Moving to the side of Gerald’s strange friend Miriam said something about the garden in a determined manner. He drew a sawing breath without answering. They walked down the short garden. It moved about them in an intensity of afternoon colour. He did not know it was there; there was something between him and the little coloured garden. He walked with bent head, his head dipping from his shoulders with a little bob at each step. Miriam wanted to make him feel the garden moving round them; either she must do that or ask him why he was suffering. He walked responsively, as if they were talking. He was feeling some sort of reprieve … perhaps the afternoon had bored him. They had turned and were walking back towards the house. If they reached it without speaking, they would not have courage to go down the garden again. She could not relinquish the strange painful comradeship so soon. They must go on expressing their relief at being together; anything she might say would destroy that. She wanted to take him by the arm and groan … on Harriett’s wedding-eve, and when she was feeling so happy and triumphant. …
“Have you known Gerald long?” she said, as they reached the house. He turned sharply to face the garden again.
“Oh, for a very great number of years,” he said quickly, “a—very—great—number.” His voice was the voice of the ritualistic curate at All Saints. He sighed impatiently. What was it he was waiting for her to say? Nothing perhaps. This busy walking was a way of finishing his visit without having to try to talk to anybody.
“How different people are,” she said airily.
“I’m very different,” he said, with his rasping, indrawn breath. A darkness coming from him enfolded her.
“Are you?” she said insincerely. Her eyes consulted the flowered border. She saw it as he saw it, just a flowered border, meaningless.
“You cannot possibly imagine what I am.”
Her mind leapt out to the moving garden, recapturing it scornfully. He is conceited about his difficulties and differences. He doesn’t think about mine. But he couldn’t talk like this unless he knew I were different. He knows it, but is not thinking about me.
“Don’t you think people are all alike, really?” she said impatiently.
“Our common humanity,” he said bitingly.
She had lost a thread. They were divided. She felt stiffly about for a conventional phrase.
“I expect that most men are the average manly man with the average manly faults.” She had read that somewhere. It was sly and wrong, written by somebody who wanted to flatter.
“It is wonderful, wonderful that you should say that to me.” He stared at the grass with angry eyes. His mouth smiled. His teeth were large and even. They seemed to smile by themselves. The dark, flexible lips curled about them in an unwilling grimace.
“He’s in some horrible pit,” thought Miriam, shrinking from the sight of the desolate garden.
“What are you going to do in life?” she said suddenly.
During the long silent interval she had felt a growing longing to hurt him in some way.
“If I had my will—if—I had my will—I should escape from the world.”
“What would you do?”
“I should join a brotherhood.”
“Oh. …”
“That is the life I should choose.”
“Do you see how unfair everything is?”
“Um?”
“If a woman joins an order she must confess to a man.”
“Yes,” he said indifferently. … “I can’t carry out my wish, I can’t carry out my dearest wish.”
“You have a dearest wish; that is a good deal.”
She ought to ask him why not and what he was going to do. But what did it matter? He was going unwillingly along some dreary path. There was some weak helplessness about him. He would always have a grievance and be sorry for himself … self-pity. She remained silent.
“I’m training for the Bar,” he murmured, staring away across the neighbouring gardens.
“Why—in Heaven’s name?”
“I have no choice.”
“But it’s absurd. You are almost a priest.”
“The Bar. That is my bourne.”
“Lawyers are the most ignorant, awful people.”
“I cannot claim superiority.” He laughed bitterly.
“But you can; you are. You can never be a lawyer.”
“It is necessary to do one’s duty. Occupation does not matter.”
“There you are; you’re a Jesuit already,” said Miriam angrily, seeing the figure at her side shrouded in a habit, wrapped in tranquillity, pacing along a cloister, lost to her. But if he stayed in the world and became a lawyer he would be equally lost to her.
“I have been … mad,” he muttered; “a madman … nothing but the cloister can give me peace—nothing but the cloister.”
“I don’t know. It seems like running away.”
“Running towards, running towards—”
Can’t you be at peace now, in this garden? ran her thoughts. I don’t condemn you for anything. Why can’t we stop worrying at things and be at peace? If I were beautiful I could make you be at peace—perhaps. But it would be a trick. Only real religion can help you. I can’t do anything. You are religious. I must keep still and quiet. …
If some cleansing fire could come and consume them both … flaring into the garden and consuming them both, together. Neither of them were wanted in the world. No one would ever want either of them. Then why could they not want each other? He did not wish it. Salvation. He wanted salvation—for himself.
“My people must be considered first,” he said speculatively.
“They want you to be a barrister. That’s the last reason in the world that would affect me.”
He glanced at her with far-off speculative eyes, his upper lip drawn terribly back from his teeth.
“He is thinking I am a hard unfeminine ill-bred woman.”
“I do it as an atonement.”
The word rang in the garden … the low tone of a bell. Her thoughts leaned towards the strength at her side.
“Oh, that’s grand,” she said hastily, and fluted quickly on, wondering where the inspiration had come from: “Luther said it’s much more difficult to live in the world than in a cell.”
“I am glad I have met you, glad I have met you,” he said, in
