“Capital idea!” said Uncle Chris. “Come this way, my dear fellow. As Mrs Peagrim says, I have ever so much to talk about. Along this passage, my boy. Be careful. There’s a step. Weil, well, well! It’s delightful to see you again!” He massaged Derek’s arm affectionately. Every time he had met Mrs Peagrim that evening he had quailed inwardly at what lay before him, should some hitch occur to prevent the re-union of Derek and Jill: and, now that the other was actually here, handsomer than ever and more than ever the sort of man no girl could resist, he declined to admit the possibility of a hitch. His spirits soared. “You haven’t seen Jill yet, of course?”
“No.” Derek hesitated. “Is Jill — Does she — I mean —”
Uncle Chris resumed his osteopathy. He kneaded his companion’s coat-sleeve with a jovial hand.
“My dear fellow, of course! I am sure that a word or two from you will put everything right. We all make mistakes. I have made them myself. I am convinced that everything will be perfectly all right — Ah, there she is. Jill, my dear, here is an old friend to see you!”
2.
Since the hurried departure of Mr Pilkington, Jill had been sitting in the auditorium, lazily listening to the music and watching the couples dancing on the stage. She did not feel like dancing herself, but it was pleasant to be there and too much exertion to get up and go home. She found herself drifting into a mood of gentle contentment, and was at a loss to account for this. She was happy,—quietly and peacefully happy, when she was aware that she ought to have been both agitated and apprehensive. When she had anticipated the recent interview with Otis Pilkington, which she had known was bound to come sooner or later, it had been shrinkingly and with foreboding. She hated hurting people’s feelings, and, though she read Mr Pilkington’s character accurately enough to know that time would heal any anguish which she might cause him, she had had no doubt that the temperamental surface of that long young man, when he succeeded in getting her alone, was going to be badly bruised. And it had fallen out just as she had expected. Mr Pilkington had said his say and departed, a pitiful figure, a spectacle which should have wrung her heart. It had not wrung her heart. Except for one fleeting instant when she was actually saying the fatal words, it had not interfered with her happiness at all; and already she was beginning to forget that the incident had ever happened.
And, if the past should have depressed her, the future might have been expected to depress her even more. There was nothing in it, either immediate or distant, which could account for her feeling gently contented. The future was a fog, into which she had to grope her way blindly. She could not see a step ahead. And yet, as she leaned back in her seat, her heart was dancing in time to the dance-music of Mrs Peagrim’s hired orchestra. It puzzled Jill.
And then, quite suddenly yet with no abruptness or sense of discovery, just as if it were something which she had known all along, the truth came upon her. It was Wally, the thought of Wally, the knowledge that Wally existed, that made her happy. He was a solid, comforting, reassuring fact in a world of doubts and perplexities. She did not need to be with him to be fortified, it was enough just to think of him. Present or absent, his personality heartened her like fine weather or music or a sea-breeze,—or like that friendly, soothing night-light which they used to leave in her nursery when she was little, to scare away the goblins and see her safely over the road that led to the gates of the city of dreams.
Suppose there were no Wally —
Jill gave a sudden gasp, and sat up, tingling. She felt as she had sometimes felt as a child, when, on the edge of sleep, she had dreamed that she was stepping of a precipice and had woken, tense and alert, to find that there was no danger after all. But there was a difference between that feeling and this. She had woken, but to find that there was danger. It was as though some inner voice was calling to her to be careful, to take thought. Suppose there were no Wally? — And why should there always be Wally? He had said confidently enough that there would never be another girl — But there were thousands of other girls, millions of other girls, and could she suppose that one of them would not have the sense to snap up a treasure like Wally? A sense of blank desolation swept over Jill. Her quick imagination, leaping ahead, had made the vague possibility of a distant future an accomplished fact. She felt, absurdly, a sense of overwhelming loss.