She saw that she was defeated, entirely and completely. She cried to the Powers:
"You've refused me what I ask. I go my own way, then."
She got up, kissed him on the forehead and said: "I daresay you're right, Falk. Forget what I've said. I didn't mean most of it. Good-night, dear."
She went out, quietly closing the door behind her.
Falk did not sleep at all that night. This was only one of many sleepless nights, but it was the worst of them. The night was warm, and a faint dim colour lingered behind the treetops of the garden beyond his open window. First he lay under the clothes, then upon the top of his bed, then stripped, plunging his head into a basin of water, then naked save for his soft bedroom slippers, paced his room...His head was a flaming fire. The pale light seemed for an instant to vanish, and the world was dark and silent. Then, at the striking of the Cathedral clock, as though it were a signal upon some stage, the light slowly crept back again, growing ever stronger and stronger. The birds began to twitter; a cock crew. A bar of golden light broken by the squares and patterns of the dark trees struck the air.
The shock of his mother's announcement had been terrific. It was not only the surprise of it, it was the sudden light that it flung upon his own case. He had gone, during these last weeks, so far with Annie Hogg that it was hard indeed to see how there could be any stepping back. They had achieved a strange relationship together: one not of comradeship, nor of lust, nor of desire, nor of affection, having a little of all these things but not much of any of them, and finally resembling the case of two strangers, shipwrecked, hanging on to a floating spar of wood that might bring them into safety.
She was miserable; he was miserable; whether she cared for him he could not tell, nor whether he cared for her. The excitement that she created in him was intense, all-devouring, but it was not an excitement of lust. He had never done more than kiss her, and he was quite ready that it should remain so. He intended, perhaps, to marry her, but of that he could not be sure.
But he could not leave her; he could not keep away from her although he was seldom happy when he was with her. Slowly, gradually, through their meetings there had grown a bond. He was more naturally himself with her than with any other human being. Although she excited him she also tranquillised him. Increasingly he admired and respected her--her honesty, independence, reserve, pride. Perhaps it was upon that that their alliance was really based--upon mutual respect and admiration. There had been never, from the very first moment, any deception between them. He had never been so honest with any one before--certainly not with himself. His desire, beyond everything else in life, was to be honest: to pretend to no emotion that he did not truly feel, to see exactly how he felt about life, and to stand up before it unafraid and uncowed. Honesty seemed to him the greatest quality in life; that was why he had been attracted to Ronder. And yet life seemed to be for ever driving him into false positions. Even now he was contemplating running away with this girl. Until to-night he had fancied that he was only contemplating it, but his conversation with his mother had shown him how near he was to a decision. Nevertheless, he would talk to Ronder and to his father, not, of course, telling them everything, but catching perhaps from them some advice that would seem to him so true that it would guide him.
Finally, when the gold bar appeared behind the trees he forced himself into honesty with his father. How could he have meant so sincerely that his mother must not hurt his father when he himself was about to hurt him?
And this discovery had not lessened his determination to take the step. Was he, then, utterly hypocritical? He knew he was not.