He stood quiet, silently gazing at her till he had regained his power of speech, which was not for a moment or two. Then he said hoarsely, "You like—the other way best?"
She clasped her hands together with a mingling of impatience and wonder and rising anger. "I am made like that," she cried. "I don't know how to be so serious. Oh, go away from me. You tr-rouble me. I like the other best."
He never knew how he got out of the strange, unnatural atmosphere of the house in which he seemed to leave his heart behind him. The perfumes, the curtains, the half lights, the blending draperies, were round him one moment; the next he found himself in the greenness of the Park, with the breeze blowing in his face, and his dream ended and done with.
He had a kind of vision of having touched the girl's reluctant hand, and even of having seen a frightened look in her eyes as if he had awakened some echo or touched some string whose sound was new to her. But if that were so, it was not he, but only some discovery of unknown feeling that moved her. When he came to himself, he felt that all the innocent morning people in the Park, the children with their maids, the sick ladies and old men sunning themselves on the benches, the people going about their honest business, cast wondering looks at his pale face and the agitation of his aspect. He took a long walk, he did not know how long, with that strange sense that something capital had happened to him, something never to be got over or altered, which follows such an incident in life. He was even conscious by and by, habit coming to his aid, of a curious question in his mind if this was how people usually felt after such a wonderful incident—a thing that had happened quite without demonstration, which nobody could ever know of, yet which made as much change in him as if he had been sentenced to death. Sentenced to death! that was what it felt like more or less. It had happened, and could never be undone, and he walked away and away, but never got beyond it, with the chain always round his neck. When he got into the streets where nobody took any notice of him, it struck him with surprise, almost offence. Was it possible that they did not see that something had happened—a mystery, something that would never be shaken off but with life?
He met Jock as he walked, and without stopping gave him a sort of ghastly smile, and said, "You were right; she likes that best," and went on again, with a sense that he might go on for ever like the wandering Jew, and never get beyond the wonder and the pain.
And there is no doubt that Bice was glad to hear Montjoie's laugh, and the nonsense he talked, and to throw off that sudden impression which had frightened her. What was it? Something which was in life, but which she had not met with before. "We are to have it all our own way, don't you know?" Montjoie said. "I have no people, to call people, and she is not going to interfere. We shall have it all our own way, and have a good time, as the Yankees say. And I am not going to call you Bice, which is a silly sort of name, and spells quite different from its pronunciation. What are you holding back for? You have no call to be shy with me now. Bee, you belong to me now, don't you know?" the young fellow said, with demonstrations from which Bice shrunk a little. She liked, yes, his way; but, but yet—she was perhaps a little savage, as the Contessa said.