The Divine Fire
May Sinclair
CHAPTER XIV Page 2
She crossed to a table in the middle of the room, it was littered with papers. She brought and showed him some sheets covered with delicate handwriting; her work, poor lady.
"This is a rough catalogue as far as I've got. I think it will be some help."
"Very great help," he murmured, stung by an indescribable compunction. He had not reckoned on this complication; and it made the ambiguity of his position detestable. It was bad enough to come sneaking into her house as his father's agent and spy, and be doing his business all the while that this adorably innocent lady believed him to be exclusively engaged on hers. But that she should work with him, toiling at a catalogue which would eventually be Rickman's catalogue, there was something in the notion extremely repulsive to his sense of honour. Under its muffling of headache his mind wrestled feebly with the situation. He wished he had not got drunk last night so that he could see the thing clearly all round. As far as he could see at present the only decent course was to back out of it.
"What I have done covers the first five sections up to F."
"I see," he said with a faint interest, "you are keeping the classical and modern sections distinct."
"Yes, I thought that was better."
"Much better."
"I haven't begun the classical section yet. Can I leave that to you?"
"Certainly." He felt that every assent was committing him to he knew not what.
"You see a great deal of the work is done already. That makes a difference, doesn't it?"
"Oh, yes; it makes all the difference." And indeed it did.
"In this case you can undertake it?"
"No. I think in this case I couldn't undertake it at all."
Why not, indeed? He walked two or three paces from her, trying to think it out. If only his head didn't ache so abominably! To refuse to share the work with her was of course to lay himself open to a most disgusting suspicion.
He paced back again. Did she suspect him of mercenary motives? No; she suspected nothing. Her face expressed disappointment and bewilderment, so far as she allowed it to express anything. One more turn. Thank Goodness, she was not looking at him; she was giving him time. Only a second, though. She had seated herself, as much as to say she was now waiting for an explanation. He mustn't keep her waiting; he must say something, but what on earth was he going to say?
And as he looked at the lady so serenely seated, there rose up before him a sudden impertinent, incongruous vision of Miss Poppy Grace's legs. They reminded him certain affairs of his own imperatively called him back to town. Happy thought--why not say so?
"Could you not have thought of that before you came?"
"I did think of it. I thought I could fit everything in by going up to town from Saturday to Monday. But if I'm to finish by the twenty-seventh, even--even with your help, I oughtn't to lose a day, much less three days."
"I see. You are afraid of not being able to finish?"
He wavered, selecting some form of expression that might shadow forth what was passing in his mind.
"I'm afraid of making any promises I mightn't be able to keep."
Man's vacillation is Fate's determination, and Miss Harden was as firm as Fate. He felt that the fine long hands playing with the catalogue were shaping events for him, while her eyes measured him with their meditative gaze.
"I must risk that," she said. "I should lose more than three days in finding a substitute, and I think you will do the work as I want it done."
"And supposing I can't do it in time?"
"Will you do your best--that's all?"
"Certainly; whatever I do, I shall do my best. And if I fail you--"
Left unfinished, hanging in mid air, the phrase suggested the vague phantasmal contingencies for which he could find no name.
"I am willing to take the risk."
"But we haven't arranged anything about terms."
No, they had not. Was it in her adorable simplicity, or in the mere recklessness of her youth, that she engaged him first and talked about terms afterwards? Or did she know an honest man when she saw one? He took his note-book and pencil and made out an estimate with the rapidity of happy inspiration, a fantastic estimate, incredibly and ludicrously small.
"Then," said she, "there will be your expenses."
He had not thought of that difficulty; but he soared above it, still reckless and inspired.
"Expenses? Oh, expenses are included."
She considered the estimate with the prettiest pucker of her meditative brows.
"I don't understand these things; but--it seems very little."
So swiftly did the wings of his inspiration carry him into the blue ideal, high above both verbal verity and the gross material fact.
She acquiesced, though with some reluctance. "Well, and when do you think you can begin?"
"Whenever it's most convenient to you. I shall have to take a look round first."
"You can do that at once."
By this time he had forgotten that whatever he might have drunk he had eaten nothing since the dinner of last night. He had ceased to feel faint and headachy and hungry, having reached that stage of faintness, headache and hunger when the body sheds its weight and seems to walk gloriously upon air, to be possessed of supernatural energy. He went up and down library steps were ladders, and stood perilously on the tops of them. He walked round and round the walls, making calculations, till the library began to swing slowly round too, and a thin circle of grey mist swung with it. And all the time he was obscurely aware of a delicate grey-clad figure going to and fro in the grey mist, or seated intent at the table, doing his work. He felt that her eyes followed him now and then.
Heroism sustained him for an hour. At the end of the hour his progress round the room grew slower; and in passing by the table where she sat, he had to steady himself with one hand. A cold sweat broke on his forehead. He mopped it furtively. He had every reason to believe that his appearance was repulsive; and, in the same painful instant in which this conviction sank into him, she raised her head and he saw that she was beautiful. The upward look revealed her. It was as if some veil, soft but obscuring, had dropped from her face. As her eyes scanned him gently, it occurred to him that she had probably never before had an opportunity of intimately observing a gentleman suffering from the remoter effects of intoxication.
"You look tired," she said. "Or are you ill?"
He stood shame-faced before her; for her eyes were more disconcerting than when they had looked down on him from their height. They were tranquil now, full of kind thought and innocence and candour. Of innocence above all, a luminous innocence, a piercing purity. He was troubled by her presence; but it was not so much her womanhood that troubled him as the deep mystery of her youth.
He could not look at it as it looked at him; for in looking at it he remembered last night and many nights before. Somehow it made him see the things it could not see, his drunkenness, his folly, his passion, the villainous naked body of his sin. And it was for their work, and their marks upon him, that she pitied him.
"Have you had anything to _eat_?" said she.
"Oh, yes, thanks," he answered vaguely.
"When?"
"Well--as far as I can remember it was about eight o'clock last night."
"It's my own fault entirely. I wouldn't have mentioned it, except to account for my stupidity."
She crossed the room with a quick movement of distress and rang the bell. With horror he perceived her hospitable intention.
She was actually ordering his dinner and his room. He heard every word of her soft voice; it was saying that he was to have some soup, and the chicken, and the tart--no, the jelly, and a bottle of burgundy, in the morning-room. He saw the young footman standing almost on tip-toe, winged for service, fired enthusiasm and her secrecy.
Coming on that sinister and ambiguous errand, how could he sleep under her roof? How could he eat her chicken, and drink her burgundy, and sit in her morning-room? And how could he explain that he could not? Happily she left him to settle the point with the footman.
With surprise and a little concern Lucia Harden learnt that the rather extraordinary young man, Mr. Savage Keith Rickman, had betaken himself to an hotel. It appeared, that courteously, but with an earnestness that admitted of no contradiction, he had declined all hospitality whatever.