The Twelfth Hour Part 26

For the last few nights Woodville had suffered from insomnia--a trouble at which he used to scoff and smile, firmly believing, until it had been his own experience, that it was affectation. The second day that he had gone to look out of the window at about five o'clock in the morning, feeling that curious lucid clearness of brain, almost a kind of second-sight, sometimes produced by unwonted sleeplessness, he still thought that people made much too much fuss about a restless night or two.

"Suppose a fellow couldn't sleep for a time! Well, he can read, or work.

It was nothing." But, about eleven in the morning the exaltation of the wakefulness had gone off, and he felt stupid and depressed. He suddenly began to feel anxious about himself. Of course, it was all Sylvia! This life, seeing her more or less all day, under the same roof, pretending to be only friends, without any sort of vent, any expression, verbal or otherwise, for his sentiment, was impossible! It was unbearable! He ought to have gone to Athens.... Suddenly Sylvia came into the room. She looked the picture of freshness and happiness. She had come to fetch a book, she said. But she lingered a moment, to ask Woodville if he liked her new dress. It was a Paris marvel of simplicity in pale grey, and neither disguised nor over-emphasised the lines of her exquisite figure.

"Yes, I think it's all right," said Woodville.

"_All right!_" she exclaimed indignantly. "Don't you _see_ how it fits?

Why, it's simply wonderful! How heartless you are!" There was just a tinge of coquetry in her manner, which was rather unwonted. "You're not looking very well to-day," she said, looking sympathetically at him.

"I'm very well. I'm always all right."

"Are you angry with me, Frank? What's the matter? What's that you're reading?" She s.n.a.t.c.hed the book of poems away from him, read the poem and blushed with pleasure.

"Yes! You see that's what I'm reduced to!" he said.

"Frank, I don't think you go out enough. Look, what a lovely day it is!"

"Where do you propose I should go? To the theatre to-night? I hate theatres." He spoke irritably.

"No," she said in a low, soft voice; "let's break the compact, just for once--_just for once!_" She was instinctively taking advantage of a kind of weakness he showed this morning for the first time--due to his nervous fatigue--the weariness of long self-repression.

"Certainly not!" he answered, with no conviction whatever. "Whose birthday is it? It isn't Christmas Day--it isn't Midsummer Day. No! I don't see any excuse for doing it."

"Yes, there's a reason! It will be s.e.xagesima Sunday next week!"

"So it will!"

"Ah, you admit that! Well, let's go and have lunch at Richmond--or somewhere like that!"

"My poor dear child, what's the matter! You're not sane.... Besides, it's impossible," said Woodville, hesitating, in a hopeful voice.

"It isn't impossible. Papa's gone out for the whole day. Leave it to me!

I'll arrange it. If the worst came to the worst, I could tell papa that I longed for a little air and made you take me down to Richmond! Why!

you know he wouldn't mind. He would see nothing in it. We'd be back before five."

Woodville looked tempted.

"Besides, there would _be_ nothing in it," added Sylvia softly.

He took her hand. "Temptress!" he said. "Of course there wouldn't be any earthly harm in it," he said doubtfully.

"Then we're going to do it!"

"Are we, Eve?"

"Oh, Frank!" she exclaimed pa.s.sionately, "it's too absurd, too unnatural! Why shouldn't we have a moment's happiness? Aren't we going to be married next year?"

"Probably, if I live through this one."

She was smiling, for she knew she had won. "Yes, you'll live through it all right--if you only have a little fresh air and change of scene now and then!"

"I couldn't do it, Sylvia!--How should we go?"

"Drive in a hansom?"

"No, I'll meet you at the Underground Railway at Earl's Court."

"When?" she asked.

"In twenty minutes."

"All right. We'll have a holiday! Everybody has a holiday sometimes!

It's a heavenly day! We will go and walk in Richmond Park and forget all about the compact worries till we come back at tea-time. Papa won't, then, be back, and no one will ever know anything about it!" She clapped her hands. He smiled at her.

"It's settled," he said.

As she went out of the door, she murmured, "In twenty minutes, then,"

and vanished, radiant.

When she had gone, he found all trace of his usual scruples had inexplicably disappeared. It was natural, and (he said to himself) it was right! What use was this continual sacrifice of the precious hours and days of their youth--for an Idea? Besides, she looked so lovely. A man must be a stone to refuse such a delightful suggestion, or a fool.

He was neither. The reaction was inevitable, and in half an hour they were in the train together, in the highest spirits, all cares thrown aside, in the hope of the spring, of sunlight, fresh air, and above all, being together alone, free, for several hours. It seemed like a dream, a dream with the added substantial tangible joy of being real.

CHAPTER XVII

SAVILE TAKES A LINE

"Hallo, Savile!" said Felicity, who was putting the last touch to her veil in front of the mirror. "Nice boy! You're just what I wanted. Come out with me!"

It was about twelve o'clock, a lovely warm morning. The first hum of the season was just beginning, like the big orchestra of London tuning up.

There seemed a sort of suppressed excitement in the air. People of average spirits appeared unusually happy; the very highly strung seemed just a little wild; their eyes dancing, their tread lighter, and laughs were heard on the smallest provocation. Certainly the vision that met Felicity in the mirror was exhilarating enough. Dressed in the softest of blues, with a large brown hat on her golden hair, she looked like a pastel--a combination of the vagueness, remoteness, and delicacy of a Whistler with the concrete piquancy of a sketch in _L'Art et La Mode_.

Savile, however, showed none of the intoxicating effect of a gay London morning. He seemed more serious, more self-controlled, more correct even than usual.

"Where's Chetwode?" he asked.

"Oh, he's just going out, dear, I think. Do you want him? Shall I ring?"

"No; I shouldn't ring. What's the point of that except to delay my seeing him? No; I want to see him, so I'll go and look for him, and perhaps go out with him. I suppose you're driving, and don't need me?"

"_Need_ you? Oh no, darling; not exactly. Only I thought it would be fun to go out and look at the people in the Row--and laugh at them. Besides, I always drive down Piccadilly and Bond Street when I have a new hat, to find out whether it suits me. It's such fun. I can always tell."

"Frightfully comic, no doubt, but I've got something more important to think about this morning."

"What a bad temper you're in, Savile! Anything wrong, darling?"