She came into the sitting room just before dinner, and David, who was actually exhausted from the monotonous hammering of thoughts about only her, dared not trust himself to look up as she slipped into her chair. He was glancing over a new Atlantic; he pretended that he had not heard Gay enter.
“It was young Doctor Ensicoe, the son,” said Gabrielle’s voice, suddenly, quietly in the silence, to Aunt Flora. “I took him upstairs. He says to watch, and let his father know if there seems to be any pain or restlessness.”
If the words had been so many bombs they could scarcely have had a more extraordinary effect upon David. He felt as if his heart had given a great plunge, stopped short, raced on again madly; he felt as if his mouth and throat were dry, a sort of weakness and vertigo that were yet exquisitely pleasant seized him.
It was impossible for him to speak to this girl, or to look up, while this state of affairs lasted. If she saw that he was nervous and unlike himself, she must think what she would——! David could only try to get a grip upon soul and body, and betray himself as little as possible.
This moment was the end of all peace for him. For although he did indeed presently hand his aunt the magazine with some brief comment, and although dinner and the evening proceeded as usual, he was beginning to suspect that his whole life had been changed now, mysteriously changed—partly perhaps his own doing, through that long-cherished dream of an imaginary scene with an imaginary Gabrielle.
But no matter how it had come about. The blazing and inescapable truth was that there was nothing else in the world for him but this quiet, slender, serious, tawny-headed girl. He did not know what he felt toward her, or whether the wild confusion of his senses might be called anything so reasonable as feeling; she was simply in the world, she was sitting in chairs, opening doors, speaking in that incredibly thrilling voice, raising those extraordinary eyes—that was enough.
David had never before been really in love. But he had thought he loved Sylvia, and he did not put in that same category his feeling for Gabrielle. This was nothing that could be classified or regulated; regulate it, indeed, David thought, with an almost audible groan when he came to this word in his thoughts; as well regulate raging flames or rushing waters!
It devoured him with fever. He was unable to eat for excitement, never happy one instant out of Gabrielle’s company, acutely miserable when in it. He lay awake in the warm spring nights thinking of what he had said to her during the past day, and as her looks and words in reply—such quiet words, such rare looks!—came back before his vision, he would feel his heart stop, and his breath would fail him with sheer fear and terror and hope and agony of doubt.
He sat at breakfast, pushing about the toast that was so much chalk and plaster to his palate, scalding himself with his coffee one morning, forgetting it entirely the next. His eyes never left Gabrielle. She would glance up, passing him perhaps the omelette that he would not even see, much less taste, and at his awkward laugh, muttered words, and hastily averted look she would perhaps colour confusedly. If she directed a simple question to him, he found it maddeningly difficult to answer.
“I beg pardon——?” He had to leave the sentence hanging rawly. He could not say her name.