“What have we been talking about?” thought he. He was so utterly bored he almost groaned.
“What a spectacle we have made of ourselves,” thought she. And she saw him laboriously—oh, laboriously—laying out the grounds and herself running after, putting here a tree and there a flowery shrub and here a handful of glittering fish in a pool. They were silent this time from sheer dismay.
The clock struck six merry little pings and the fire made a soft flutter. What fools they were—heavy, stodgy, elderly—with positively upholstered minds.
And now the silence put a spell upon them like solemn music. It was anguish—anguish for her to bear it and he would die—he’d die if it were broken. . . . And yet he longed to break it. Not by speech. At any rate not by their ordinary maddening chatter. There was another way for them to speak to each other, and in the new way he wanted to murmur: “Do you feel this too? Do you understand it at all?” . . .
Instead, to his horror, he heard himself say: “I must be off; I’m meeting Brand at six.”
What devil made him say that instead of the other? She jumped—simply jumped out of her chair, and he heard her crying: “You must rush, then. He’s so punctual. Why didn’t you say so before?”
“You’ve hurt me; you’ve hurt me! We’ve failed!” said her secret self while she handed him his hat and stick, smiling gaily. She wouldn’t give him a moment for another word, but ran along the passage and opened the big outer door.
Could they leave each other like this? How could they? He stood on the step and she just inside holding the door. It was not raining now.
“You’ve hurt me—hurt me,” said her heart. “Why don’t you go? No, don’t go. Stay. No—go!” And she looked out upon the night.
She saw the beautiful fall of the steps, the dark garden ringed with glittering ivy, on the other side of the road the huge bare willows and above them the sky big and bright with stars. But of course he would see nothing of all this. He was superior to it all. He—with his wonderful “spiritual” vision!