They returned. "Something of Bizet's. He was French, Lucy. French or a Spaniard.... Fancy Amy Norris—lost her looks, poor dear. Ah! I shall like this. Better than that German."
Lucy heard no more music. Her heart beat in her throat, choking it. Life had rushed towards her and filled her, or was it that she had entered into life? She did not know. She only felt intensely proud, like a queen entering her capital for the first time.... The concert was over. Her aunt was a long time putting on her cloak; people stood in their way, stupid, heavy, idiotic people. When they came into the hall he was not there.... Yes ... he was close to them. For a moment, in the thick crowd, he caught her hand. At the touch of his fingers, rough and strong, upon hers, she seemed to soar above the crowd and to look down upon them all with scornful happiness. He said something that she could not catch, and then Aunt Comstock had hatefully enveloped her. They were in a taxi, and all the world that had been roaring around her was suddenly hushed. They reached Hortons. Lucy drank her hot milk. Her aunt said:
"I do hope you enjoyed your concert, darling.... The Bizet was best."
She had undressed, and was lying on her bed, flat on her back, staring up at the white ceiling, upon whose surface circles, flung from the lights beyond the window, ran and quivered. She watched the circles, but she was not thinking at all. She seemed to be lapped about by a sea of warm happiness. She floated on this; she neither slept nor thought. Early in the morning she sank into dreamless slumber.
She came down to breakfast tired with happy weariness. She found Simon Laud waiting for her. She stared at him at first as though she had never seen him before. He was not looking his best. He explained that he had caught the night train at York. He was afraid that he had not shaved nor washed, but that Mrs. Comstock had kindly said: "Have your breakfast first ... with us. Lucy has just been longing for you."
Lucy took all this in at last. She saw the bright little room with the sun pouring in, the breakfast things with the silver tea-pot and the porridge, and Aunt Comstock in her pink tea-gown. She saw these things, and then Simon Laud took a step towards her.
"Dear Lucy!" he said. That step showed her that there was no time to be lost. Simon Laud must never touch her again. Never!
"Simon, I wasn't expecting you. But it's just as well, really. It will get it over more quickly. I must tell you at once that I can't marry you!"
Her first feeling after her little speech, which seemed in a strange way not to have been made by herself at all, was that it was a great shame to say such a thing to him when he was looking so dirty and so unwashed. She broke out with a little cry:
"Oh, Simon, I'm sorry!"