When he came to the house, René found it empty. He was disappointed with its aspect. It was very like the Brocks’ house in Galt’s Park, must have been built about the same time; stucco with absurd Gothic windows; a square porch, rooms on either side of it. He was disappointed, for he had thought of the Bentleys living in a region remote and inaccessible, beyond anything he had ever known or could know. He remembered the agent’s description of his own house—“an eminently desirable family residence.” This house bore almost the same recommendation. The fantastic London that he had shaped in his mind began to fall away. It had something in common with Thrigsby, was connected with it by something more than the deep sleep in which he had been borne hither. He felt rather foolish standing there by the empty house, and saw with dismay how much more foolish he would have been if the house had been occupied and the Bentleys accessible. He had a sick fear as he saw how irresponsibly he had acted, and how separate his impulse had been from his will.
“All the same,” he said, “it is done. It is done. I thought I should always know what would happen to me, but this I did not know. It makes it easy for Linda. The Smallmans will help her to see how badly I have behaved. They will like saying it and explaining to all their friends. They will talk about all they did for me. I never wanted them to do anything. I never wanted— If I had been like George and gone into business? But I could not have stood that, either. It would have been over sooner. Other people stand things, worse things, too. Oh, well—I can’t.”
It gave him no pleasure to think that he was different from other people. Rather the reverse; it brought an acute pang of something like shame. He moved on. He lost himself in the polite streets of Putney with their little gardens, but came at last to another bridge. The sun was setting, and he stood and watched it weave a changing tapestry on the sky.
“So the days go,” he said. “I think I never noticed a day go before. There must have been something very wrong with me.”
That lightened his heart. To have confessed his failure was already in some sort to justify it, and though the cloud upon his mind had grown darker, he was sensible of a release of feeling. He could breathe again. He was no longer the cramped, huddled creature that he had been all day. He could rejoice as the sky grew dark and the stars came out and the glow of the great city went up into the sky. There were patches in the sky so lurid that they filled him with alarm that they must mean fire. He moved toward one of those lurid patches and found himself presently in a narrow thoroughfare crowded with men and women, youths and maidens. The street was streaked with light and darkness. Cheap bazaars were thronged; shops filled with automatic machines of entertainment were garishly lit; there were butchers’ and greengrocers’ shops open to the air, blazing with color under electric and naphtha lamps; there were stalls in the road, barrows of artificial flowers; white kinematograph houses; terra-cotta music-halls and theaters; crimson-tiled and green-brick public-houses; swarms of human beings, talking, laughing, singing, the laughter of excited girls. He shrank within himself from the harsh vitality of it all. He was filled with a dread of calling down some of the laughter upon himself. The road grew narrower, the wheeled traffic more congested; the yellow and red trams seemed to fill the street. Motor-cars, trams, carts, all moved slowly and cautiously. A little girl started to move across the road, her eyes fixed on someone or something she had seen on the other side. Another step and she would be under a motor-car. René moved to save her. At the same moment, from the other side, he saw a young woman dart out, catch the child up, fling her back, and rush on in her own impetus. She slipped in the tramline, and almost fell just within his reach. He caught her arm, pulled her up, and dragged both her and the child back to his own side of the road. The traffic moved on and no one seemed to have seen what had happened. The child saw her opportunity and dashed over in safety, leaving René and the young woman together.
“A near thing that,” said he.
“I think I’ve hurt my foot. I slipped on the tramline. They do stick up just here.”
“Can you walk?”
She tried, but twisted up her face with the pain of it.
“O-o-oh! Crimes! Let me hold on to you.”