The unconscious, inexorable ship ... gliding across the Atlantic.
They would take up their bright Canadian life again. England, a silent
picture, fading.... Dear Dr. von Heber. I owe it to myself just to
inform you that the legend you heard about me was untrue. Wishing you a
happy and prosperous career yours truly. That would be saying I, fool,
have discovered too late that I was not clever enough to let you imagine
that you were the only kind of man in the world ... discreet women are
sly. To get on in the world it is necessary to be sly. Von Heber is sly.
Careful and prudent and sly. What did genius Wayneflete think? Genius
understands everything. Discreet proper clever women are open books to
him. He will never marry. Whimsical old failure, Winchester,
disappearing into British Columbia; failure; decorated in his evening
conversations by having been to England.... My dear von Heber, what
the devil do you mean? When will you meet me? Choose your own weapons
... that would be admitting not having the right to be as free and
indiscreet as one chooses ... "a woman must march with her regiment;
if she is wise she does"; something like that. If a woman is _sly_ she
marches with her regiment ... all in agreement, being sly and
discreet, helping each other. What for? What was the plot for? ...
there's a _word_ ... _coercion_, that's the word. Better any sort of
free life.
* * * * *
If he could have _seen_. But then he would have seen those other moments
too. Von Heber. Power and success. Never any moments like that. Divided
life all the time _always_. So much for his profession, so much for her,
outside it with the regiment of women. Proper men can't bring the wild,
gleaming ... channel of flowers, pulling dragging to fling yourself
headlong down it and awake, dead. Dead if you do. Dead if you don't. Now
Tomlinson gave up the ghost.
3
"You're just in time." They had come back? He had come back for
something?
"There's a surprise waiting for you upstairs"; _what_ surprise Mrs.
Bailey; how can you be happy and mysterious; cajoling to rush on into
nothing, sweeping on, talking; "a friend of yorse; Dr. Winchester's
room; she's longing to see you."
"Good heavens."