In Accordance with the Evidence Part 3

And so literally was this slender dark creature "my life," that often at the college itself my resolution all but failed me. More (but not much more) woman than child, she seemed at these times--what shall I say?--not a wonder shrunk, but a receptacle strangely slight and tender for the mighty things preparing for her. At such moments I found myself looking years ahead--seeing many things over and behind us, and myself, perhaps, turning my power elsewhere. And that moved me more than all the rest. For my strength was ever being used for her. Service of her was the law of it, as I now knew it had been its origin. I sometimes had ado not to sob, when watching her young head bent over the page of a text-book, images of great and brooding protection of enfolding and strong and jealous wakefulness, filled my breast as I looked. I felt in those moments that for every hair of her head I could have killed a man and felt no compunction afterwards.

Evie caused me far more anxiety than Archie did. At all times Archie's vanities, quite as amusing to watch as those of any young girl, would blind him to much that lay an inch or two beyond the end of his nose. He was, moreover, deep in his examination work, and I had no doubt that, once the examinations were over, he would indulge himself in a mild little "burst" and flatter his seraphic self he was rather a devil in his way. But she was more difficult. For one thing, hers was a richer nature. She had, or would presently have, far more to give; and already I saw that, as surely as Miss Windus was one of Life's takers, Evie Soames was one of Life's givers.

I watched--how I watched!--for the slightest of her unconscious betrayals; and, of course, by dint of watching I was able to find a thousand that presently vanished again. I drew trifling tremendous conclusions from the merest nothings. She could not make a gawky, captivating little movement but I would found something upon it, not a pretty coltish gesture but I had my inference to draw. The smile, perhaps, where lately the laugh would have been--the little check of recollection, even as she was perching herself with a tomboyish swing on the edge of a table, that she "was grown-up now"--slight little ceremoniousnesses, stilted little phrases and momentary forgettings again--I missed not one of these. My lovely, lovely flapper! Did you know that you were twenty different creatures in a week, each beyond words adorable until another swelling nodule yielded and allowed a peep of a yet inner tender and rosy heart?

Of course I see now that I was far too clever in all this. I had, in fact, taken the course that was least of all likely to tell me what I wanted to know. For, as a face seen daily shows no change and yet grows relentlessly older, so, because of my watching, she changed under my eyes and my eyes did not tell me she had changed. I have had in my time various things to say about "woman's intuition." I, like the rest of us, have set half of it down as guessing and the other half (the half that events falsify) as a convenient forgetfulness. Well, I hope I make amends when I admit now that in all this I owed my final enlightenment to a woman, and to the woman to whom I would least of all have been indebted--to Miss Windus.

It was on a Friday evening that this enlightenment came to me. Fridays were ever a pain to me, because of the three whole days that must elapse--five if she failed to appear on the Monday evening--before I could see Evie again. Believe me, the last minutes of those Friday evenings always cost me dearly in emotion; and in order that I might make the most of them I had some time before discontinued a former habit of mine--that of working in the senior students' cla.s.sroom. By so doing I had forestalled any remarks on the fact that I was frequently to be found in the same room as Evie. And even then I knew I was lucky to escape Miss Levey's Hebrew intensiveness.

But on that Friday night I was restless. An absurd trifle had unsettled me (but I have told you how much such trifles meant to me)--nothing more than an alteration in Evie's way of arranging her hair. Until then it had been drawn back and ma.s.sed in a thick little clump on her nape, showing beautifully the small round of her head; but now she had parted it (I did not think altogether more becomingly) in the middle, and had evidently been making desperate attempts to "wave" it. Certainly the change gave her at once a more adult air, which I supposed I should get used to, unless, as was likely, she changed it again in the following week. Her blouse also was new. It had a high lace collar up to her ears, and I didn't like it in the least. It was mere concealment, without concealment's charm.

I was restless. I had begun the evening by working, for once, in the senior cla.s.sroom again; but presently, not happy where I was and not wis.h.i.+ng to go straightway into the lecture-room where Evie sat, I had compromised by packing up my things and going into the room adjoining hers--the general room. The reference books were kept in the general room, and, presently, having need of one of these, I had crossed to the shelf and taken it down.

I ought to explain that these books were kept in three projecting bays, such as one sees in libraries, that stood out at right angles from the wall. Thus the books of each projecting wing faced both ways and between the bays there was just room enough for the short library ladder of three or four steps with the vertical staff to steady yourself by as you stood on it. As I could easily reach any book there without the ladder, I had pa.s.sed the bay that contained it, and had taken up my place on the farther side of the wing nearest the window, where I stood with the open book in my hand. I forget what the book was.

As I stood I heard Miss Windus and Miss Causton come into the adjoining compartment.

I had no great interest in either of these women--I may say none, since I could not see Miss Causton's fluent hand; so, merely noting their arrival, I was continuing my reading when suddenly I heard the name of Evie Soames. It was Miss Windus who was speaking.

"... Oh, I suppose so; in her way, of course--if that's all men want!"

she was saying. "Don't you think?" This with a little acidulous rising inflection.

Then I heard Miss Causton's indolent voice in reply. From the way in which she spoke I fancied she was eating sweets. It had lately struck me that she ate more sweets than both the other girls together, and if it wasn't sweets it was something else.

"Don't ask _me_, my dear," she drawled. "_I_ don't know what the creatures want."

"Of course not. They do seem to want such--odd--things. The way I'm looked at sometimes--I declare it makes me feel perfectly ashamed!" said Miss Windus. Why she said it I don't know. It was the purest hypocrisy, and it was not likely to impose on Miss Causton, who had a nonchalant, still humour of her own.... But on second thoughts I don't know. I was not always sure, afterwards, when I got to know Miss Windus better, that she didn't really labour under some such delusion as this.

"Do they?" Miss Causton asked lazily. "They don't worry me much. So long ago since I've seen one that I've nearly forgotten."

There was a short pause, then:

"Really, they stare so," Miss Windus continued, "look one so out of countenance--one really doesn't know which way to turn!"

"No?" came Miss Causton's ironical dawdle. "Oh ... with a chance, my dear ... _I_ should!" ... I suppose she smiled as she said it. While appearing to lay herself perfectly open she had far more to hide than Miss Windus had.

Miss Windus was shocked.

"You _dreadful_ girl!... But really Louie, you must have noticed it.

Why, you can see it the moment she comes into the room!"

"Really?" came the other detached voice. "How quaint!... Who do you think she's after? Not the Baboon?..."

I imagined the chuckle I didn't hear. I took it that the Baboon was myself.

"Mandrill, my dear," Miss Windus corrected. "You really must take a memory powder!..."

"Oh, I call it baboon," Miss Causton remarked with indifference. Then she laughed.... "How ridiculous you are! He's as big as a man ought to be anyway----"

"Oh, quite!"

"----and I declare you can look at him till he's quite good-looking!"

"Oh!..." (I could almost see Miss Windus' quizzical eyes.)

"Really, you are absurd!..."

There was another short silence.

"And by the way," Miss Windus next said, "_he's_ been rather--different somehow--lately, don't you think?"

Sweets crunched for a moment, then:

"Different?... Do you mean _he's_ been looking at you in that--ahem!--dreadful way?"

"What, _that_ creature!..."

"Beg yours, dear----"

"_I_ should think so!... But I fancied he'd been somehow--not quite the same----"

"Well, anything for a change, as the song says. Myself, if I found I couldn't get along without 'em, I should prefer----"

But a "Sss.h.!.+" interrupted Miss Causton. Somebody had come into the farther bay, and the rest for a time was whispering.

When next the conversation became audible its tenor did not seem to have changed.

"Scented soap in a little celluloid box, too!" Miss Windus admired.

"One must keep oneself clean," Miss Causton threw off. "Have some of this, dear. I simply had to have some chocolate nougat to-night!..."

There was a rustling of tissue paper.

"Well, it's a sign, and so's her hair-waving and polis.h.i.+ng her nails and that lace yoke," Miss Windus resumed.

"Oh yes, the pneumonia blouse----"

"_And_ her heels--_and_ a scent-sachet!..."

You see that I was quite deliberately listening. I am not putting on any airs about it. I might have been Polwhele. I wanted to know, so I listened. I did more than listen too. I watched. I knew that the shelves were only half full on the other side; only a screen of stout wire separated the books facing one way from those facing the other; and by pulling out a book or two on my side I should probably find a peephole.... Very softly I pulled three or four out, found my opening and looked. Miss Causton appeared to be standing with her back towards me; I couldn't see her; but I could see Miss Windus, sitting on the library ladder holding its short staff, with her plaid skirt pulled tightly about one carrot-shaped thigh.

They began to talk again.

"And another thing that makes me _quite_ sure, dear! She's going to young Merridew's next week-end!"

"Oh!..."

"Don't be absurd. You know what I mean. To his parents', of course; they live in Guildford.... Not that _she_ told me, oh no! Not her ladys.h.i.+p!"