We pass it on the right in a moment."
"It does seem a pity that you don't make something of your talents. It seems such a waste to write little stories and never publish them. You must have enough for a book. Life is so full in our days that short stories are the very thing; they get read by people who'd never tackle a novel. For example, at our Dorcas we tried to read out a long affair by Henry James--Herbert saw it recommended in 'The Times.' There was no doubt it was very good, but one simply couldn't remember from one week to another what had happened. So now our aim is to get something that just lasts the hour. I take you seriously, Rickie, and that is why I am so offensive. You are too modest. People who think they can do nothing so often do nothing. I want you to plunge."It thrilled him like a trumpet-blast. She took him seriously.
Could he but thank her for her divine affability! But the words would stick in his throat, or worse still would bring other words along with them. His breath came quickly, for he seldom spoke of his writing, and no one, not even Ansell, had advised him to plunge.
"But do you really think that I could take up literature?""Why not? You can try. Even if you fail, you can try. Of course we think you tremendously clever; and I met one of your dons at tea, and he said that your degree was not in the least a proof of your abilities: he said that you knocked up and got flurried in examinations. Oh!"--her cheek flushed,--"I wish I was a man. The whole world lies before them. They can do anything. They aren't cooped up with servants and tea parties and twaddle. But where's this dell where the Dryad disappeared?""We've passed it." He had meant to pass it. It was too beautiful.
All he had read, all he had hoped for, all he had loved, seemed to quiver in its enchanted air. It was perilous. He dared not enter it with such a woman.
"How long ago?" She turned back. "I don't want to miss the dell.
Here it must be," she added after a few moments, and sprang up the green bank that hid the entrance from the road. "Oh, what a jolly place!""Go right in if you want to see it," said Rickie, and did not offer to go with her. She stood for a moment looking at the view, for a few steps will increase a view in Cambridgeshire. The wind blew her dress against her. Then, like a cataract again, she vanished pure and cool into the dell.
The young man thought of her feelings no longer. His heart throbbed louder and louder, and seemed to shake him to pieces.
"Rickie!"
She was calling from the dell. For an answer he sat down where he was, on the dust-bespattered margin. She could call as loud as she liked. The devil had done much, but he should not take him to her.
"Rickie!"--and it came with the tones of an angel. He drove his fingers into his ears, and invoked the name of Gerald. But there was no sign, neither angry motion in the air nor hint of January mist. June--fields of June, sky of June, songs of June. Grass of June beneath him, grass of June over the tragedy he had deemed immortal. A bird called out of the dell: "Rickie!"A bird flew into the dell.
"Did you take me for the Dryad?" she asked. She was sitting down with his head on her lap. He had laid it there for a moment before he went out to die, and she had not let him take it away.
"I prayed you might not be a woman," he whispered.
"Darling, I am very much a woman. I do not vanish into groves and trees. I thought you would never come.""Did you expect--?"
"I hoped. I called hoping."
Inside the dell it was neither June nor January. The chalk walls barred out the seasons, and the fir-trees did not seem to feel their passage. Only from time to time the odours of summer slipped in from the wood above, to comment on the waxing year.
She bent down to touch him with her lips.
He started, and cried passionately, "Never forget that your greatest thing is over. I have forgotten: I am too weak. You shall never forget. What I said to you then is greater than what I say to you now. What he gave you then is greater than anything you will get from me."She was frightened. Again she had the sense of something abnormal. Then she said, "What is all this nonsense?" and folded him in her arms.