And suddenly he saw that she was before
him, sitting there already. His heart gave a jump. No more craning--he
WOULD speak!
She was wearing a maize-coloured muslin to which the sunlight gave a
sort of transparency, and sat, leaning back, her knees crossed, one hand
resting on the knob of her furled sunshade, her face half hidden by her
shady hat. Summerhay clenched his teeth, and went straight up to her.
"Gyp! No, I won't call you anything else. This can't go on! You know it
can't. You know I worship you! If you can't love me, I've got to break
away. All day, all night, I think and dream of nothing but you. Gyp, do
you want me to go?"
Suppose she said: "Yes, go!" She made a little movement, as if in
protest, and without looking at him, answered very low:
"Of course I don't want you to go. How could I?"
Summerhay gasped.
"Then you DO love me?"
She turned her face away.
"Wait, please. Wait a little longer. When we come back I'll tell you: I
promise!"
"So long?"
"A month. Is that long? Please! It's not easy for me." She smiled
faintly, lifted her eyes to him just for a second. "Please not any more
now."
That evening at his club, through the bluish smoke of cigarette after
cigarette, he saw her face as she had lifted it for that one second; and
now he was in heaven, now in hell.
VI
The verandahed bungalow on the South Coast, built and inhabited by
an artist friend of Aunt Rosamund's, had a garden of which the chief
feature was one pine-tree which had strayed in advance of the wood
behind.
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