As she walked back to the counter Mr. Hobbs said: “Did you know what the gentleman wanted?”
“Yes,” she replied fiercely, triumphantly, contemptuously. He stared at her. He did not know that a change had passed swiftly over her. He did not know that the sound of a man’s voice spoken over fifty miles had swept her out of the calm seas into the wind and rain and storm. He did not know that once again she was in deep and troubled waters, fighting for life and a sure footing. He thought his invitation had offended her. He made haste to apologize.
“I hope,” he began, “you didn’t mind me asking you to Box——”
“I’m afraid,” she replied impatiently, “I can’t come ... I’ve ... I’ve another engagement....”
And he went away into the gramophone department....
§ 3
The knowledge that Verreker was in England, within approachable distance of her, gave her a strange, complicated mixture of pleasure and annoyance. Deep down in her heart she knew that to see him again would be as a breath of life after ages of dim existence. Yet she was annoyed, because she had grown to be satisfied with the dull, drab routine of her days: she had built up a new, and on the whole satisfactory scheme of existence on the supposition that she should never see him again. She did not want to see him again. She did not want to have anything to do with him. And yet she knew that some day either circumstances or her own initiative would bring her face to face with him once more.... She knew that his place in her life had not achieved finality, that there was more to say and to hear, and great decisions to be made.
Secretly she knew that some day, when the impulse seized her, she would go to visit him at Barhanger. But with amazing credulity she told herself: Of course I shall never go to see him. If he cares to ask me I will come. But he must take the initiative, not I.... But she began to picture their meeting. She began to conjure up images of Seahill and the Essex countryside and he and she walking and talking amidst a background of her own imagining. Just as in the old days she had invented an “ideal” conversation to be pursued at any surprise meeting with her father, so now she concocted a special dialogue between herself and Verreker, which, if he should only play the part allotted to him, would reveal her in an attractive and mysterious light. Of course he would not do so: of that she was quite certain, yet the manufacture of ideal rôles for him and herself gave her a good deal of restricted pleasure. She must at this time have decided definitely to go and see him, otherwise there could have been no inducement for her to dream dreams. But she still told herself that she would not see him till he had seen her.... One evening she visited the reference department of the Bockley Carnegie library and consulted a map of Essex. Barhanger was almost on the sea-coast; five miles from the nearest railway station, overlooking one of the great tidal estuaries of the Essex rivers. And Barhanger Creek reached right up to the village of Barhanger.... She had not thought it was so near the sea. She had pictured an inland village with a village green and thatched cottages and perhaps a single-line railway station. Now she had to dream her dreams over again in a different setting, and into this new setting came the creek and the broad estuary and the shining sea, all magnificently idealized, all transfigured by the presence of herself and Verreker....
It was curious how the thought of him awoke in her old dreams and aspirations. She began once more to revile her own soul for its selfishness and avarice: she began to wish for her old pianoforte prowess and such education as she had once managed to cram into that head of hers. Yet against her will was all this change and flurry: she was always protesting, I am better as I am. I want to be quiet and respectable. I don’t want to see him or to know him, because he has unlimited power to make me unhappy....
Her superb serenity left her. She became once more a foolish, unreliable creature of fierce trivialities. She no longer took any interest in the affairs of Amelia and her mother and Mr. Hobbs. She began to think rather acutely of Helen, though. How would Helen come into the matter? Would Helen be jealous of her interference? ... And did he love Helen? Or was it only a marriage of convenience? All those things she would never find out unless she visited him. Though, of course, she would not visit him without an invitation. That was quite decided.