SOMETHING had happened—something mysterious, quickening; a pulsation of the inmost harmonies of life. Its tremendous significance Jimmie dared not conjecture. It was to be interpreted by the wisdom of the simplest, yet that interpretation he put aside. It staggered reason. It was enough for them to have met together in an unimagined intimacy of emotion, to have shared the throb of this spiritual happening.
She was to be married in three days. He set the fact as a block to further investigation of the mystery. On this side his loyalty suffered no taint; their relations had but received, in some sense, sanctification. Beyond the barrier lay shame and dishonour. The two were to be married; therefore they loved. He disciplined a disordered mind with a logic of his own invention. It was a logic that entirely begged the question. Remembered words of Norma, “Do you think much love has come my way? Yours are the only lips I have ever heard speak of it,” fell outside his premises. They clamoured for explanation. So did the rich tremor of her voice. So did the lamentable lack of conviction in his reply. To these things he closed his intelligence. They belonged to the interpretation that staggered reason, that threatened to turn his fundamental conceptions into chaos. And past incidents came before him. During those last days in Wiltshire he had seen that her life lacked completion. That memory, too, disturbed his discipline. Fanatically he practised it, proving to himself that ice was hot and that the sun shone at midnight. She was happy in her love for Morland. She was happy in Morland's love for her. She had not identified with herself the imaginary woman of his adoration. She had not drunk in the outpouring of his passion. Her breath had not fallen warm upon his cheek. And the quickening of a wonderful birth had no reference to emotions and cravings quite different, intangible, inexpressible, existent in a far-away spirit land.
He was strangely silent during their homeward journey in the omnibus and the simple evening meal, and Aline, sensitive to his mood, choked down the eager questions that rose to her lips. It was only after supper in the studio, when she lit the spill for Jimmie's pipe—her economical soul deprecating waste in matches—that she ventured to say softly:
“I am afraid you'll miss the picture, Jimmie dear.”
He waited until the pipe was alight, and breathed out a puff of smoke with a sigh.
“Our happiness is made up of the things we miss,” he said.
“That's a paradox, and I don't believe it,” said Aline.
“Everything in life is a paradox,” he remarked, thinking of his logic. He relapsed into his perplexed silence. Aline settled herself in her usual chair with her workbasket and her eternal sewing. This evening she was recuffing his shirts. Presently she held up a cuff.
“See. I'm determined to make you smart and fashionable. I don't care what you say. These are square.”
“Are n't you putting a round man into a square cuff, my dear?” he asked.