Becoming gradually aware of the surprise under Selden’s silence, Lily turned to him and said simply: “I came to tell you that I was sorry for the way we parted–for what I said to you that day at Mrs. Hatch’s.”
The words rose to her lips spontaneously. Even on her way up the stairs, she had not thought of preparing a pretext for her visit, but she now felt an intense longing to dispel the cloud of misunderstanding that hung between them.
Selden returned her look with a smile. “I was sorry too that we should have parted in that way; but I am not sure I didn’t bring it on myself. Luckily I had foreseen the risk I was taking–-”
“So that you really didn’t care–-?” broke from her with a flash of her old irony.
“So that I was prepared for the consequences,” he corrected good-humouredly. “But we’ll talk of all this later. Do come and sit by the fire. I can recommend that arm-chair, if you’ll let me put a cushion behind you.”
While he spoke she had moved slowly to the middle of the room, and paused near his writing-table, where the lamp, striking upward, cast exaggerated shadows on the pallour of her delicately-hollowed face.
“You look tired–do sit down,” he repeated gently.
She did not seem to hear the request. “I wanted you to know that I left Mrs. Hatch immediately after I saw you,” she said, as though continuing her confession.
“Yes–yes; I know,” he assented, with a rising tinge of embarrassment.
“And that I did so because you told me to. Before you came I had already begun to see that it would be impossible to remain with her–for the reasons you gave me; but I wouldn’t admit it–I wouldn’t let you see that I understood what you meant.”
“Ah, I might have trusted you to find your own way out–don’t overwhelm me with the sense of my officiousness!”
His light tone, in which, had her nerves been steadier, she would have recognized the mere effort to bridge over an awkward moment, jarred on her passionate desire to be understood. In her strange state of extra-lucidity, which gave her the sense of being already at the heart of the situation, it seemed incredible that any one should think it necessary to linger in the conventional outskirts of word-play and evasion.
“It was not that–I was not ungrateful,” she insisted. But the power of expression failed her suddenly; she felt a tremor in her throat, and two tears gathered and fell slowly from her eyes.
Selden moved forward and took her hand. “You are very tired. Why won’t you sit down and let me make you comfortable?”
He drew her to the arm-chair near the fire, and placed a cushion behind her shoulders.
“And now you must let me make you some tea: you know I always have that amount of hospitality at my command.”
She shook her head, and two more tears ran over. But she did not weep easily, and the long habit of self-control reasserted itself, though she was still too tremulous to speak.
“You know I can coax the water to boil in five minutes,” Selden continued, speaking as though she were a troubled child.
His words recalled the vision of that other afternoon when they had sat together over his tea-table and talked jestingly of her future. There were moments when that day seemed more remote than any other event in her life; and yet she could always relive it in its minutest detail.
She made a gesture of refusal. “No: I drink too much tea. I would rather sit quiet–I must go in a moment,” she added confusedly.
Selden continued to stand near her, leaning against the mantelpiece. The tinge of constraint was beginning to be more distinctly perceptible under the friendly ease of his manner. Her self-absorption had not allowed her to perceive it at first; but now that her consciousness was once more putting forth its eager feelers, she saw that her presence was becoming an embarrassment to him. Such a situation can be saved only by an immediate outrush of feeling; and on Selden’s side the determining impulse was still lacking.