“This thing,” he said, “coming as a shock, coming out of the blue sky without warning–Meredith is the last man in the world you would expect to crack up; he looked as fit as a dray horse the last time I saw him–somehow seems to have hammered a certain amount of sense into me. Odd it never struck me before; but I suppose I have been about the most bumptious, conceited fool that ever happened.
“Why I should have imagined that there was a sort of irresistible fascination in me, which was bound to make you break off your engagement and upset the whole universe simply to win the wonderful reward of marrying me, is more than I can understand. I suppose it takes a shock to make a fellow see exactly what he really amounts to. I couldn’t think any more of you than I do; but, if I could, the way you have put up with my mouthing and swaggering and posing as a sort of superman, would make me do it. You have been wonderful!”
Aline could not speak. She felt as though her whole world had been turned upside down in the last quarter of an hour. This was a new George Emerson, a George at whom it was impossible to laugh, but an insidiously attractive George. Her heart beat quickly. Her mind was not clear; but dimly she realized that he had pulled down her chief barrier of defense and that she was more open to attack than she had ever been. Obstinacy, the automatic desire to resist the pressure of a will that attempted to overcome her own, had kept her cool and level-headed in the past. With masterfulness she had been able to cope. Humility was another thing altogether.
Soft-heartedness was Aline’s weakness. She had never clearly recognized it, but it had been partly pity that had induced her to accept Freddie; he had seemed so downtrodden and sorry for himself during those Autumn days when they had first met. Prudence warned her that strange things might happen if once she allowed herself to pity George Emerson.
The silence lengthened. Aline could find nothing to say. In her present mood there was danger in speech.
“We have known each other so long,” said Emerson, “and I have told you so often that I love you, we have come to make almost a joke of it, as though we were playing some game. It just happens that that is our way–to laugh at things; but I am going to say it once again, even though it has come to be a sort of catch phrase. I love you! I’m reconciled to the fact that I am done for, out of the running, and that you are going to marry somebody else; but I am not going to stop loving you.
“It isn’t a question of whether I should be happier if I forgot you. I can’t do it. It’s just an impossibility–and that’s all there is to it. Whatever I may be to you, you are part of me, and you always will be part of me. I might just as well try to go on living without breathing as living without loving you.”
He stopped and straightened himself.
“That’s all! I don’t want to spoil a perfectly good Spring afternoon for you by pulling out the tragic stop. I had to say all that; but it’s the last time. It shan’t occur again. There will be no tragedy when I step into the train to-morrow. Is there any chance that you might come and see me off?”
Aline nodded.
“You will? That will be splendid! Now I’ll go and pack and break it to my host that I must leave him. I expect, it will be news to him to learn that I am here. I doubt if he knows me by sight.”
Aline stood where he had left her, leaning on the balustrade. In the fullness of time there came to her the recollection she had promised Freddie that shortly after luncheon she would sit with him.
…
The Honorable Freddie, draped in purple pyjamas and propped up with many pillows, was lying in bed, reading Gridley Quayle, Investigator. Aline’s entrance occurred at a peculiarly poignant moment in the story and gave him a feeling of having been brought violently to earth from a flight in the clouds. It is not often an author has the good fortune to grip a reader as the author of Gridley Quayle gripped Freddie.