For a moment she stared at him in profound astonishment. Then she burst into laughter, and laughed and laughed till her eyes really did cry.
‘Oh, my dear boy—oh, my dear, dear boy!’ she laughed, wiping her eyes while he sat and watched her.
And at that moment Mrs. Mitcham appeared at the door and announced two ladies—their miserable name sounded like Fanshawe—and two ladies, who might well be Fanshawes, immediately swam in and enveloped Catherine in arms of enormous length, it seemed to him, kissing her effusively—how deeply he hated them—and exclaiming in incoherent twitters that they had come to carry her off, that the car was there, that they wouldn’t take no, that Ned was waiting——
Lord, what snakes.
He went away at once. No good staying just to see her being clawed away by Fanshawes to the waiting Ned. And who the devil was Ned? Yes, there he was—waiting right enough, sitting snugly in a Daimler that looked very new and expensive, while the porter, a changed man, hovered solicitously near. Ned needed every bit of the new Daimler and the fur rug and the hideously smart chauffeur to make up for the shape of his silly nose, thought Christopher, scornfully striding off down the street.
IV
Till the following Friday his week was harassed. It was wonderful to be in love, to have found her, but it would have been still more wonderful if he had known a little more about her. He wanted to be able to think of her and follow her through each minute of the day,—picture her, see her in his mind’s eye doing this and doing that, going here and going there; and there was nothing but a blank.
They were such strangers. Only, of course, strangers on the lower level of everyday circumstances. On the higher level, the starry level of splendid, unreasoning love, he had, as he told her, always known her. But to know her on that level and not on any other was awkward. It cut him off so completely. He couldn’t think what to do next.
Once, before he met her, in those dark days when he was still a fool and reasoned, he had remarked to Lewes that he thought it a pity and liable to lead to disappointment that love should begin, as it apparently did begin, suddenly, at the top of emotion. There ought, he said, to be a gradual development in acquaintanceship, a steady unfolding of knowledge of each other, a preparatory and of course extremely agreeable crescendo, leading up to the august passion itself. As it was, ignorant of everything really about the woman except what she looked and sounded like, why—there you were. It was bad, finished Christopher, aloofly considering the faulty arrangements of nature, to start with infatuation, because you couldn’t possibly do anything after that but cool off.
Now, remembering this when he couldn’t sleep one night, he laughed himself to scorn for a prig and an idiot. That’s all one knew about it when one wasn’t in love oneself. Love gave one a sixth sense. It instantly apprehended. The symbol of the sweet outer aspect of the loved one was before one’s eyes; from it one was aware of her inward and spiritual grace. The beloved looked so and so; therefore she was so and so. Love knew. But, on a lower level, on the level of mere convenience, it would be better, he admitted, to have had some preliminary acquaintance. He worshipped Catherine, and they were strangers. This was awkward. It cut him off. He didn’t know what to do next.