Rampion laughed. “I’ll rebel enough for millions,” he said.
At the end of the summer Rampion returned to Sheffield and a little later the Felphams moved southward to their London house. It was Mary who wrote the first letter. She had expected to hear from him; but he did not write. Not that there was any good reason why he should. But somehow she had expected that he would write; she was disappointed when he did not. The weeks passed. In the end she wrote to ask him the name of a book about which he had spoken in one of their conversations. The pretext was flimsy; but it served. He answered; she thanked him; the correspondence became an established fact.
At Christmas Rampion came up to London; he had had some things accepted by the newspapers and was unprecedentedly rich—he had ten pounds to do what he liked with. He did not let Mary know of his proximity till the day before his departure.
“But why didn’t you tell me before?” she asked reproachfully when she heard how many days he had already been in London.
“I didn’t want to inflict myself on you,” he answered.
“But you knew I should have been delighted.”
“You have your own friends.” Rich friends, the ironical smile implied.
“But aren’t you one of my friends?” she asked, ignoring the implication.
“Thank you for saying so.”
“Thank you for being so,” she answered without affectation or coquetry.
He was moved by the frankness of her avowal, the genuineness and simplicity of her sentiment. He knew, of course, that she liked and admired him; but to know and to be told are different things.
“I’m sorry, then, I didn’t write to you before,” he said, and then regretted his words. For they were hypocritical. The real reason why he had kept away from her was not a fear of being badly received; it was pride. He could not afford to take her out; he did not want to accept anything.
They spent the afternoon together and were unreasonably, disproportionately happy.
“If only you’d told me before,” she repeated when it was time for her to go. “I wouldn’t have made this tiresome engagement for the evening.”
“You’ll enjoy it,” he assured her with a return of that ironical tone in which all his references to her life as a member of the monied class were made. The expression of happiness faded from his face. He felt suddenly rather resentful at having been so happy in her company. It was stupid to feel like that. What was the point of being happy on opposite sides of a gulf? “You’ll enjoy it,” he repeated, more bitterly. “Good food and wine, distinguished people, witty conversation, the theatre afterward. Isn’t it the ideal evening?” His tone was savagely contemptuous.
She looked at him with sad, pained eyes, wondering why he should suddenly have started thus to lay waste retrospectively to their afternoon. “I don’t know why you talk like that,” she said. “Do you know yourself?”
The question reverberated in his mind long after they had parted. “Do you know yourself?” Of course he knew. But he also knew that there was a gulf.
They met again at Stanton in Easter week. In the interval they had exchanged many letters and Mary had received a proposal of marriage from the military friend who had wanted to obliterate Stanton with howitzers. To the surprise and somewhat to the distress of her relations, she refused him.
“He’s such a nice boy,” her mother had insisted.
“I know. But one simply can’t take him seriously, can one?”
“Why not?”
“And then,” Mary continued, “he doesn’t really exist. He isn’t completely there. Just a lump; nothing more. One can’t marry someone who isn’t there.” She thought of Rampion’s violently living face; it seemed to burn, it seemed to be sharp and glowing. “One can’t marry a ghost, even when it’s tangible and lumpy—particularly when it’s lumpy.” She burst out laughing.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Mrs. Felpham with dignity.
“But I do,” Mary answered. “I do. And after all, that’s what chiefly matters in the circumstances.”
Walking with Rampion on the moors, she told him of the laying of this too, too solid military phantom. He made no comment. There was a long silence. Mary felt disappointed and at the same time ashamed of her disappointment. “I believe,” she said to herself, “I believe I was trying to get him to propose to me.”
The days passed; Rampion was silent and gloomy. When she asked him the reason, he talked unhappily about his future prospects. At the end of the summer he would have finished his university course; it would be time to think of a career. The only career that seemed to be immediately open—for he could not afford to wait—was teaching.
“Teaching,” he repeated with emphatic horror, “teaching! Does it surprise you that I should feel depressed?” But his misery had other causes besides the prospect of having to teach. “Would she laugh at me if I asked her?” he was wondering. He didn’t think she would. But if she wasn’t going to refuse, was it fair on his part to ask? Was it fair to let her in for the kind of life she would have to lead with him? Or perhaps she had money of her own; and in that case his own honour would be involved.
“Do you see me as a pedagogue?” he asked aloud. The pedagogue was his scapegoat.
“But why should you be a pedagogue, when you can write and draw? You can live on your wits.”
“But can I? At least pedagogy’s safe.”
“What do you want to be safe for?” she asked, almost contemptuously.
Rampion laughed. “You wouldn’t ask if you’d had to live on a weekly wage, subject to a week’s notice. Nothing like money for promoting courage and self-confidence.”
“Well then, to that extent money’s a good thing. Courage and self-confidence are virtues.”
They walked on for a long time in silence. “Well, well,” said Rampion at last, looking
