"I'd rather come to Puffer's," she managed to shout.
"Well?"
"I can't."
Harry turned away grimly, staring at an advertisement. Their wills were in conflict. Patricia's eyes closed. Her brain was full of tormenting thoughts. He was cruel. Then, no ... it was she who had been.... Uncontrollably, her hand swiftly moved, and was tucked lightly between his arm and his body. Harry's hand came as swiftly to press hers, and although the two hands drew apart again Patricia's remained within the crook of his elbow for the rest of the short journey.
iv
By the time they reached South Kensington station the rain had ceased. Big clouds were passing overhead at high speed, and the wind remained fierce. Somehow it appeared to Patricia that when one had looked upwards and seen the clouds, and behind them that lighter darkness the sky, all that stood upon the surface of the earth was dwarfed. The people, the lamps, the trees, the houses, were all shrunk to insignificance, as the pain and bewilderment of poor humans must seem to those steady eyes of pity, the stars. She could not see any stars, but the gusts of wind made for the impression of great spaces, and presently the few trees by the side of the road, and the dark houses which lay beyond, took on the air of a mysterious wood. She felt that she and Harry were wandering alone in a wood at night, beneath the stars, listening to the endless torment of the anguished leaves; and all her love of beauty made her heart soft, so that she was moved beyond tears, and wished only to rest her head and prolong the ecstatic moment.
But she could not speak to Harry. She could have taken his hand and walked onward in silence; but that was impossible, because this vision that she had was unsubstantial, and Harry, whose laughter was so delightful, would not understand anything that was so intangible, so unrelated to his normal life. She was conscious in him of a thick stream of emotion, of the power of serious preoccupation with sensual things, amounting to obsession; and sometimes she had that same thickness of emotion when she was with him or longing for him, but never with obsession;—always with a shyness, a flying away, as of some will o' the wisp. But she more often had only a light playing of fancy, which made love a beautiful game; and now she had only a childish desire for happiness and mystical beauty. This her instinct told her was not shared. If Harry laughed, it was because there were whole realms of which he knew nothing. She had a swift certainty; there was no poetry in his nature. He was all the time absorbed in the tangible. Oh! What treason! She would not allow such thoughts. They were wicked, unjust, treacherous.... How the wind thrust and blustered among the trees! She could feel it upon her face and in her hair, and in her eyes. Harry said:
"Your friend Amy Roberts has been making a fool of herself."
Patricia, withdrawn from her wonderings by so incongruous a speech, could hardly understand him for a moment. Amy ... Amy.... It was an instant before she could bring herself to recognition.