But the girl’s insistent friendliness troubled him. He sat down again heavily in his seat and reflected deeply, sitting with his elbow on the arm of the chair and his chin sunk on his hands. The gong sounded for luncheon, but he remained where he was and watched the rest go in, and listened to the talk and laughter which came to his ears through the open windows, until, after a while, the lunchers came out again, when he got up quietly and went inside.
Esmé, passing the open windows later on her way into the garden, saw the man seated alone at the table in the deserted room, eating in solitary discomfort, while the coloured servant cleared the table in a manner of sulky protest against this belated service. She quickened her steps and her face flushed warmly. She felt as though she had had her ears boxed. Indignant and angry, she walked as far as the vley and seated herself in the shade of the trees with a book, which she did not read, open on her lap. She could not at the moment concentrate her attention on reading. Her cheeks burned. Twice this man had seemed to snub her, whether intentionally or not she could not determine; but she felt furious, less with the man than with herself for courting a repulse by her persistence. Why should she seek to thrust her society on him when very clearly he did not desire it? Her importunity embarrassed him. That thought rankled. In a desire to be kind to a man whose lonely condition excited her compassion she had been guilty of intruding unwarrantably upon his seclusion. What right had she to force her acquaintance upon him? She had had her lesson; she would profit by it and not repeat the blunder.
Idly she turned the pages of her book; but the printed matter upon which her eyes rested conveyed no meaning to her: between her vision and the open page a man’s face obtruded itself, a face with fine, strongly marked features, and keen, unsmiling eyes. She could not switch her thoughts off this man, in whom, she realised with a sort of impatience, she was more than ordinarily interested. He piqued her curiosity.
Oddly, the ugly fact which she had learned concerning him had not repelled her so much as deepened her sympathy. She wondered about him; wondered what his life had been, what had made him, still a young man, derelict and at enmity with his fellows. He had possibly suffered a great sorrow, she decided; and, womanlike, longed to know the nature of the tragedy which had spoilt his life.
That his weakness awoke pity and not repugnance in her, filled her with a vague surprise. She knew that in another man she would have considered the weakness contemptible. Why should she except this man from censure in her thoughts when she would have held another unworthy for the same failing? A person who drank to excess had always seemed horrible to her. She would have shrunk in fear from a drunken man. But she felt no shrinking from this man: she felt an almost motherly tenderness for him. She would have liked to help him—with sympathy, with her friendship; and the only kindness she could do him was to humour his misanthropy and leave him to himself.
When she passed him again on her return at the tea hour she took no notice of him, but walked along the stoep with an air of not seeing him, and yet with a mind so intent on him that a consciousness of this penetrated his understanding, possibly because he in his turn was thinking about her with a curiosity equal to her own, with an interest which surpassed hers.
He followed her with his glance until she reached the open window of the dining-room and disappeared within. He did not move. Tea was a meal he never attended; he did not drink tea. When Esmé came out again on to the stoep his chair was empty.