He let her go, but not, she knew from the smile on his face, from any kindness, but rather that he might better observe her distress and gloat over it. She moved away from the heat of the fire and from that other heat which had so strangely been engendered by these contacts which always before engendered light, and went to the window and laid her forehead against the cold glass. The day had changed and lost its smile, for the sky was hidden by a dirty quilt of rain-charged clouds and the frost had seeped into the marshes and left them dark, acid winter green, yet she longed to walk out there in that unsunned and water-logged country, opening her coat to the cold wind brought by the grey, invading tides, making little cold pools where she dug her heels into the sodden ground, getting rid of her sense of inflammation, and being quite alone. That she should want not to be with Richard, and that she should not be perfectly pleased with what pleased him, seemed to her monstrous disloyalty, and she turned and smiled at him. But there was really something wrong with this room and this hour, for as she looked at him she felt frightened and ashamed, as if he were drunk, though she knew that he was sober; and indeed his face was flushed and his eyes wet and winking, as if smoke had blown in them. For some reason that she could not understand he reminded her of Mr. Philip.
She cried out imploringly. "Take me down to the marshes, Richard!"
He shook his head and laughed at some private joke. She felt desolate, like a child at school whom other children shut out from their secrets, and drooped her head; and heard him say presently: "We are going out this afternoon, but not on the marshes."
"Where?"
He was overcome with silent laughter when she stamped because he would not answer. She ran over to him and began to slap him, trying to make a game of it to cover her near approach to tears. Then he told her, not because he was concerned with her distress, but because her touch seemed to put him in a good humour. "We're going to the registrar, my dear, to fix up everything for our marriage in three weeks' time."
The sense of what he had said did not reach her, because she was gazing at him to try and find out why he was still reminding her of Mr. Philip. He was, for one thing, wearing an expression that would have been more suitable to a smaller man. Oh, he was terribly different to-day! His eyes, whose wide stare had always worked on her like a spell, were narrow and glittering, and his lips looked full. She screamed "Oh, no! Oh, no!" without, for a second, thinking against what thing she was crying out.
He laughed and pulled her down on his knees. He was laughing more than she had ever known him laugh before. "Why, don't you want to, you little thing?"
Her thoughts wandered about the world as she knew it, looking for some reason. But nothing came to her save the memory of the cold, wet, unargumentative cry of the redshanks that she had heard on the marshes. She said feebly, as one who asks for water: "Please, please take me down to the sea-wall."
His voice swooped resolutely down with tenderness. "But why don't you want to come and see about our marriage? Are you frightened, dear?"
Now, strangely enough, he was reminding her of Mr. Mactavish James, as he used to be in those long conversations when he seemed so kind, and said: "Nellie, ma wee lassie, dis onything ail ye?" and yet left her with a suspicion that he had been asking her all the time out of curiosity and not because he really cared for her. She was dizzied. Whoever was speaking to her, it was not Richard. She muttered: "Yes, a little."