Part 76

“I like the wet on my face and hair, don’t you? When do you sail?”

I told her to-morrow.

“Oh, well, there’s no to-morrow now. You and I!” She stopped and confronted me.

“You don’t say a word except to answer!”

“No,” I said.

“Last time you did all the talking.”

“Like a fool. Now—”

We looked at each other’s two dim faces. “You’re glad to be here?”

“I’m glad—I’m beginning to be—it’s more than glad.”

She put her hands on my shoulders and drew me down to kiss her.

“Ah!” she said, and for a moment or so we just clung to one another.

“That’s all,” she said, releasing herself. “What bundles of clothes we are to-night. I felt we should kiss some day again. Always. The last time was ages ago.”

“Among the fern stalks.”

“Among the bracken. You remember. And your lips were cold. Were mine? The same lips—after so long—after so much!... And now let’s trudge through this blotted-out world together for a time. Yes, let me take your arm. Just trudge. See? Hold tight to me because I know the way—and don’t talk—don’t talk. Unless you want to talk.... Let me tell you things! You see, dear, the whole world is blotted out—it’s dead and gone, and we’re in this place. This dark wild place.... We’re dead. Or all the world is dead. No! We’re dead. No one can see us. We’re shadows. We’ve got out of our positions, out of our bodies—and together. That’s the good thing of it—together. But that’s why the world can’t see us and why we hardly see the world. Sssh! Is it all right?”

“It’s all right,” I said.

We stumbled along for a time in a close silence. We passed a dim-lit, rain-veiled window.

“The silly world,” she said, “the silly world! It eats and sleeps. If the wet didn’t patter so from the trees we’d hear it snoring. It’s dreaming such stupid things—stupid judgments. It doesn’t know we are passing, we two—free of it—clear of it. You and I!”

We pressed against each other reassuringly.

“I’m glad we’re dead,” she whispered. “I’m glad we’re dead. I was tired of it, dear. I was so tired of it, dear, and so entangled.”

She stopped abruptly.

We splashed through a string of puddles. I began to remember things I had meant to say.

“Look here!” I cried. “I want to help you beyond measure. You are entangled. What is the trouble? I asked you to marry me. You said you would. But there’s something.”

My thoughts sounded clumsy as I said them.

“Is it something about my position?... Or is it something—perhaps—about some other man?”

There was an immense assenting silence.

“You’ve puzzled me so. At first—I mean quite early—I thought you meant to make me marry you.”

“I did.”

“And then?”