For all her talk Ann could not break in upon René’s silence, and his eyes would implore her to cease, yet she could not cease. She went on and on talking, for she dreaded his silence as she dreaded his solemnity. They made life heavy and evil for her. If a man was unhappy, there were plenty of distractions and consolations. Everybody was unhappy at times, but no one in his senses clung to his unhappiness the way Renny did. It was an exasperation to her to have him like this—“mooning and dithering to himself”—because he had been so much more complacent and docile than she had expected. She had looked for trouble, but he had slipped into her ways, and shared her pleasures with an astonishing ease and grace, so much so that she had had the mortification of hearing two women in the mews arguing about him:
“Garn! ’E ain’t no scholard.”
“’Struth. ’E’s a college gent.”
“’Im! They might come to see a working girl, but they wouldn’t take up with ’er.”
The trouble she had looked for should have been between herself and him, and she was prepared to tackle it so soon as it showed its head, but this trouble he kept to himself, outside her. And though she called it unhappiness, she knew well enough that he was not unhappy.
Indeed, it was a joy to him to find himself more and more alive to the world, the little, grubby, amusing corner of it in Mitcham Mews, and the great roaring whirlpool outside in which lay his work. His pleasure in London was no longer purely emotional; no longer did he, as it were, implore London to let him be a part of it. He was working in it, contributing to its life, to its bustle and noise; but since his talks with Kilner and his reading of the poetical works of the old ragamuffin, he had been able little by little to detach himself from it and watch all that was going on. Truly there was never a more amusing city! Everything was on show. Everybody had the air of expecting to be looked at and admired; though everybody pretended also that he or she had no such expectation. When provincials arrived in London they seemed to feel all this and to wince before it, but soon they perked up their heads and behaved as though all eyes were upon them. And they went to the show-places, those of which there had been talk in their homes from their earliest recollection. But everything else also was a show to them. More and more the shops tended to become shows. Government offices were being pulled down and rebuilt to make more show. Exalted personages were bent on making a show of their common humanity. Even in the city, the offices in which Londoners worked—the counting-house behind the shop—were being razed to the ground to give place to colossal palaces of ferro-concrete and marble and plate-glass. Motor-cars were growing more and more garish and glossy; the advertisements on the hoardings were more and more crudely colored. For whom was the show? For whom was all the outpouring and display of wealth? Hardly, thought René, for Mitcham Mews, that sink of the submerged and those who could only just hold their heads above water. He thought he could find the answer in the miles and miles of little houses like the house in Hog Lane, six rooms, attics, and cellars, constantly stretching out to the west and to the east; the unceasing expansion of mediocrity, a flooring of concrete, warranted fireproof, to keep the fantastic creations of wealth uncontaminated by the sources from which wealth sprang.
These were no general speculations. As he detached himself from the spectacle of London, and observed and brought humor and charity to bear on his observations, it became more and more clear to him that in this fantastic atmosphere he could not live. He was conscious of energy within himself. Upward from Mitcham Mews led to the mediocrity of the little houses, to those who lived in the dazzlement of the shows, forgetting life, forgetting death. Downward? There was no downward without sinking into the disgusting vices which repelled him. Beyond the mediocrity was only the show where everything was sterilized, thought castrated, art hermaphrodite. (Kilner knew too much of that.) At the same time, he felt that his present mode of life could not go on much longer. There would certainly be a move from Mitcham Mews, but he wanted it also to be a decision, not a mere change of houses.
Ann returned to her idea of trying a new country, and for a time he played with the idea. It had its seductions. The long voyage: the indolent life on board ship; the possibility as they slipped away from existence in England of shedding those elements in themselves which prevented the full sympathy desired by their affection; the settling in a country where class differences were not so acute. But, he felt rather than saw, that would mean isolation with Ann, and his feeling was against it. When she tried to discuss it with him, to get him to consider the respective merits of Canada or Australia, he was evasive in his replies and soon forced her to drop it. She would show a little disappointment, but would reassure herself by saying:
“There’s no place like old England,” or: “Sally Wade’s in Canada, and she does miss dear old London.”
He was so absorbed in his thoughts and his growing certainty that he did not notice how few of his evenings he spent with her. Because she was cheerful, he imagined that she must be finding her own amusement and satisfaction. He saw a great deal of Kilner, and when the painter was otherwise engaged, liked to be out in the streets on duty. Without knowing why, he had begun to desire to save money. Every shilling put by added to his sense of independence and potential freedom. He had commenced with a money-box, but finding Ann one day shaking coins out of it, he opened an account with the Post Office Savings Bank. He said nothing to her at the moment and was angry with himself for letting it pass, but it was impossible to reopen the subject later. He told himself that Mitcham Mews was no harbor of strict morals, that its inhabitants did more or less what they wanted to do, and therefore made it enjoyable for him to live among them. (That was the reason Kilner had given him for living among the very poor. They had the same liberty as the very rich, with none of their pretensions or false responsibilities.) He had dismissed the matter from his mind when it was brought home to him one night on his returning late from work.