He knew then that he loved her.
The revelation came on him so sharply, so acidly, with such overwhelming and uncompromising directness, that his mind reacted to it as to the sudden brink of a chasm. He saw the vast danger of his position. He saw the stupendous fool he had been. He saw, as if some mighty veil had been pulled aside, the stream of tragedy sweeping him on to destruction. And he stopped short, all the manhood in him galvanised into instant determination.
He replied, smiling: "I'm feeling perfectly well, anyway. Beautiful after the snowstorm, isn't it?"
"Yes."
It was so clear, so ominously clear that she would stop to talk to him if he would let her.
Therefore he said, curtly: "I'm afraid it's spoilt all the chances of skating, though.... Pity, isn't it? Well, I won't keep you in the cold—one needs to walk briskly and keep on walking, doesn't one? Good night!"
"Good night," she said simply.
Through the fast gathering twilight they went their several ways. When he reached Parminters it was quite dark. He went to the Green Man and had tea in the cosy little firelit inn-parlour with a huge Airedale dog for company. Somehow, he felt happier, now that he knew the truth and was facing it. And by the time he reached Lavery's on the way home he was treating the affair almost jauntily. After all, there was a very simple and certain cure for even the most serious attack of the ailment which he had diagnosed himself as possessing. He must not see Clare again. Never again. No, not even once. How seriously he was taking himself, he thought. Then he laughed, and wondered how he had been so absurd. For it was absurd, incredibly absurd, to suppose himself even remotely in love with Clare! It was unthinkable, impossible, no more to be feared than the collapse of the top storey of Lavery's into the basement. He was a fool, a stupid, self-analysing, self-suspecting fool. He entered Lavery's scorning himself very thoroughly, as much for his cowardly decision not to see Clare again as for his baseless suspicion that he was growing fond of her.
CHAPTER THREE
I
Why was it that whenever he had had any painful scene with Helen the yearning came over him to go and visit Clare, not to complain or to confess or to ask advice, but merely to talk on the most ordinary topics in the world? It was as if Helen drew out of him all the strength and vitality he possessed, leaving him debilitated, and that he craved the renewal of himself that came from Clare and from Clare alone.