Evelyn Innes. George Moore

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СКАЧАТЬ a letter for him explaining—telling him the story. And who would play the viola da gamba at his concerts? and there would be no one to see that he had his meals.

      Was she or was she not going away with Owen to Paris on Thursday night? The agonising question continued at every moment to present itself. Whatever she was doing or saying, she was always conscious of it, and as the time drew near, with every hour, it seemed to approach and menace her. She seemed to feel it beating like a neuralgic pain behind her eyes; and though she laughed and talked a great deal, her father noticed that her animation was strained and nervous, and he noticed, too, that in no part of their conversation was she ever entirely with him, and he wondered what were the sights and scenes he faintly discerned in her changing eyes.

      On getting up on Wednesday morning, she remembered that the best train from Dulwich was at three o'clock, and she asked herself why she had thought of this train, and that she should have thought of it seemed to her like an omen. Her father sat opposite, looking at her across the table. It was all so clear in her mind that she was ashamed to sit thinking these things, for thinking as clearly as she was thinking seemed equivalent to accomplishment; and the difference between what she thought and what she said was so repulsive to her that she was on the point of flinging herself at his feet several times.

      There were times when the temptation seemed to have left her, when she smiled at her own weakness and folly; and having reproved herself sufficiently, she thought of other things. It seemed to her extraordinary why she should argue and trouble about a thing which she really had no intention of doing. But at that moment her heart told her that this was not so, that she would go to meet Owen in Berkeley Square, and she was again taken with an extraordinary inward trembling.

      Our actions obey an unknown law, implicit in ourselves, but which does not conform to our logic. So we very often succeed in proving to ourselves that a certain course is the proper one for us to follow, in preference to another course, but, when it comes for us to act, we do not act as we intended, and we ascribe the discrepancy between what we think and what we do to a deficiency of will power. Man dares not admit that he acts according to his instincts, that his instincts are his destiny.

      We make up our mind to change our conduct in certain matters, but we go on acting just the same; and in spite of every reason, Evelyn was still undecided whether she should go to meet Sir Owen. It was quite clear that it was wrong for her to go, and it seemed all settled in her mind; but at the bottom of her heart something over which she had no kind of control told her that in the end nothing could prevent her from going to meet him. She stopped, amazed and terrified, asking herself why she was going to do a thing which she seemed no longer even to desire.

      In the afternoon some girl friends came to see her. She played and sang and talked to them, but they, too, noticed that she was never really with them, and her friends could see that she saw and heard things invisible and inaudible to them. In the middle of some trifling chatter—whether one colour or another was likely to be fashionable in the coming season—she had to put her hand in her pocket for her handkerchief, and happened to meet the key of the square, and it brought back to her in a moment the entire drama of her destiny. Was she going to take the three o'clock train to London, or to remain in Dulwich with her father? She thought that she would not mind whatever happened, if she only knew what would happen. Either lot seemed better to her than the uncertainty. She rattled on, talking with fictitious gaiety about the colour of bonnets and a party at which Julia had sung, not even hearing what she was saying. Wednesday evening passed with an inward vision so intense that all the outer world had receded from her, she was like one alone in a desert, and she ate without tasting, saw without seeing what she looked at, spoke without knowing what she was saying, heard without hearing what was said to her, and moved without knowing where she was going.

      On Thursday morning the obsession of her destiny took all colour from her cheek, and her eyes were nervous.

      "What is it, my girl?" Her father said, taking her hand, and the music he was tying up dropped on the floor. "Tell me, Evelyn; something, I can see, is the matter."

      It was like the breaking of a spring. Something seemed to give way within her, and slipping on her knees, she threw her arms about him.

      "I am very unhappy. I wish I were dead."

      He strove to raise her from her knees, but the attitude expressed her feelings, and she remained, leaning her face against him. Nor could he coax any information from her. At last she said, raising her tearful eyes—

      "If I were to leave you, father, you would never forgive me? But I am your only daughter, and you would forgive me; whatever happened, we should always love one another?"

      "But why should you leave me?"

      "But if I loved someone? I don't mean as I love you. I could never love anyone so tenderly; I mean quite differently. Don't make me say more. I am so ashamed of myself."

      "You are in love with him?"

      "Yes, and he has asked me to go away with him." And as she answered, she wondered at the quickness with which her father had guessed that it was Owen. He was such a clever man; the moment his thoughts were diverted from his music, he understood things as well as the most worldly, and she felt that he would understand her, that she must open her heart to him.

      "If I don't go away with him I shall die, or kill myself, or go mad. It is terrible to have to tell you these things, father, I know, but I must. I was ill when he went away to Greece, you remember. It was nothing but love of him."

      "Did he not ask you to marry him?"

      "No, he will never marry anyone."

      "And that made no difference to you?"

      "Oh, father, don't be angry, don't think me horrid. You are looking at me as if you never saw me before. I know I ought to have been angry when he asked me to go away with him, but somehow I wasn't. I don't know that I even wanted him to marry me. I want to go away and be a great singer, and he is not more to blame than I am. I can't tell lies. What is the use of telling lies? If I were to tell you anything else, it would be untrue."

      "But are you going away with him?"

      "I don't know. Not if I can help it;" and at that moment her eyes went to the portrait of her mother.

      "You lost your mother very early, and I have neglected you. She ought to be here to protect you."

      "No, no, father; she would not understand me as well as you do."

      "So you are glad that she is not here?"

      Evelyn nodded, and then she said—

      "If he were to go away and I were left here again, I don't know what would become of me. It isn't my fault, father; I can't help it."

      "I did not know that you were like this. Your mother—"

      "Ah I mother and I are quite different. I am more like you, father. You can't blame me; you have been in love with women—with mother, at least—and ought to understand."

      "Evelyn … these are subjects that cannot be discussed between us."

      The eyes of the mother watched them, and there was something in her cold, distant glance which went to their hearts, but they could not interpret its meaning.

      "I either had to go away, father, telling you nothing, or I had to tell you everything."

      "I СКАЧАТЬ