Something in the boy’s tone thrilled René and he felt a pang, a sudden, painful knowledge that he loved Kurt, and, when he was left alone, Kurt’s clothes having dried first, he was faintly uneasy, half wondering, yet not admitting the doubt to himself, whether he had really loved anybody else. Then he told himself that it was only because Kurt had treated him with his boy’s frankness, and because he had not with anybody else been brought face to face with anything so terrible as death. And then he found himself in a brief dream asking if life also was not terrible, and love? And if——? But such thoughts he refused to think. Into his brooding happiness had come a new zest, and he would not waste one moment of it upon doubt, philosophic or particular.
They returned to Thrigsby by train, and René found himself committed to a lie about the accident. If the truth came out, said Kurt, his mother would not allow him to have that car.
What was there in common, thought René, between Linda and Kurt? She had not his frankness. (He was frank even in his lying.) She was subtle, given to theory. Her brother had, cut and dried, not so much a theory as a program. With Kurt René had had a robust pleasure which he had never enjoyed with Linda, and it was so far above all other pleasures that he took it for the goal to aim at, the prize to be won, when he should have broken down the barrier of sex and overcome her taste for teasing, and put an end to all those irritations which he ascribed to their ridiculous position as engaged persons, irritations that even in her letters pricked and stung him. He was slow to come by a thought, and when he possessed one always insisted upon its relevance to existence, while she seemed most to revel in ideas when they were most irrelevant. In their correspondence, her letters grew longer as the months passed. (After his success she had assumed “intellect” in him.) His letters became more precise and brief. He had no doubt of her. She had taken the place of the examination as the next stage in being, beyond which would lie, to borrow her phrase, the “real, real life.”
So eagerly did he look forward to that illumination that things and people had lost their interest for him. The question of income was settled; the problem of his father and mother engaged him no more. They had suddenly become old to him, settled, left to grope along with their own affairs and difficulties. This made life at 166 easier. He had stood between his father and mother, and had now removed himself. His mother was more free in her chatter, his father less strained and more jovial in his talk. René had told them of his engagement and of Linda’s wealth, and this, coupled with his success, had made them acquiesce in his translation to a superior sphere and even take some pride in it. For a short while he had qualms on seeing his mother let him go so lightly, but he faced the fact and did not let it obtrude upon his dreams of graciousness and freedom.
All these events had delivered him for the first enjoyment of his youth, and his thoughts were like bees in a flowering lime-tree. They were disturbed by nothing but Linda’s letters. The more she teased and flattered his “intellect,” the more he dwelt upon the future when the teasing and the flattery would have ceased, and his warm satisfaction would be invigorated by the zestful sharing of married life. He made no plans and hardly considered those she threw out. She had ambitions for him. They were too fantastic to be noticed.
A silence of three weeks alarmed him. She broke it with the announcement of her return, and the expression of her desire to be married at once, and a request that he would meet her in London, for she was crossing by Flushing.
It was early spring. He obtained a day’s leave of absence from school, and met her at Fenchurch Street. He saw no more of London than was to be seen as a background to her profile as they drove to Euston. She was different from the image he had formed of her during her absence, smaller, even prettier, more vivacious and effective. They kissed when they met, rather to his astonishment, for he had not the least desire to kiss her but only to consider her. She began to talk at once:
“It has done wonders for you. You look so much more confident and bigger. Your success I mean. And you really are distinguished-looking. How do you like your work?”
“I do it without—— No, I haven’t thought about it.”
“I wanted them to take you into the business—Brock and M’Elroy, you know. But old Mr. M’Elroy wouldn’t hear of it. They wanted me to marry Jack M’Elroy. Perhaps I should have done it if I hadn’t met you.”