashed across the hitherto dull landscape.
At times would come that whispering warning,—
“Suppose—suppose it should fail like all the rest.”