Oh I am, she laughed, if you are! To which she added: Then you do still feel in the same way?
It was impossible he shouldnt take to himself that she was really interested, though it all kept coming as a perfect surprise. He had thought of himself so long as abominably alone, and lo he wasnt alone a bit. He hadnt been, it appeared, for an hoursince those moments on the Sorrento boat. It was she who had been, he seemed to see as he looked at hershe who had been made so by the graceless fact of his lapse of fidelity. To tell her what he had told herwhat had it been but to ask something of her? something that she had given, in her charity, without his having, by a remembrance, by a return of the spirit, failing another encounter, so much as thanked her. What he had asked of her had been simply at first not to laugh at him. She had beautifully not done so for ten years, and she was not doing so now. So he had endless gratitude to make up. Only for that he must see just how he had figured to her. What, exactly, was the account I gave?
Of the way you did feel? Well, it was very simple. You said you had had from your earliest time, as the deepest thing within you, the sense of being kept for something rare and strange, possibly prodigious and terrible, that was sooner or later to happen to you, that you had in your bones the foreboding and the conviction of, and that would perhaps overwhelm you.
Do you call that very simple? John Marcher asked.
She thought a moment. It was perhaps because I seemed, as you spoke, to understand it.
You do understand it? he eagerly asked.
Again she kept her kind eyes on him. You still have the belief?
Oh! he exclaimed helplessly. There was too much to say.
Whatever its to be, she clearly made out, it hasnt yet come.
He shook his head in complete surrender now. It hasnt yet come. Only, you know, it isnt anything Im to do, to achieve in the world, to be distinguished or admired for. Im not such an ass as that. It would be much better, no doubt, if I were.
Its to be something youre merely to suffer?
Well, say to wait forto have to meet, to face, to see suddenly break out in my life; possibly destroying all further consciousness, possibly annihilating me; possibly, on the other hand, only altering everything, striking at the root of all my world and leaving me to the consequences, however they shape themselves.
She took this in, but the light in her eyes continued for him not to be that of mockery. Isnt what you describe perhaps but the expectationor at any rate the sense of danger, familiar to so many peopleof falling in love?
John Marcher thought. Did you ask me that before?
NoI wasnt so free-and-easy then. But its what strikes me now.
Of course, he said after a moment, it strikes you. Of course it strikes me. Of course whats in store for me may be no more than that. The only thing is, he went on, that I think if it had been that I should by this time know.
Do you mean because youve been in love? And then as he but looked at her in silence: Youve been in love, and it hasnt meant such a cataclysm, hasnt proved the great affair?
Here I am, you see. It hasnt been overwhelming.
Then it hasnt been love, said May Bartram.
Well, I at least thought it was. I took it for thatIve taken it till now. It was agreeable, it was delightful, it was miserable, he explained. But it wasnt strange. It wasnt what my affairs to be.
You want something all to yourselfsomething that nobody else knows or has known?
It isnt a question of what I wantGod knows I dont want anything. Its only a question of the apprehension that haunts methat I live with day by day.
He said this so lucidly and consistently that he could see it further impose itself. If she hadnt been interested before shed have been interested now.
Is it a sense of coming violence?
Evidently now too again he liked to talk of it. I dont think of it aswhen it does comenecessarily violent. I only think of it as natural and as of course above all unmistakeable. I think of it simply as the thing. The thing will of itself appear natural.
Then how will it appear strange?
Marcher bethought himself. It wontto me.
To whom then?
Well, he replied, smiling at last, say to you.
Oh then Im to be present?
Why you are presentsince you know.
I see. She turned it over. But I mean at the catastrophe.
At this, for a minute, their lightness gave way to their gravity; it was as if the long look they exchanged held them together. It will only depend on yourselfif youll watch with me.
Are you afraid? she asked.
Dont leave me now, he went on.
Are you afraid? she repeated.
Do you think me simply out of my mind? he pursued instead of answering. Do I merely strike you as a harmless lunatic?
No, said May Bartram. I understand you. I believe you.
You mean you feel how my obsessionpoor old thingmay correspond to some possible reality?
To some possible reality.
Then you will watch with me?
She hesitated, then for the third time put her question. Are you afraid?
Did I tell you I wasat Naples?
No, you said nothing about it.
Then I dont know. And I should like to know, said John Marcher. Youll tell me yourself whether you think so. If youll watch with me youll see.
Very good then. They had been moving by this time across the room, and at the door, before passing out, they paused as for the full wind-up of their understanding. Ill watch with you, said May Bartram.
CHAPTER II
The fact that she knewknew and yet neither chaffed him nor betrayed himhad in a short time begun to constitute between them a goodly bond, which became more marked when, within the year that followed their afternoon at Weatherend, the opportunities for meeting multiplied. The event that thus promoted these occasions was the death of the ancient lady her great-aunt, under whose wing, since losing her mother, she had to such an extent found shelter, and who, though but the widowed mother of the new successor to the property, had succeededthanks to a high tone and a high temperin not forfeiting the supreme position at the great house. The deposition of this personage arrived but with her death, which, followed by many changes, made in particular a difference for the young woman in whom Marchers expert attention had recognised from the first a dependent with a pride that might ache though it didnt bristle. Nothing for a long time had made him easier than the thought that the aching must have been much soothed by Miss Bartrams now finding herself able to set up a small home in London. She had acquired property, to an amount that made that luxury just possible, under her aunts extremely complicated will, and when the whole matter began to be straightened out, which indeed took time, she let him know that the happy issue was at last in view. He had seen her again before that day, both because she had more than once accompanied the ancient lady to town and because he had paid another visit to the friends who so conveniently made of Weatherend one of the charms of their own hospitality. These friends had taken him back there; he had achieved there again with Miss Bartram some quiet detachment; and he had in London succeeded in persuading her to more than one brief absence from her aunt. They went together, on these latter occasions, to the National Gallery and the South Kensington Museum, where, among vivid reminders, they talked of Italy at largenot now attempting to recover, as at first, the taste of their youth and their ignorance. That recovery, the first day at Weatherend, had served its purpose well, had given them quite enough; so that they were, to Marchers sense, no longer hovering about the head-waters of their stream, but had felt their boat pushed sharply off and down the current.