THREE:The Doctor, in establishing himself in the right quarter, had forgotten to allow for the fact that the force that had lifted the Paynes out of their urban obscurity had descended to their daughter. Lilian had been expensively educated, and although the Doctor denied it[Pg 124] to himself a hundred times a week, there was no evading the fact that an acute brain slumbered behind her rather immobile beauty. True, the fruits of her learning languished a little in Great Wymering, and that beyond a slight permanent frown and a disposition to argue about modern problems, she betrayed no revolt against the narrowness of her existence, but appeared, graceful and willowy, at garden parties or whist drives. It was the development of her mind that the Doctor feared, especially as, all unconsciously at first, he had acted as its chief stimulant. During their talks together he had spoken too many a true word in jest; and his witticisms had revealed to Lilian a whole world about which to think and theorise.
THREE:[Pg 55]How do I guess it is warm or cold? I feel it. Tell me.
THREE:
THREE:"Wait," said the Clockwork man, as the Curate walked hesitatingly towards the door, "I begin to grasp thingsconjuring""I may lose track of him! If I lose track of him I may have to go through a long life not knowing whether he is dead or alive."
THREE:Norah had gone: that fact was indelibly imprinted on his mind, but as yet it aroused no emotion. It had produced no sense of desolation in him: all the strainings of doubt and desire{318} which had racked him before were dead. The suspense was over, his love would enjoy no fruition, and he had been all evening exactly as is the man who has been condemned to be hung, and now, though he has passed a month of sleeplessness or nightmare, has no anxiety to torture him, and for that first night after his trial is over, can rest in the certainty of the worst and the uttermost. Several times this evening Keeling had probed into his own heart, pricking it with the reminder of the knowledge that she had left him, but no response, no wail or cry of pain had come from it. His heart knew it, and there was no use in repeating the news. His heart had received it, and lay there beating quietly and steadily. Meantime all his surface-perceptions went on with no less vividness than was their wont. There was Alice making her usual mistakes over the moves of the pieces, there was Lady Keeling alternating between drowsiness and volubility. Her fat face wrinkled and bulged on one side when her head fell a little crooked as she dozed; it became symmetrical again when she recovered herself, and talked on her invariable topics, Lord Inverbroom, dinner, her engagements as Lady Mayoress, Mr Silverdale, and so forth. She alluded again to her husbands magnanimity in not turning out the County Club from their premises, she even introduced Norahs name, and endorsed her expressed intention to be polite to her if she came{319} in to tea on Sunday. When necessary he replied, Quite so, my dear, but nothing reached him. It was perfectly easy now to be polite and patient. He was locked up somewhere inside himself, and sparrows were twittering in the bushes far outside.