"Woof! Poof! Off we go!" St.Dreot's, that square piece of grass on the lawn with the light on it, her clothes, the socks that must be mended, Caroline's silk and the rustle it made, shops, houses, rivers, seas, death--yes, Aunt Anne's cancer...and then, with a great upward surge like rising from the depths of the sea after a dive, Martin! Martin, Martin!...For a moment then she had to pause.She had been walking too fast.Her heart jumped, then ran a step or two, then fell into a dead pause...She went on, seeing now nothing but two lamps that watched her like the eyes of a giant.
She was there! This was a Marble Arch! All by itself in the middle of the road.She crossed to it, first went under it, then thought that he would not see her there so came out and stood, nervously rubbing her gloved hands against one another and turning her head, like a bird, swiftly from side to side.She didn't like standing there.It seemed to make her so prominent.Men stared at her.He should have been there first.He might have known...But perhaps Caroline never gave him the letter.At that thought her heart really did stop.She was terrified at once as though some one had told her disastrous news.She would not wait very long; then she would go home...
She saw him.He stood only a little away from her staring about him, looking for her.She felt that she had not seen him for years; she drank in his sturdiness, his boyish face, his air of caring nothing for authority.She had not seen his dark blue overcoat before.He stood directly under a lamp, swaying ever so little on his heels, his favourite, most characteristic, movement.He stood there as though he were purposely giving her a portrait that she might remember for the rest of her days.She was too nervous to move and then she wanted that wonderful moment to last, that moment when she had realised that he had come to meet her, that he was there, amongst all those crowds, simply for her, that he was looking for her and wanting her, that he would be bitterly disappointed did she not come...
She saw him give a little impatient jerk of the head, the same movement that she had seen him make in Chapel.That jerk set her in motion again, and she was suddenly at his side.She touched his arm;he turned and his eyes lit with pleasure.They smiled at one another and then, without a word, moved off towards the park.He took her arm and put it through his.She felt the warm thick stuff of the blue coat, and beneath that the steady firm beat of his heart.They walked closely together, his thigh pressed against hers, and once and again her hair brushed his cheek.She was so shy that, until they were through the gates of the park, she did not speak.Then she said:
"I was so afraid that Caroline would not give you the note.""Oh, she gave it me all right." He pressed her arm closer to him.
"But I expect that she read it first."
"Oh, is she like that?"
"Yes, she's like that..."
There was another pause; they turned down the path to the right towards the trees that were black lumps of velvet against the purple sky.There were no stars, and it was liquidly dark as though they ploughed through water.Maggie felt suffocated with heat and persecuted by a strange weariness; she was suddenly so tired that it was all that she could do to walk.
"I'm tired..." she murmured--"expecting you--afraid that you wouldn't come.""I believe that I would have come," he answered quite fiercely, "even if I hadn't had the note--I was determined to see you to-night some way.But you know, Maggie, it had better be for the last time...""No," she said, whispering, "it's the first time.""Let's sit down here," he said."We're alone all right."There was no seat near them.The trees made a cave of black above them, and in front of them the grass swept like a grey beach into mist.There was no sound save a distant whirr like the hum of a top that died to a whisper and then was lashed by some infuriated god to activity again.
They sat close together on the bench.She felt his arm move out as though he would embrace her, then suddenly he drew back.
"No," he said, "until we've talked this out we've got to be like strangers.We can't go on, you know, Maggie, and it's no use your saying we can."She pressed her hands tightly together."I can convince him better,"she thought to herself, "if I'm very quiet and matter-of-fact." So, speaking very calmly and not looking at him, she went on: