The Egoist: A Comedy in Narrative

him.

L?titia and Clara sang together. L?titia was flushed, Clara pale. At eleven they saluted the ladies Eleanor and Isabel. Willoughby said «Good-night» to each of them, contrasting as he did so the downcast look of L?titia with Clara's frigid directness. He divined that they were off to talk over their one object of common interest, Crossjay. Saluting his aunts, he took up the rug, to celebrate their diligence and taste; and that he might make Dr. Middleton impatient for bed, he provoked him to admire it, held it out and laid it out, and caused the courteous old gentleman some confusion in hitting on fresh terms of commendation.

Before midnight the room was empty. Ten minutes later Willoughby paid it a visit, and found it untenanted by the person he had engaged to be there. Vexed by his disappointment, he paced up and down, and chanced abstractedly to catch the rug in his hand; for what purpose, he might well ask himself; admiration of ladies' work, in their absence, was unlikely to occur to him. Nevertheless, the touch of the warm, soft silk was meltingly feminine. A glance at the mantel-piece clock told him L?titia was twenty minutes behind the hour. Her remissness might endanger all his plans, alter the whole course of his life. The colours in which he painted her were too lively to last; the madness in his head threatened to subside. Certain it was that he could not be ready a second night for the sacrifice he had been about to perform.

The clock was at the half hour after twelve. He flung the silken thing on the central ottoman, extinguished the lamps, and walked out of the room, charging the absent L?titia to bear her misfortune with a consciousness of deserving it.

Chapter XL Midnight: Sir Willoughby And L?titia: With Young Crossjay Under A Coverlet

Young Crossjay was a glutton at holidays and never thought of home till it was dark. The close of the day saw him several miles away from the Hall, dubious whether he would not round his numerous adventures by sleeping at an inn; for he had lots of money, and the idea of jumping up in the morning in a strange place was thrilling. Besides, when he was shaken out of sleep by Sir Willoughby, he had been told that he was to go, and not to show his face at Patterne again. On the other hand, Miss Middleton had bidden him come back. There was little question with him which person he should obey: he followed his heart.

Supper at an inn, where he found a company to listen to his adventures, delayed him, and a short cut, intended to make up for it, lost him his road. He reached the Hall very late, ready to be in love with the horrible pleasure of a night's rest under the stars, if necessary. But a candle burned at one of the back windows. He knocked, and a kitchen-maid let him in. She had a bowl of hot soup prepared for him. Crossjay tried a mouthful to please her. His head dropped over it. She roused him to his feet, and he pitched against her shoulder. The dry air of the kitchen department had proved too much for the tired youngster. Mary, the maid, got him to step as firmly as he was able, and led him by the back-way to the hall, bidding him creep noiselessly to bed. He understood his position in the house, and though he could have gone fast to sleep on the stairs, he took a steady aim at his room and gained the door cat-like. The door resisted. He was appalled and unstrung in a minute. The door was locked. Crossjay felt as if he were in the presence of Sir Willoughby. He fled on ricketty legs, and had a fall and bumps down half a dozen stairs. A door opened above. He rushed across the hall to the drawing-room, invitingly open, and there staggered in darkness to the ottoman and rolled himself in something sleek and warm, soft as hands of ladies, and redolent of them; so delicious that he hugged the folds about his head and heels. While he was endeavouring to think where he was, his legs curled, his eyelids shut, and he was in the thick of the day's adventures, doing yet more wonderful things.

He heard his own name: that was quite certain. He knew that he heard it with his ears, as he pursued the fleetest dreams ever accorded to mortal. It did not mix: it was outside him, and like the danger-pole in the ice, which the skater shooting hither and yonder comes on again, it recurred; and now it marked a point in his career, how it caused him to relax his pace; he began to circle, and whirled closer round it, until, as at a blow, his heart knocked, he tightened himself, thought of bolting, and lay dead-still to throb and hearken.

'Oh! Sir Willoughby,' a voice had said.

The accents were sharp with alarm.

'My friend! my dearest!' was the answer.

'I came to speak of Crossjay.'

'Will you sit here on the ottoman?'

'No, I cannot wait. I hoped I had heard Crossjay return. I would rather not sit down. May I entreat you to pardon him when he comes home?'

'You, and you only, may do so. I permit none else. Of Crossjay to-morrow.'

'He may be lying in the fields. We are anxious.'

'The rascal can take pretty good care of himself.'

'Crossjay is perpetually meeting accidents.'

'He shall be indemnified if he has had excess of punishment.'

'I think I will say good-night, Sir Willoughby.'

'When freely and unreservedly you have given me your hand.'

There was hesitation.

'To say good-night?'

'I ask you for your hand.'

'Good-night, Sir Willoughby.'

'You do not give it. You are in doubt? Still? What language must I use to convince you? And yet you know me. Who knows me but you? You have always known me. You are my home and my temple. Have you forgotten your verses of the day of my majority?

'The dawn-star has arisen
In plenitude of light…'

'Do not repeat them, pray!' cried L?titia, with a gasp.

'I have repeated them to myself a thousand times: in India, America, Japan: they were like our English skylark, carolling to me.

'My heart, now burst thy prison
With proud ?rial flight!'

'Oh, I beg you will not force me to listen to nonsense that I wrote when I was a child. No more of those most foolish lines! If you knew what it is to write and despise one's writing, you would not distress me. And since you will not speak of Crossjay to-night, allow me to retire.'

'You know me, and therefore you know my contempt for verses, as a rule, L?titia. But not for yours to me. Why should you call them foolish? They expressed your feelings — hold them sacred. They are something religious to me, not mere poetry. Perhaps the third verse is my favourite…'

'It will be more than I can bear!'

'You were in earnest when you wrote them?'

'I was very young, very enthusiastic, very silly.'

'You were and are my image of constancy!'

'It is an error, Sir Willoughby; I am far from being the same.'

'We are all older, I trust wiser. I am, I will own; much wiser. Wise at last! I offer you my hand.'

She did not reply.