He had given her a sensation more exquisite than any she had ever known in all her life; and on her side she was giving him pain, and knew it, and was not ill-pleased to have it so. Such, as the old moralists would say, are the strange contradictions of human feeling! He turned upon her an aggrieved expostulating glance.
‘You think it was the same, whoever my companions might be? You don’t understand what it was to me to be bound to the oar like the galley slaves, to listen to all their inane nonsense and their jokes, when my heart was in—oh, a very different place.’
‘You have been all over the world, Captain Bellendean, you must remember so many other places—more beautiful than this.’
‘Do you think that is what I mean?’ he said quickly, in a tone almost of irritation. Joyce knew very well it was not what he meant. But she had to defend herself with the first weapons that came in her way.
‘Don’t you know,’ he said, after a pause, ‘that this has been such a summer as I never had before? I have been a great deal about the world, as you say. I have had many experiences: but never yet have I felt as I have felt this year. I never was romantic, nor had I much poetry in me. But I begin to think the poets are the fellows, after all, who understand best.’
‘That is true, I am sure,’ said Joyce in a subdued voice. She was thankful to find something that she could say. She walked along mechanically by the Captain’s side, feeling as if she were floating in some vague enchantment, not able to pause or realise anything, not able to escape, carried along by the delicious soft air which was breathing within her being as well as without, a rapture that could not be explained.
‘I believe it is true—but I never thought so before. And the cause is that I never knew—you before,’ the Captain said.
Did the people know who were passing? could they see in the faces of those two walking—nay, floating by, surrounded by a golden mist—what was being said between them? A vague wonder stole into Joyce’s mind as she perceived dimly through that mist the face of a wayfarer going by. She herself but vaguely realised the meaning of the words. She understood their sentiment well enough,—felt it in that silent ecstasy that swept her along, but had no power to think or exercise her own faculties at all, only to let herself be carried on, and away.
‘You have been the enchantment to me,’ he said hurriedly; ‘and now it is almost over, and I shall have to go away. The charm will be gone from everything. I don’t know how I am to reconcile myself to the dull world and the long days—unless——’
‘Captain Bellendean——’ Joyce said faintly, hearing her own voice, as if it came from a long distance, feeling a vague necessity for a pause.