“Too high,” he said.
“How can you tell?” she answered. “Give me your hand. Now feel here and here and here. Now give me your mouth. Can you feel me here close to you? That is right. Hold me so. You may have me closer than this if you will. You know I am young—as young as you are. Don’t you think it would be worth a little danger?”
“Tonight, tonight,” he implored.
“No, not tonight. Tomorrow night or never at all. What a trifling danger. This is England, a civilised country. The danger is worse for me. Suppose Henry should find us like this—or tomorrow night. How would he find us then? He will be working late. You may come to my room. They have given me a fine, soft bed. You are so young, I am sure that there are still things that I can show you. It will be fun. I shall enjoy myself.”
“Tonight. I can’t wait.”
She released herself and stood away watching him with a cool, amused glance. “Never unless you do what I say,” she said. “Think of that never. Will you ever have such a rich chance again? I don’t know why I’m offering it to you. I suppose it is pity for Henry and this spring weather. You are a likelier man than anyone else I’ve seen in this hotel.”
He watched her closely. Never before had he desired a woman so much—no, not Elizabeth. There was a kind of mystery in Elizabeth, a kind of sanctity which blurred and obscured his desire with love. Here was no love and no reverence. The animal in him could ponder her beauty crudely and lustfully, as it had pondered the charms of common harlots, but with the added spice of a reciprocated desire. It is true, he thought, what danger can there be? This is a civilised land. I will go to London and I shall not be lonely without Elizabeth for I shall have many other such adventures as this.
“Do you agree?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “And you—it shall be tomorrow night?”
“Unless the court sits too late. Nothing will make me stay awake for you.” She yawned. “How naughty of me it is. Henry would be furious with me,” she murmured with a smile of very faint amusement. “But I am so deathly bored. It is a mistake to live with a man for three years. He almost regards me as his wife, is virtuous with me, continent. I can’t bear that. Good night.” She held out her hand, but he ignored it. “I have bought her,” he thought, “why should I be polite? I have touched a better hand.”
“Good night,” he said.
She shrugged her shoulders, grimaced at him and passed through the door. Shadows swept round her, drowned her dress and body in darkness, so that for a brief moment her white face alone was visible and seemed to be floating disembodied in the dark. Then that too vanished and he heard the stairs creak under her running footsteps.
“Tomorrow we face the guns.” He was doing for a wrong reason what he had refused to do for a right. He had turned a deaf ear to what his heart, supported by the critic within, had asked of him, but he had capitulated at the first hungry wail his dirty, lusting body had uttered. His body had feared death and shrunk from danger. “If you had conquered that fear,” the reproachful critic murmured, “when Elizabeth spoke, I would have upheld you. Now your body has chosen and your body shall stand alone.”
VIII
A little after midnight it began to rain, a dull steady dripping rain which never ceased. The sun rose, but not into sight. Grey banked clouds slowly appeared, and that was the one sign of day. Along Lewes High Street there was no sound save the regular drip, drip of water from pipes and gables and sign boards. Water streamed from the hair, the robes and the sword of the fat stone Justice on the Assize Court, as though she had just risen from the leaden waves of a “pleasure resort,” like Venus out of the Mediterranean. Unperturbed by cold and damp she stared across the street at the windows of the White Hart with an expressionless gaze. A blind was raised and a young man looked out for a moment at the street. Through another window the fading light of a candle could be seen moving upwards, as an elderly, sharp-featured man mounted the stairs to bed. The flames of the two street lamps ceased to be bright gold breaches in the dark and became finally a faint yellow smear on a grey page. Presently an elderly man shuffled along the pavement and turned them out. By order of Lewes Corporation day had officially begun.
For several hours yet there was no movement of human beings in the street. A thin grey cat trod delicately along the gutter in a kind of dignified despondency, and a dog came trotting from a side turning, tail erect in spite of the rain. The cat leapt up three steps of a house and stood with bristling curved back, spitting defiance, while the dog, crouching close to the ground, barked in short, sharp bursts, more for amusement than from any real enmity. The blind of the White Hart was again raised and the same young man looked out, watching the byplay with an intent interest. He was fully dressed and his eyes were strained as though he had been unable to sleep. The cat, suddenly conscious that she was a show for two male creatures, leapt on a railing and disappeared. Dog and man watched in disappointed boredom the steps on which she had stood.
About an hour later a gang of men appeared with brooms
