He picked up his book again.
Next morning Henry asked for leave to go up to London for two days. He had been possessed, driven, tormented during the last week by thoughts of Christina, and in some mysterious way his talk with Duncombe in the garden had accentuated his longing. All that he wanted was to see her, to assure himself that she was not, as she always seemed to him when he was away from her, a figure in a dream, something imagined by him, more lovely, more perfect than anything he could read of or conceive, and yet belonging to the world of poetry, of his own imagined fictions, of intangible and evasive desires.
It was always this impulse that drove him back to her, the impulse to make sure that she was of flesh and blood even though, as he was now beginning to realize, that same form and body were never destined to be his.
He had other reasons for going. Books in the library of the London house had to be consulted, and Millie would now be in Cromwell Road again. Duncombe at once gave him permission.
Going up in the train, staring out of the window, Henry tried to bring his thoughts into some sort of definite order. He was always trying to do this, plunging his hands into a tangle, breaking through here, pulling others straight, trying to find a pattern that would give it all a real symmetry. The day suited his thoughts. The beautiful afternoon of yesterday had been perhaps the last smile of a none too generous summer. To-day autumn was in the air, mists curled up from the fields, clouds hung low against a pale watery blue, leaves were turning red once again, slowly falling through the mist with little gestures of dismay. What he wanted, he felt, thinking of Christina, of Duncombe, of Millie, of his work, of his mother, lying without motion in that sombre house, of his own muddle of generosities and selfishness and tempers and gratitudes, was not so much to find a purpose in it all (that was perhaps too ambitious), but simply to separate one side of life from the other.
He saw them continually crossing, these two sides, not only in his own life, but in every other. One was the side of daily life, of his work for Duncombe, of money and business and Mr. King's bills, and stomach-ache and having a good night's sleep, and what the Allies were going to do about Vienna, and whether the Bolsheviks would attack Poland next spring or no. Millie and Peter both belonged to this world and the Three Graces, and the trouble that he had to keep his clothes tidy, and whether any one yet had invented sock-suspenders that didn't fall down in a public place and yet didn't give you varicose veins—and if not why not.
The other world could lightly be termed the world of the Imagination, and yet it was so much more, so much more than that. Christina belonged to it absolutely, and so did her horrible mother and the horrible old man Mr. Leishman. So did his silly story at Chapter XV., so did the old Duncombe letters, so did the place Duncombe, so did Piccadilly Circus in certain moods, and the whole of London on certain days. So did many dreams that he had (and he did not want Mr. Freud, thank you, to explain them away for him), so did all his thoughts of Garth-in-Roselands and Glebeshire, so did the books of Galleon and Hans Andersen, and the author of Lord Jim, and la Motte, Fouqué, and nearly all poetry; so did the voice of a Danish singer whom he had heard one chance evening at a Queen's Hall Concert, and several second-hand bookshops that he knew, and many, many other things, moments, emotions that thronged the world. You could say that he was simply gathering his emotions together and packing them away and calling them in the mass this separate world. But it was not so. There were many emotions, many people whom he loved, many desires, ambitions, possessions that did not belong to this world. And Millie, for instance, complete and vital though she was, with plenty of imagination, did not know that this world existed. Could he only find a clue to it how happy he would be! One moment would be enough. If for one single instant the heavens would open and he could see and could say then: "By this moment of vision I will live for ever! I know now that this other world exists and is external, and that one day I shall enter into it completely." He fancied—indeed he liked to fancy—that his adventure with Christina would, before it closed, offer him this vision. Meanwhile his state was that of a man shut into a room with the blinds down, the doors locked, but hearing beyond the wall sounds that came again and again to assure him that he would not always be in that room—and shadows moved behind the blind.
Meanwhile on both worlds one must keep one's hand. One must be practical and efficient and sensible—oh yes (one's dreams must not interfere. But one's dreams, nevertheless, were the important thing).
"Would you mind," the voice broke through like a stone smashing a pane of glass. "But your boot is——"