“You’re not going now, sir? They are waiting for these certificates.”
“Let them wait.”
“What shall I say when they call for them?”
“Anything you like. Ask them what it means.”
Up and down the money canyon people moved with absent gestures, some in haste, some running, some loitering, all with one look in their eyes. Bulls were bellowing on the Stock Exchange. Steel shares were rising. Sabath was in his highest form. To the strumming of his lyre men of all shapes and conditions turned from their ways and came hither and wildly importuned brokers to exchange their money for bits of paper believed to represent steel mills they had never seen, would never see, had never heard of before. What did it mean?
As John gazed at the scene it became unreal and detached. He was alone, as one is in some dreams, there and not there, somehow concerned in the action but invisible to the actors and to oneself. It was like a dream of anxiety, full of confusion and grotesque matter.
He was lonely and very wretched and accused Agnes. He would accuse her to her face. That was what he was on his way to do, perhaps because there was no other excuse for seeing her in the middle of the day. He would tell her how selfish and unreasonable she was. They were two solitary beings in one world together. Their hours were running away. He loved her. He had always loved her. And at least she loved nobody else. Then why should they not join their lives?
Three times he had asked her that question. Each time she had said: “Let’s go on being friends. That’s very nice, isn’t it?”
A year had passed since the last time. He had watched for some sign of change. But she was always the same, except that after having been gently though firmly unwilling to say either yes or no she seemed to come nearer in friendship and baffled him all the more. If she had any feeling for him whatever beyond friendship he had been unable to detect or surprise it, and fate would bear witness that the possibility was one he had stalked with all patience and subtlety. In fact, he really believed that if he pressed her to the point she would say no,—that she had not said it already only because she hated to hurt him. This notion tormented him exceedingly. It would be a relief to know.
She had been for some weeks in town, at the Savoy, where he detained her on the pretext that her presence was necessary in her own interest. It was only a little past twelve when he arrived there and called her on the telephone, from the desk, asking her down to lunch. She was surprised and pleased and answered him in a voice that had a ring of youth.