A FOOTSTEP ON THE PATH
Antony was sitting in his cottage. It was quite dusk in the little room, but he had not troubled to light the lamp. A mood of utter depression was upon him, though for the life of him he could not tell fully what was causing it. That very fact increased the depression. There was nothing definite he could get a grip on, and combat. He was in no worse situation than he had been in three hours previously, in fact it might be considered that he was in an infinitely better one, and yet this mood was less than three hours old.
Of course the thought of the Duchessa was at the root of the depression. But why? If he met her again—and all things now considered, the meeting was even more than probable—what earthly difference would it make whether he met her in his rôle of Michael Field, gardener, or as Antony Gray, agent? And yet he knew that it would make a difference. Between the Duchessa di Donatello and Michael Field there was fixed a great social gulf. He himself had assured her of that fact. Keeping that fact in view, he could deceive himself into the belief that it alone would be accountable for the aloofness of her bearing, for the frigidity of her manner should they again meet. Oh, he’d pictured the meetings often enough; pictured, too, and schooled himself to endure, the aloofness, the frigidity.
“I rubbed it well in that I am only a gardener, a mere labourer,” he would assure his soul, with these imaginary meetings in mind. Of course he had known perfectly well that he was deceiving himself, yet even that knowledge had been better than facing the pain of truth.
But now the truth had got to be faced.
There would be the aloofness, sure enough, but there would no longer be that great social gulf to account for it. The true cause would have to be acknowledged. She scorned him, firstly on account of his fraud, and secondly because he had wounded her pride by his quiet deliberate snubbing of her friendship. Whatever justification she might presently see for the first offence, it never for an instant occurred to his mind that she might overlook the second. He had deliberately put a barrier between them, and it appeared to him now, as it had appeared at the moment of its placing, utterly and entirely unsurmountable. She would be civil, of course; there would not be the slightest chances of her forgetting her manners, but—his mind swung to the little hotel courtyard, to the orange trees in green tubs, to the golden sunshine and the sparkle of the blue water, to the woman then sitting by his side.
Memory can become a sheer physical pain at times.
Antony got up from the settle, and moved to the window. Despite the dusk within the room, there was still a faint reflection of the sunset in the sky, a soft pink glow.
One thing was certain—nothing, no power on earth, should ever drag him back to Teneriffe again. If only he could control the action of his memory as easily as he could control the actions of his body. At all events he’d make a fight for it. And yet, if only—The phrase summed up every atom of regret for his mad decision, his falling in with that idiotic plan of Nicholas’s. And, after all, had it been so idiotic? Mad, certainly; but wasn’t there a certain justification in the madness? It was a madness the villagers would unquestionably bless.
His thoughts turned to the recent interview. It had fully borne out all Nicholas’s expectations. Bland, self-confident, Curtis had entered the library. Antony had had no faintest notion whom he had expected to see therein, but most assuredly it was not the two figures who had confronted him. Bewilderment had passed over his face, and an odd undernote of fear. It was just possible he had taken Nicholas for a ghost. The reassurance on that point had set him fairly at his ease. He had been subservient to Nicholas, extravagantly amused to learn of the trick that had been played. He had been insolently oblivious of Antony’s presence. Antony had enjoyed the insolence. When he learnt that his services were no longer required, he had first appeared slightly discomfited. Then he had plucked up heart of grace.