The next morning I returned to town, but I had made such good use of my time that I carried with me an invitation to return in a fortnight, and it was Lord Gascoyne who brought it me from his wife.
He had made quite a friend of me. It was not probable that he had ever had a friend with anything of the bizarre about him before.
Chapter XXII
The time passed slowly, but in a fortnight I found myself again at Hammerton sleeping beneath the same roof as Esther Lane. I met her again on the terrace on Sunday morning, as I had expected. I could quite follow the workings of her mind. Because she was possessed of great self-respect, she had determined not to be on the terrace that morning, but because she was very much in love she was there after all. Before many moments had passed I saw that she was aware of my engagement. There was a look of suffering in her eyes as she turned them on me. She had the most wonderful way of suddenly subjecting the person to whom she was speaking to their full glance. If she could suffer because I was engaged to another woman, she had enough sentimental interest in me to excuse my going far. She was the character to appreciate the simulation of agony born of a struggle between duty and affection, and I was ready to ring up the curtain on the comedy. She was fully conscious that I loved her. Yes, I loved her quite passionately, and yet it was not altogether passion. It is one of the presumptuous platitudes of conventional moralists to describe a man’s love when it ceases to be concentrated on one individual as lust and base passion. Side by side with this contention they will declare that the highest morality is to love your neighbour as yourself, so little are they given to their own boasted virtue of consistency.
I talked to her for some time about the most ordinary matters, but I could see that she was trembling.
“I have thought of you a good deal,” I ventured.
She ignored the question, but without a show of indifference.
“I think Walter and I ought to go in.” She moved away a little awkwardly.
“I suppose I ought to go in too.” I went to breakfast, leaving the impression I had intended.
In the afternoon I saw her again, and before I was quite aware of it, I had told her I loved her beyond all women in the world, and having done so was compelled to anticipate the scene which I had been mentally preparing.