第61章 CHAPTER IX(8)

"Listen!" he pleaded. "I can't talk to you here. Won't you give me a chance to explain--to put myself right? You know what I think of you, how I respect and--admire you. If you'll only let me see you somewhere--anywhere, outside of the office, for a little while, I can't tell you how much I'd appreciate it. I'm sure you don't understand how I feel--I couldn't bear to lose you. I'll be down by the canal--near the bridge--at eight o'clock to-night. I'll wait for you. You'll come? Say you'll come, and give me another chance!"

"Aren't you going to finish your letters?" she asked.

He stared at her in sheer perplexity. "Letters!" he exclaimed. "Damn the letters! Do you think I could write any letters now?"

As a faint ray in dark waters, a gleam seemed to dance in the shadows of her eyes, yet was gone so swiftly that he could not be sure of having seen it. Had she smiled?

"I'll be there," he cried. "I'll wait for you "

She turned from him, opened the door, and went out.

That evening, as Janet was wiping the dishes handed her by her mother, she was repeating to herself "Shall I go--or shan't I?"--just as if the matter were in doubt. But in her heart she was convinced of its predetermination by some power other than her own volition. With this feeling, that she really had no choice, that she was being guided and impelled, she went to her bedroom after finishing her task. The hands of the old dining-room clock pointed to quarter of eight, and Lise had already made her toilet and departed. Janet opened the wardrobe, looked at the new blue suit hanging so neatly on its wire holder, hesitated, and closed the door again. Here, at any rate, seemed a choice. She would not wear that, to-night. She tidied her hair, put on her hat and coat, and went out; but once in the street she did not hurry, though she knew the calmness she apparently experienced to be false: the calmness of fatality, because she was obeying a complicated impulse stronger than herself--an impulse that at times seemed mere curiosity. Somewhere, removed from her immediate consciousness, a storm was raging; she was aware of a disturbance that reached her faintly, like the distant throbbing of the looms she heard when she turned from Faber into West Street She had not been able to eat any supper. That throbbing of the looms in the night! As it grew louder and louder the tension within her increased, broke its bounds, set her heart to throbbing too--throbbing wildly. She halted, and went on again, precipitately, but once more slowed her steps as she came to West Street and the glare of light at the end of the bridge; at a little distance, under the chequered shadows of the bare branches, she saw something move--a man, Ditmar. She stood motionless as he hurried toward her.

"You've come! You've forgiven me?" he asked.

"Why were you--down there?" she asked.

"Why? Because I thought--I thought you wouldn't want anybody to know--"

It was quite natural that he should not wish to be seen; although she had no feeling of guilt, she herself did not wish their meeting known. She resented the subterfuge in him, but she made no comment because his perplexity, his embarrassment were gratifying to her resentment, were restoring her self-possession, giving her a sense of power.

"We can't stay here," he went on, after a moment. "Let's take a little walk--I've got a lot to say to you. I want to put myself right." He tried to take her arm, but she avoided him. They started along the canal in the direction of the Stanley Street bridge. "Don't you care for me a little?" he demanded.

"Why should I?" she parried.

"Then--why did you come?"

"To hear what you had to say."

"You mean--about this afternoon?"

"Partly," said Janet.

"Well--we'll talk it all over. I wanted to explain about this afternoon, especially. I'm sorry--"

"Sorry!" she exclaimed.

The vehemence of her rebuke--for he recognized it as such--took him completely aback. Thus she was wont, at the most unexpected moments, to betray the passion within her, the passion that made him sick with desire. How was he to conquer a woman of this type, who never took refuge in the conventional tactics of her sex, as he had known them?

"I didn't mean that," he explained desperately. "My God--to feel you, to have you in my arms--! I was sorry because I frightened you. But when you came near me that way I just couldn't help it. You drove me to it."

"Drove you to it!"

"You don't understand, you don't know how--how wonderful you are. You make me crazy. I love you, I want you as I've never wanted any woman before--in a different way. I can't explain it. I've got so that I can't live without you." He flung his arm toward the lights of the mills. "That--that used to be everything to me, I lived for it. I don't say I've been a saint--but I never really cared anything about any woman until I knew you, until that day I went through the office and saw you what you were. You don't understand, I tell you. I'm sorry for what I did to-day because it offended you--but you drove me to it. Most of the time you seem cold, you're like an iceberg, you make me think you hate me, and then all of a sudden you'll be kind, as you were the other night, as you seemed this afternoon--you make me think I've got a chance, and then, when you came near me, when you touched my hand--why, I didn't know what I was doing. I just had to have you. A man like me can't stand it."

"Then I'd better go away," she said. "I ought to have gone long ago."