The Essential W. Somerset Maugham Collection. W. Somerset Maugham

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СКАЧАТЬ passion was growing uncontrollable. He walked up and down the room, and then threw himself heavily on a chair.

      "Oh, I know it was weakness! I used to pride myself on my strength of mind, but I'm weak. I'm weaker than a woman. I'm a poor reed--vacillating, uncertain, purposeless. I don't know my own mind. I haven't the courage to act according to my convictions. I'm afraid to give pain. They all think I'm brave, but I'm simply a pitiful coward...."

      "I feel that Mary has entrapped me, and I hate her. I know she has good qualities--heaps of them--but I can't see them. I only know that the mere touch of her hand curdles my blood. She excites absolute physical repulsion in me; I can't help it. I know it's madness to marry her, but I can't do anything else. I daren't inflict a second time the humiliation and misery upon her, or the unhappiness upon my people."

      Mrs. Wallace now was serious.

      "And do you really care for anyone else?"

      He turned savagely upon her.

      "You know I do. You know I love you with all my heart and soul. You know I've loved you passionately from the first day I saw you. Didn't you feel, even when we were separated, that my love was inextinguishable? Didn't you feel it always with you? Oh, my dear, my dear, you must have known that death was too weak to touch my love! I tried to crush it, because neither you nor I was free. Your husband was my friend. I couldn't do anything blackguardly. I ran away from you. What a fool you must have thought me! And now I know that at last we were both free, I might have made you love me. I had my chance of happiness at last; what I'd longed for, cursing myself for treachery, had come to pass. But I never knew. In my weakness I surrendered my freedom. O God! what shall I do?"

      He hid his face in his hands and groaned with agony. Mrs. Wallace was silent for a while.

      "I don't know if it will be any consolation for you," she said at last; "you're sure to know sooner or later, and I may as well tell you now. I'm engaged to be married."

      "What!" cried James, springing up. "It's not true; it's not true!"

      "Why not? Of course it's true!"

      "You can't--oh, my dearest, be kind to me!"

      "Don't be silly, there's a good boy! You're going to be married yourself in a month, and you really can't expect me to remain single because you fancy you care for me. I shouldn't have told you, only I thought it would make things easier for you."

      "You never cared two straws for me! I knew that. You needn't throw it in my face."

      "After all, I was a married woman."

      "I wonder how much you minded when you heard your husband was lying dead on the veldt?"

      "My dear boy, he wasn't; he died of fever at Durban--quite comfortably, in a bed."

      "Were you sorry?"

      "Of course I was! He was extremely satisfactory--and not at all exacting."

      James did not know why he asked the questions; they came to his lips unbidden. He was sick at heart, angry, contemptuous.

      "I'm going to marry a Mr. Bryant--but, of course, not immediately," she went on, occupied with her own thoughts, and pleased to talk of them.

      "What is he?"

      "Nothing! He's a landed proprietor." She said this with a certain pride.

      James looked at her scornfully; his love all through had been mingled with contrary elements; and trying to subdue it, he had often insisted upon the woman's vulgarity, and lack of taste, and snobbishness. He thought bitterly now that the daughter of the Portuguese and of the riding-master had done very well for herself.

      "Really, I think you're awfully unreasonable," she said. "You might make yourself pleasant."

      "I can't," he said, gravely. "Let me go away. You don't know what I've felt for you. In my madness, I fancied that you must realise my love; I thought even that you might care for me a little in return."

      "You're quite the nicest boy I've ever known. I like you immensely."

      "But you like the landed proprietor better. You're very wise. He can marry you. Good-bye!"

      "I don't want you to think I'm horrid," she said, going up to him and taking his arm. It was an instinct with her to caress people and make them fond of her. "After all, it's not my fault."

      "Have I blamed you? I'm sorry; I had no right to."

      "What are you going to do?"

      "I don't know--I can always shoot myself if things get unendurable. Thank God, there's always that refuge!"

      "Oh, I hope you won't do anything silly!"

      "It would be unlike me," James murmured, grimly. "I'm so dreadfully prosaic and matter-of-fact. Good-bye!"

      Mrs. Wallace was really sorry for James, and she took his hand affectionately. She always thought it cost so little to be amiable.

      "We may never meet again," she said; "but we shall still be friends, Jim."

      "Are you going to say that you'll be a sister to me, as Mary told the curate?"

      "Won't you kiss me before you go?"

      James shook his head, not trusting himself to answer. The light in his life had all gone; the ray of sunshine was hidden; the heavy clouds had closed in, and all the rest was darkness. But he tried to smile at Mrs. Wallace as he touched her hand; he hardly dared look at her again, knowing from old experience how every incident and every detail of her person would rise tormentingly before his recollection. But at last he pulled himself together.

      "I'm sorry I've made a fool of myself," he said, quietly. "I hope you'll be very happy. Please forget all I've said to you. It was only nonsense. Good-bye! I'll send you a bit of my wedding-cake."

      XXI

      James was again in Little Primpton, ill at ease and unhappy. The scene with Mrs. Wallace had broken his spirit, and he was listless now, indifferent to what happened; the world had lost its colour and the sun its light. In his quieter moments he had known that it was impossible for her to care anything about him; he understood her character fairly well, and realised that he had been only a toy, a pastime to a woman who needed admiration as the breath of her nostrils. But notwithstanding, some inner voice had whispered constantly that his love could not be altogether in vain; it seemed strong enough to travel the infinite distance to her heart and awaken at least a kindly feeling. He was humble, and wanted very little. Sometimes he had even felt sure that he was loved. The truth rent his heart, and filled it with bitterness; the woman who was his whole being had forgotten him, and the woman who loved him he hated.... He tried to read, striving to forget; but his trouble overpowered him, and he could think of nothing but the future, dreadful and inevitable. The days passed slowly, monotonously; and as each night came he shuddered at the thought that time was flying. He was drifting on without hope, tortured and uncertain.

      "Oh, СКАЧАТЬ