At lunch-time Mrs Lorton was still confined to bed, so her maid announced. Burnham promptly began to wonder whether she was going to die. He strolled towards Margate wondering, and found himself presently in the sunset, gazing with tears in his eyes at the silhouette of Margate Pier, and, mentally, placing a reverent tribute of flowers from Covent Garden upon her early grave in Brompton Cemetery.
He also found himself, later, dropping a tear at the thought of his own death, for of course with his weak health he could not hope to outlive anybody for very long. Mrs Lorton's absence at dinner struck him as more pathetic than all the misery of the travailing universe, until he remembered that at last he could gratify his appetite, and even accept two entrées at the hands of the waiter.
Life, if it is full of sorrows, is also full of consolations.
He ate steadily for a couple of hours, pitying himself all the time.
Next day Mrs Lorton re-appeared in a very bad temper. Her seclusion, although it had enabled her to score several points off her rival, had been in other respects wearisome and vexatious. She barely nodded to Burnham, and went out towards the shelter alone. He followed furtively, longing, as usual, for condolence, and presently saw her seat herself facing the sea. The strained relations between them seemed to forbid his placing himself at her side. The back-to-back posture would be more illustrative of the exact position of affairs, and Burnham's nicety and accuracy of mind induced him accordingly to face Westgate. Their positions of the first day were thus reversed. She looked at the sea; he stared at the villas. Strange turmoil of life, in which we never know which way we shall be facing next! It struck Burnham suddenly, and so forcibly, à propos of his and Mrs Lorton's reversal, that the ready tears sprang to his eyes. How would it all end? Man spins about like a tee-to-tum, bowing to all points of the compass. The time comes when the tee-to-tum runs down—and what then? Burnham was certainly run down. That must be his excuse for what he did. He glanced behind him through the glass screen, and saw by the motion of Mrs Lorton's back that she was sobbing. In truth, the sight of the dancing waves had set her thinking of all the poor people who have been drowned in water since the beginning of things. Poor dead folk! She was trembling with emotion, and still wept mechanically when she found Mr Burnham on her side of the shelter proposing to her with all his might and main. He was asking her to comfort him, to be a true woman and shield him with her strength, to support his tottering footsteps along the rugged ways of life, to dry his tears and stay the agonies of his shaken soul.
“Your health will help my weakness,” he said. “Your vigour will teach me to be strong.”
It was a strange proposal, and she began to defend herself from his imputations, stating her maladies, marshalling her symptoms of decay in an imposing procession.
But it was no good. He had taken her unawares and got the start of her. She felt it, and his determined weakness obtained a power over her which she could never afterwards explain.
His influenza triumphed, for she forgot her resolution.