"Ah!"
Again her hand slid, as if of itself, back into its place. Again they walked on. The next thing that came to her was another ridiculous yet oddly precious trifle. She wore kid gloves; before, when she had danced with him in an old frock of oyster-grey, she had worn white ones; must she (she wondered) always wear gloves with him, as he always wore old overcoats? She longed to take one glove off; yet she—she, who had met Roy by the stile at night—for very bashfulness dared not. The circumstance struck her; how was that? Gifts of understanding for her he had: had he that gift too, the gift of her own bashfulness back again? Up went her spirit on wings....
Yes, it was that—or for a night at least she would have it so. As impossibilities are reconciled in a dream, so he seemed, by his mere towerlike presence, to resolve in one large atonement, her own life as it had been and the sweet and virginal and dear smiling thing that it might have been. In no less a miracle than that she seemed to herself to be walking. He could not only have kissed her; he could have had her first kiss. He could not only have turned, as he did turn, leaning against the pillar-box by the Equerries' entrance of the Palace, to look at her again, but he could have received in return—did receive in return—such a look as she knew he also could hardly have had the like of before. And it made no difference—as in a dream such a thing might make no difference—that he had a wife, she a son. Let him have his wife, she her son; she could find room for wives and sons too. To-morrow, perhaps, it would not be so; to-morrow might be like yesterday again; but to-night—to-night—oh, the first garden was not less trodden than these rainy streets, the Barracks, Gorringes', and Grosvenor Road! Her hand moving again on his sleeve was telling him even now, if he would but listen, that though man may not know that it is not good for him to be alone, woman knows it, and maybe still remembers it out of her knowledge of the place whence she came later than he.
And he too understood now, for she was not so rapt but that she remembered that he asked her, somewhere between a sandbin and a street lamp, whether she was happy too, and that, looking up at him, she smilingly whispered: "Yes, now." And she was not so rapt but that she remembered telling him, flatly and with another happy and laughing and triumphant look: "You can't prevent it!" But she was so rapt that of much else that he and she said she had no very clear recollection. Words that seemed unforgettable when they came had eluded her almost in their own echo. But she knew that she gave him the liberty of herself with no more reserve than she had claimed that of him. She knew that because, later, but she did not know when, he muttered, in some street or other, she did not know where: "God bless your boy."
Well, if she forgot things now, there would be many days to come in which she would remember them.
Merely because it must be very late—she had no idea what time it was—she grudged the going of the moments almost angrily. Already she was becoming as hungry again as if she had not broken that long, long fast. But she admitted that it was not unnatural that he should think of his own concerns a little too, and want to ask her questions. She began to answer the questions hurriedly, to get them over.—Kitty Windus? Oh (she told him) he might leave Kitty to her; she'd answer for Kitty!—His wife and her complete ignorance? (His wife's ignorance appeared to be complete.)—Miriam Levey? (Oh, why would he not be quick, and she so hungry!)—And then back to his wife again; what about her? (he wanted to know). Louie wondered a little that he should consider her to be his wife's keeper also, but she answered his questions. That, she told him, was his private affair; but, if he really wanted to know what Louie thought about it, Louie could not conceive of a marriage with so huge a secret in it continuing undisclosed. Voilà; there he had it; and now might she please be permitted to enter into her own happiness again?
She was back into it, bathing in it again, almost before she was aware. A minute before she had not known what street they were in; now she saw the Chelsea Hospital on the other side of the road. On this side was a row of houses; she knew one of them; a painter for whom she had sat lived there; his studio was in the yard at the back. The thought of a studio was all that was needed. She thrilled again.
No more studios! So poignantly did she burn that she could hardly imagine that her glowing did not communicate itself. Studios, after that beautiful, beautiful sketch of Billy's? Good gracious, no! She was going to Billy's to fetch that sketch on the morrow; she would like to see Billy deny it to her! And that poor, poor old oyster-grey! Just because he had seen her in it once she had mooned over it, smiled over it, sighed over it; but it could go now—she had a richer memory!... Furtively during the last few minutes she had been working off her right glove; it slipped from her hand to the pavement; but she was afraid to stop. Let it stay; somebody would turn it over with the point of a walking-stick in the morning and perhaps wonder who had lost it.... She stole another look at him; her hand crept along his sleeve; the tips of her fingers were on his wrist; her lips shaped his name: "Jim!"
Then, unexpectedly, it rushed upon her in full measure. She knew these streets familiarly; they were in Swan Walk now; and the thing happened all in a moment. Again, during those anxious questions of his about Kitty Windus, Miriam Levey, his wife, she had that sense of his terrible overweight: now, passing a doorway, he suddenly reeled. He began to sink....
In an instant her arms were about him. Not the unfelt, immaterial arms of her mothering vision in Billy's studio, not that other breast, offered but impressed, sustained him; she held him within her two arms of flesh and blood, upon that firm, warm bosom that changed its shape to his weight upon it—the bosom he had seen yesterday, white hives, all their honey his.... She bent and kissed the shoulder of his coat. Oh, if he might but faint, quite, that she might carry him somewhere, or, if she could not carry him, stay with him where he was—she cared not—rest by his side through an endless night! Her heart, yes, her lips too, called him; a whisper might not reach him; she called him aloud: