"Kenneth!" She drew her arm away from the touch of his hand with a gesture that was determined but not contemptuous. "Kenneth, I don't believe it. Perhaps you're not trying to deceive me; probably you're trying to deceive yourself and succeeding. Tell me, Kenneth, truthfully, don't you sometimes wish I were Clare when you're talking to me? When we're both alone together, when we're neither doing nor saying anything particular, don't you wish you could make me vanish suddenly and have Clare in my place, and—and—" bitterness crept into her voice here—"and call me back when you wanted the only gift of mine which you find satisfactory? You came back to-night, miserable, because you'd said good-bye to Clare, and because you couldn't see in the future any chances of meeting her as often as you've been able to do lately. You wanted—you're wanting it now—Clare's company and Clare's conversation and Clare's friendship. And because you can't have it you're willing to soothe yourself with my pretty little babyish ways, and when you find you can't have them either you think it's scandalous! Kenneth, my dear, dear Kenneth, I'm not a baby any longer, even if I ever was one—I'm a woman now, and you don't like me as much. I can't help it. I can't help being tortured with jealousy all the time you're with Clare. I can't help wanting what Clare has of you more than I want what I have of you myself. I can't help—sometimes—hating her—loathing her!"
He was speechless now, made so by a curious dignity with which she spoke and the kindness to him that sounded in everything that she said. He was so tired and sorry. He leaned his head in his arms and sobbed. Some tragedy that had seemed to linger in the lamp-lit room ever since he had come into it out of the fog, was now about his head blinding and crushing him; all the world of Millstead, spread out in the panorama of days to come, appeared in a haze of forlorn melancholy. The love he had for Helen ached in him with a sadness that was deeper now than it had ever been.
And then, suddenly, she was all about him, kneeling beside him, stroking his hair, taking his hand and pressing it to her breast, crying softly and without words.
He whispered, indistinctly: "Helen, Helen, it's all right. Don't you worry, little Helen. I'm not quite well to-night, I think. It must be the strain of all that concert work.... But I'll be all right when I've had a rest for a little while.... Helen, darling, you mustn't cry about me like that!"
Then she said, proudly, though her voice still quivered: "I'm not worrying, dear. And you'll see Clare again soon, because I shall ask her to come here. You've got to choose between us, and Clare shall have a fair chance, anyway.... And now come to bed and sleep."
He gave her a smile that was more babyish than anything that she had ever been or done. And with her calm answering smile the sadness seemed somehow a little lifted.
CHAPTER FOUR
I
He was in bed for three days with a temperature (but nothing more serious); Howard, the School doctor, chaffed him unmercifully. "You're a lucky man. Speed, to be ill in bed with Mrs. Speed to nurse you! Better than being up in the Sick-room, isn't it?" Once the idea occurred to Speed that he might be sickening for some infectious complaint, in which case he would be taken away and isolated in the Sanatorium. When he half-hinted the possibility of this to Howard, the latter said, laughing loudly: "You needn't worry, Speed. I know you don't want to lose your pretty little nurse, do you? I understand you, young man—I was your age once, you know."
But the strange thing was that what Howard supposed Speed didn't want was just what he did want. He wanted to lose Helen for a little while. Not because he didn't love her. Not because of any reason which he could dare to offer himself. Merely, he would admit, a whimsical desire to be without her for a short time; it would, he thought, clutching hold of the excuse, save her the work of attending to him. He could hardly understand himself. But the fact was, Helen saddened him. It was difficult to explain in detail; but there was a kind of aura of melancholy which seemed to follow her about wherever she went. In the short winter afternoons he lay awake watching her, listening to the distant cheering on the footer pitches, sniffing the aroma of tea that she was preparing for him; it was all so delicious and cosy, and yet, in a curious, blinding way, it was all so sad. He felt he should slide into madness if he were condemned to live all his days like these, with warm fires and twilit meals and Helen always about him in attendance. He could not understand why it was that though he loved her so dearly yet he should not be perfectly happy with her.
How strange it was to lie there all day listening to all the sounds of Millstead! He heard the School-bell ringing the end of every period, the shouts of the boys at call-over, the hymns in the chapel—(his Senior organ-pupil was deputising for him)—Burton locking up at night, the murmur of gramophones in the prefects' studies; and everything, it seemed to him, was full of this same rich sadness. Then he reasoned with himself; the sadness must be a part of him, since he saw and felt it in so many things and places. It was unfair to blame Helen. Poor Helen, how kind she was to him, and how unkindly he treated her in return! Sometimes he imagined himself a blackguard and a cad, wrecking the happiness of the woman who would sacrifice everything for his sake. Once (it was nearly dark, but the lamp had not yet been lit) he called her to him and said, brokenly: "Helen, darling—Helen, I'm so sorry." "Sorry for what, Kenneth?" she enquired naturally. And he thought and pondered and could only add: "I don't know—nothing in particular. I'm just sorry, that's all." And once also he lashed himself into a fervour of promises. "I will be kind to you, Helen, dearest. We will be friends, we two. There's nothing that anybody shall have of me that you shan't have also. I do want you to be happy, Helen." And she was happy, then, happy and miserable at the same time; crying for joy at the beautiful sadness of it all.