Dismissal-hour arrived, and by that time he was in a curious ferment of desire. Moreover, his brain had sought out and discovered a piece of casuistry suitable for his purpose. Had not Clare, on the occasion of his last visit to her, told him plainly and perhaps significantly that she would never tell anyone of his visit? And if she would not tell of that one, why should she of any one—any one he might care to make in the future? And as his only reason for not visiting her was a desire to please Helen, surely that end was served just as easily if he did visit her, provided that Helen did not know. There could be no moral iniquity in lying to Helen in order to save her from unhappiness, and anyway, a lie to her was at least as honest as her subterfuge had been in order to learn from him of his last visit. On all sides, therefore, he was able to fortify himself for the execution of his desire.
But, said Caution, it would be silly to see her in the daytime, and out-of-doors, for then they would run the risk of being seen together by some of the Millstead boys, or the masters, and the affair would pretty soon come to Helen's ears, along channels that would by no means minimise it in transmission. Hence again, the necessity to see Clare in the evenings, and at her house, as before. And at the thought of her cosy little upstairs sitting-room, with the books and the Persian rugs and the softly-shaded lamp, he kindled to a new and exquisite anticipation.
So, then, he would go up to Dinglay Fen alone that afternoon, wanting Clare's company, no doubt, but willing to wait for it happily now that it was to come to him so soon. Nor did he think that there was anything especially Machiavellian in the plans he had decided upon.
IV
But he saw her sooner than that evening.
Towards midday the clouds suddenly wrapped up the sky and there began a tremendous snowstorm that lasted most of the afternoon and prevented the hockey matches. All hope of skating was thus dispelled, and Speed spent the afternoon in the drawing-room at Lavery's, combining the marking of exercise-books with the joyous anticipation of the evening. Then, towards four o'clock, the sky cleared as suddenly as it had clouded over, and a red sun shone obliquely over the white and trackless quadrangle. There was a peculiar brightness that came into the room through the window that overlooked the snow; a strange unwonted brightness that kindled a tremulous desire in his heart, a desire delicate and exquisite, a desire without command in it, but with a fragile, haunting lure that was more irresistible than command. As he stood by the window and saw the ethereal radiance of the snow, golden almost in the rays of the low-hanging sun, he felt that he would like to walk across the white meadows to Parminters. He wanted something—something that was not in Millstead, something that, perhaps, was not in the world.
He set out, walking briskly, facing the crisp wind till the tears came into his eyes and rolled down his cold cheeks. Far beyond old Millstead spire the sun was already sinking into the snow, and all the sky of the west was shot with streams of pendulous fire. The stalks of the tallest grasses were clotted with snow which the sun had tried hard to melt and was now leaving to freeze stiff and crystalline; as the twilight crept over the earth the wind blew colder and the film of snow lately fallen made the path over the meadows hard and slippery with ice.
Then it was that he met Clare; in the middle of the meadows between Millstead and Parminters, at twilight amidst a waste of untrod snow. Her face was wonderfully lit with the reflection of the fading whiteness, that his mind reacted to it as to the sudden brink was in her eyes.
He felt himself growing suddenly pale; he stopped, silent, without a smile, as if frozen stiff by the sight of her.
And she said, half laughing: "Hello, Mr. Speed! You look unusually grim...." Then she paused, and added in a different voice: "No—on further observation I think you look ill.... Tell me, what's the matter?"