“I know the meaning of this: Maggie will be there—a reconciliation! Can I?” He turned his ear quickly from his conscience; he was frightened of the voice that would tell him that Maggie was nothing to him, never had been, never could be; that he had been born for Lizzie Baker, as the soldier is for the sword or the bullet that kills him; others had passed him, had been heard sharply, had gleamed dangerously in his eyes. They were but signs and omens meant for others, not for him, and they had passed. But this one had remained, though often lost, as that remains which is to be, and she was now no less for him than before, though now seemingly lost irrevocably to another; and in all the seeming of irrevocable loss was drawing nearer—not with the victory and destiny of old in her eyes, but with no less victory and destiny inherent in her. Though far from him, she had been for long a disintegrated influence, but what had been distant was now near, and all was yielding like a ship in the attraction of the fabulous loadstone mountain. That room!—the wash-hand-stand, the dirty panes of glass, the iron bed-there his fate had been sealed. That body which he had lifted out of bed still lay heavy in his arms. He still breathed the odour of the hair he had gathered from the pillow and striven to pin up; those eyes of limpid blue, pale as water where isles are sleeping, burned deep and livid in his soul; the touch and sight of that flesh, the sound of that voice, those tears, the solicitude and anxiety of those hours of night and day conspired against him, and his life was big with incipient overthrow.
Lizzie was with him at all times. He saw her eyes, then her teeth, and the perfume and touch of her hair was often about him; and yet he was hardly conscious that a revolution of feeling was in progress within him; and when the time came for him to go to Horlock's he went there avoiding all thoughts of Maggie, although he knew he would be called upon that night to take a decisive step. He saw little of her before dinner, and during dinner the General's allusions to the quarrels of lovers being the renewal of love vexed him, and he thought, “Confound it! If I want to make it up I will; but I am not going to be bullied into it.” When the ladies left the room he found it difficult to pretend to the kind-hearted old soldier that he did not believe that Maggie would forgive him. “Forgive me for what? I have done nothing.”
“To get on with women you must always admit you are in the wrong—ha, ha, ha!” laughed the General; “now I have it from my wife—women know everything—ha, ha, ha!” laughed the General. “Have another glass of sherry?”
“No, thanks; couldn't take any more.”
“I took I won't tell you how many glasses before I proposed to my wife, and then I was afraid; enough to make me—a clever woman like Mrs. Horlock, I believe you wouldn't find a woman in England like Mrs. Horlock. Look round; all that's her work. Look at that white Arab—exactly like him. I won five hundred pounds with that horse; but I wouldn't be satisfied, and I ran him again the following day and lost it all and five hundred more with it. I had another horse. My wife is modelling him in wax; she will show it to you in the next room. Marvellous woman!”
Passing Maggie by who was sitting in the window, Frank inveigled Mrs. Horlock into an anatomical discussion. The General stretched out his feet, put on his spectacles, and took up the St James's. The conversation dropped, and, full of apprehension and expecting reconciliation, Frank went to Maggie and talked to her of the tennis parties he was going to, of the people he had seen—of indifferent things. The time was tense with the fate of their lives. Once she turned her head and sighed. Time slipped by, and still they talked of their friends—of things they knew perfectly. Maggie said: “I hope you are not angry; I hope we shall remain friends.” Frank replied: “I hope so,” and again the conversation paused. The General denounced Gladstone, and praised his wife's sculpture. Ten o'clock! Angel was lifted out of his basket. If Maggie had been Helen and Southwick Troy, he would not be kept waiting; the dogs had to be taken out; Willy came to fetch Maggie; hands were tendered, lips said good-bye, and, with a sense of parting, they parted.
Feeling adrift and strangely alone, he walked to his lodging. His future loomed up in his mind as vague and as illusive as the village that now glared through the mist, white and phantasmal. He did not regret—we can hardly regret the impossible. Then, falling back on a piece of prose, he said: “Where was the good? Mount Rorke would never have given his consent. Poor Lizzie; I hope she is better. I hope it has broken. She won't get any relief until it does.”
And next day, towards evening, he went to Brighton. He found her shrinking over the fire, wrapped in a woollen shawl.
“How are you to-day? You look a little better. I did not expect to find you out of bed.”
“I am better, thank you; it broke yesterday, and I feel relieved. You are very good. I think I should have died if it had not been for you. Think of that landlady leaving me in the way she did.”