And here was a dark woman with arms strangling his neck ... overwhelming him in a tide of words ... pleading, pleading that when he went to Spain, she might not be left behind. Pleading, as one pleads who for two solitary hours has been in desperate battle with the spectre of an old dread.
"I won't stay here—I won't. Napier, you promised, if ever you went South.... You said: 'One day we'll go together.' And this is 'one day,' isn't it? isn't it? Let me see you race and win. Take me along. Napier, you promised ... and I love you.... I won't face the grey days, and the white days, and the thick yellow days. You were so long coming this evening ... and it was cold and dark—my hands are numb with cold.... A hateful ballad-singer started croaking outside: 'Failin' leaf and fadin' tree——'.... She did, Napier, she did! and I couldn't bear it.... I wanted to kill her. Take me with you to Spain ... to see you win!"
For through all her stammering anguish was sufficient acumen left to strike again and again that final note, as the surest means of reaching his ear.
He bent back her head, so that her mouth lay beneath his. And she felt rather than saw his smile ... evil flash of smile, white in a dusky face....
("Dear old Nap, it would bore me stiff; I hate travelling.")
"Yes. You shall come with me," he assured Kathleen softly.
Kathleen was afire with excitement when that evening she alighted from the Hammersmith omnibus. Over and done with now, the strain and pretence and irritation of life with Gareth. Humdrum day succeeding day; monotony that his futile comings and goings were powerless to dispel. Panic-peopled realms of thought: winter-fear, birthday-dread—realm that she could not even claim as solely hers, since instinctively he was familiar with every shape therein—all over and done with. Warm land, warm love; her old tormented nature cast like the garment of a snake. In ten days' time. Morality, humour, common sense, stubbornly thrust under, lest they should reveal flaws and dangers in this glory of the future towards which doggedly she thrust her indomitable will. Nine more evenings to walk up that hideous front garden, to unlock that blistered door, look in the dining-room to see if Gareth were still up—her lip curved scornfully at the reflection that never once had he betrayed sufficient intelligence to note her altered demeanour.
She opened the dining-room door. The lamp was smoking badly. She attempted with smarting eyes to pierce the fog.
Gareth was sitting at the table, his head propped on his hands; staring, staring straight in front of him, with the look of a man to whom has just happened the worst thing of all. Before him in a pile stood the usual array of brown-paper-bound manuscripts which he brought back from the office; one lay strewn on the floor, white patches on the dingy carpet. Somebody must have thrown it there.