"He won't have a chance. I'm going back on the stage so soon;" the implication of my tone must have got through even Tommy's unimaginativeness; he said the only bitter thing that I ever heard from him.
"Well, if you hadn't gone on the stage in the first place it probably wouldn't have happened."
He came round to the situation in another frame when he learned that I had written to Sarah putting matters in train for an engagement.
"You will probably be away all winter," he said. "It seems to me, Olivia, that you don't take any account of the fact that I am fond of you." We were sitting on a little shelf of a back balcony we had, for the sake of coolness, and I went and sat on his knee.
"I'm fond of you, Tommy, ever so. But I can't stand the life here; it smothers me. And we don't do anything; we don't get anywhere."
"I don't know what you mean, Olivia; we're building up quite a business; we'll be able to make a payment this year, and as the town improves——"
"Oh, Tommy, come away; come away into the world with me. Let us go out and do things; let us be part of things."
"Higgleston's good enough for me. We're building up trade, and everybody says the town is sure to go ahead——"
"Oh, Tommy, Tommy, what do I care about a business here if we lose the whole world—and we'll be old and gray before we get the business paid for. Oh, it isn't because I don't care about you, Tommy, because I am not satisfied with you; it is the glory of the world I want, and the wonder of Art, and great deeds going up and down in it! I want us to have that, Tommy; to have it together ... you and I, and not another. It's all there in the world, Tommy, all the colour and the splendour ... great love and great work ... let us go out and take it; let us go...." I had slipped down from his knees to my own as I talked, pleading with him, and I saw, by the light of the lamp from within, his face, charged with pained bewilderment, settle into lines of habitual resistance to the unknown, the unknowable. My voice trailed out into sobbing.
"Of course, Olivia, I don't want to keep you if you are not happy here, but I have to stay myself." His voice was broken but determined, with the determination of a little man not seeing far ahead of him. "I have to keep the business together."