But instead of smiling, she burst into sudden passionate sobbing. Her head dropped heavily into her hands and all her hair, loosened by the fall, dispersed itself over her hands and cheeks in an attitude of terrific despair. On Speed the effect of it was as that of a knife cutting him in two. He could not bear to see her misery, evoked by something said or done, however justifiably, by him; pity swelled over him in a warm, aching tide; he stooped to her and put a hand hesitatingly on her shoulder. He was almost afraid to touch her, and when, at the first sensation of his hand, she drew away hurriedly, he crept back also as if he were terrified by her. Then gradually he came near her again and told her, with his emotion making his voice gruff, that he was sorry. He had treated her unkindly and oh—he was so sorry. He could not bear to see her cry. It hurt him.... Dear, darling Helen, would she forgive him? If she would only forgive him she could have Smallwood in to tea every day if she wished, and damn what anybody said about it! Helen, Helen....
Yet the other part of him, submerged, perhaps, but by no means silent, still urged: You haven't treated her unkindly, and you know you haven't. You have nothing to apologise for at all. And if she does keep on inviting Smallwood in you'll have the same row with her again, sooner or later.
"Helen, dear Helen—do answer me!—Don't cry like that—I can't bear it!—Answer me, Helen, answer me!"
Then she raised her head and put her arms out to him and kissed him with fierce passion, so that she almost hurt his neck. Even then she did not, for a moment, answer, but he did not mind, because he knew now that she had forgiven him. And strangely enough, in that moment of passionate embrace, there returned to him a feeling of crude, rudimentary jealousy; he felt that for the future he would, as Clanwell had advised him, have to keep an eye on her to make sure that none of this high, mountainous love escaped from within the four walls of his own house. He felt suddenly greedy, physically greedy; the thought, even instantly contradicted, of half-amorous episodes between her and Smallwood affected him with an insurgent bitterness which made the future heavy with foreboding.
She whispered to him that she had been very silly and that she wouldn't have Smallwood in again if he wished her not to.
Even amidst his joy at her submission, the word "silly" struck him as an absurdly inadequate word to apply to her attitude.
He said, deliberately against his will: "Helen, darling, it was I who was silly. Have Smallwood in as much as you like. I don't want to interfere with your happiness."
He expected her then to protest that she had no real desire to have Smallwood in, and when she failed to protest, he was disappointed. The fear came to him that perhaps Smallwood did attract her, being so good-looking, and that his granting her full permission to see him would give that attraction a chance to develop. Jealousy once again stormed at him.
But how sweet the reconciliation, after all! For concentrated loveliness nothing in his life could equal the magic of that first hour with her after she had ceased crying. It was moonlight outside and about midnight they leaned for a moment out of the window with the icy wind stinging their cheeks. Millstead asleep in the pallor, took on the semblance of his own mood and seemed tremulous with delight. Somewhere, too, amidst the dreaming loveliness of the moon-washed roofs and turrets, there was a touch of something that was just a little exquisitely sad, and that too, faint, yet quite perceptible, was in his own mood.