‘Go! without your dinner!’ said the Colonel, in his cheerful ignorance. ‘No, no, you must not think of that. And Joyce would be disappointed not to see you. Tell him, my dear, he must stay to dinner at least. We don’t let old friends go like this.’
‘I am afraid I must go,’ said Norman, with the stony air of a departing Englishman, always uneasy lest he should be made to change his resolution. He was offended, wounded, shamed by the difference between the reality and his imagination. ‘I—have a great deal to do in town—and the little time——’
‘Then you are leaving again soon?’ Mrs. Hayward said. She had risen from her chair at once as if to give him no excuse for changing his mind; though that was not what she meant.
‘But we must see him again, Elizabeth. No, no, I’ll take no denial. Why, Joyce will be distressed not to see you. You must come another day and stay to dinner. It is a long time since we have had a good talk,’ cried the Colonel. ‘I want to hear all your plans. Come, come, Bellendean, there’s no getting off it. You must come another day.’
He was turned all the wrong way. He had come with great strain of purpose, feeling all the magnitude of the step before him, knowing the sacrifice that was involved as well as the gain. And nothing at all had come of it, not even a recognition on the part of the spectators of the immense importance of what he had been about to do. ‘I am afraid it’s impossible,’ he said, with stony looks; and then there came over him a sudden vision of Joyce in all her sweetness. Joyce, the only poetry he had ever felt, the only romance that had ever revealed itself to him. Was he to give her up for this? ‘Perhaps,’ he added, ‘if you are disengaged on Thursday.’ His tone was ungracious, but his heart gave a leap, belying the outward stolidity of disappointment and half offence.
‘Thursday, or any day,’ cried the Colonel, in his hospitality. ‘You don’t think we should count any trumpery little engagement against a visit from you! Well, that’s better—that’s better, Bellendean; and good-bye, my dear fellow; you’ll have a run for the train, if you must go.’
The Colonel came out bareheaded to the door to hasten the departure of the guest to whom it was so indispensable not to lose the train. He stood there for a moment looking at his watch in the light of the lamp in the hall. ‘It is all he will do to catch it,’ he said; ‘but he has good long legs of his own, which is better than a cab when you’re in a hurry. Shut the door, Baker, there’s a dreadful draught. Why, Jenkinson, is that you? You’ve brought my girl home, like a good fellow. And, Joyce, my dear, you’ve come five minutes too late. Norman Bellendean has just darted off to catch his train.’
CHAPTER XLIV
The Canon had brought Joyce home. He had tucked her hand under his arm, and led her through the dark as carefully as her father would have done, talking much, but getting very little response. He looked like a mountain moving along in the gloom, or like a big ship with a slim little yacht in tow; and other wayfarers could hear his voice coming out in the mist, with sometimes a faint note of reply. The Canon was not talking to her of moral difficulties or cases of conscience, but of a party which was to take place at the rectory, and at which he wished her to look her best. ‘If you will do me a favour,’ he said, ‘you will put those questions all away, and put on the pretty looks with which you captivated me, Joyce. Eh? don’t you remember? it’s not so long ago; how you went and put yourself on the other side, and waved your flag in my face, you little—— But it was all in vain, my dear, for we fell in love with each other just the same.’
A smile came upon her face as she looked up at him through the fog and the faint lamplight that streamed in distinct rays across that solid atmosphere. ‘Yes,’ she said.