“Why, do you know, you foolish little girl,” he began, in a hoarse, declamatory voice, “that a few minutes before you came along, there on the bridge, I was going to throw myself into the river, because I wasn’t fit to live. Do you realize that I had sat in judgment upon myself, and condemned myself to death—death, mind you!—because I was an utterly hopeless creature, a waste product, a drunkard, a sterile fool and loafer, a veritable human swine? That is the truth! Do you know where I spent last night—where I woke up, sick with disgust for myself, this morning? No, you don’t; and there’s no need that I should tell you.”
“I don’t care!” The girl’s lips propelled the words forth with extraordinary swiftness, but the eyes with which she regarded her companion, and the rest of her face, grown pale once more, remained unmoved.
“No, you don’t care!” he groaned out a long sigh, and went on with waning vigour. “But I care! It is something to one that I am what I am; that I have wasted my life, that I have done nothing, and worse than nothing, with my chances, that I——”
“You misunderstand me,” Vestalia interposed, with a perturbed simulation of calm. “What I meant was that whatever happened last—that is, at any time before this morning—makes no difference whatever in my—my liking for you.” Her eyes brightened at the thought of something. “It was you yourself who said we would wipe the slate clean, and begin all over again quite fresh. Don’t you remember? And we were to have our own fairy story, all to ourselves. You do remember, don’t you?”
He still breathed heavily, but the gloom upon his face began to abate as he looked at her. He moved one of his hands forward on the table to the neighbourhood of hers, and stroked the cloth gently as if it were her hand he touched. A weary smile, born in his eyes, strengthened and spread to soften his whole countenance.
“Yes, I remember everything,” he mused, with a kind of forlorn gladness in his tone. It seemed an invitation to silence, and they sat without words for a little.
With a constrained air of having convinced herself by argument that it was the right thing to do, Vestalia all at once lifted her hand, and laid it lightly on his. He fancied that it trembled a little. His own certainly shook, though he pressed it firmly upon the table.
“Now the bad spirits have all gone,” he said; “it is fairyland again.”
“Ah, we must keep it so,” she answered, and pressed his hand softly before she withdrew her own. The black mood had fled from him as swiftly as it came. Vestalia’s eyes beamed at the sight of his restored good-humour with himself, and she nodded gay approbation.
“I fancy we’ve about exhausted the delights of this place,” he remarked, after a brief silence filled for both of them with a pleasantly sufficient sense of friendship at its ease. “I’ll pay the bill, and we’ll toddle.”