And Satan’s smile had faded. There is more joy amongst the devils over one sinner who back-slideth.... But not this time, Mephistopheles! Effie was winning still.
CHAPTER XXII—THE OLD CAMPAIGNER
EFFIE and Sam knew that they ought to be happy in the weeks which followed, because to be good is, theoretically, to be happy: but they were not happy. Sam, indeed, was less unhappy than Effie because he had sunk into one of those leaden, numbed moods of his which he knew of old as the stage preliminary to his brightest inspirations, and he could wait resignedly if not happily for the inspiration to emerge.
Decidedly, he thought, he needed inspiration, He had to discover Ada, to search for her reality, and, having found it, to drag it out and set it in the forefront of her being. A big task: one whose success he must not jeopardize again by rushing at her prematurely without distinct plan. He had only made her suspicious of him by his first impulsive attempt, and time must undo the mischief before a return to the attack was either discreet or opportune.
He waited, but he did not savour life. When he had quickened Ada, life would, no doubt, be worth the living, but, meantime, it dragged. He told himself that he was too young yet at this new business of giving to feel the joy of it. Certainly, he was not joyful, but he was resolute. There was a grim tightening of the lips and a dogged look in the eyes which proclaimed that this was Samuel, the son of Anne. In this mood he could eat Dead Sea apples and feel they were a proper diet. Politics had gone, and with them any interest in the Council. And he did not know what to do about his business. He wanted to ask Effie, and Effie was not there to be asked.
It was not that she did not want to be there or that she did not suffer for her absence. Effie was not numb, and she suffered keenly, but she thought her absence strengthened Sam. When he came down from Hartle Pike with his resolution formed she took it that her scheme, as she had planned it, was complete and that she could forget her weak concession to return to the office. She was to be there in spirit, and spirit is strong though flesh is weak. Effie at the office in the flesh would have wanted to hug Sam and to kiss him, things which it is unbefitting to do in well-conducted offices. And, of course, she suffered. She had always known that she would suffer, but not that it would be as bad as this.
The office was a temptation every day: to go there was to be with him, it was to find alleviation for her fever, it was to be at peace: but it was also to fling away hard-won success, and she resisted. That resistance engrossed her. It was all that she was capable of doing; it demanded all her strength.
The obvious, the practical thing, if she was not to go to Sam’s office, was to go to someone else’s, to work, both as an antidote and as a means of livelihood, and she could not rouse herself to do it. She pawned some of the jewellery which remained to her, memorials of her father’s lavish past, sent the weekly dole to her mother and lived upon the rest. She had sunk to this, Effie the crusader, Effie the advocate of courage! With Mélisande, she told herself she was not happy. She was not happy, she was not well, and she wanted, wanted Sam. She stayed at home lest she should go to him and ruin all that she had done. It could not last and she knew it could not last, but neither did she see the end of it.