Of Human Bondage

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Forgive them, for they know not what they do.

CXXII

He had arranged to meet Sally on Saturday in the National Gallery. She was
to come there as soon as she was released from the shop and had agreed to
lunch with him. Two days had passed since he had seen her, and his
exultation had not left him for a moment. It was because he rejoiced in
the feeling that he had not attempted to see her. He had repeated to
himself exactly what he would say to her and how he should say it. Now his
impatience was unbearable. He had written to Doctor South and had in his
pocket a telegram from him received that morning: "Sacking the mumpish
fool. When will you come?" Philip walked along Parliament Street. It was
a fine day, and there was a bright, frosty sun which made the light dance
in the street. It was crowded. There was a tenuous mist in the distance,
and it softened exquisitely the noble lines of the buildings. He crossed
Trafalgar Square. Suddenly his heart gave a sort of twist in his body; he
saw a woman in front of him who he thought was Mildred. She had the same
figure, and she walked with that slight dragging of the feet which was so
characteristic of her. Without thinking, but with a beating heart, he
hurried till he came alongside, and then, when the woman turned, he saw it
was someone unknown to him. It was the face of a much older person, with
a lined, yellow skin. He slackened his pace. He was infinitely relieved,
but it was not only relief that he felt; it was disappointment too; he was
seized with horror of himself. Would he never be free from that passion?
At the bottom of his heart, notwithstanding everything, he felt that a
strange, desperate thirst for that vile woman would always linger. That
love had caused him so much suffering that he knew he would never, never
quite be free of it. Only death could finally assuage his desire.

But he wrenched the pang from his heart. He thought of Sally, with her
kind blue eyes; and his lips unconsciously formed themselves into a smile.
He walked up the steps of the National Gallery and sat down in the first
room, so that he should see her the moment she came in. It always
comforted him to get among pictures. He looked at none in particular, but
allowed the magnificence of their colour, the beauty of their lines, to
work upon his soul. His imagination was busy with Sally. It would be
pleasant to take her away from that London in which she seemed an unusual
figure, like a cornflower in a shop among orchids and azaleas; he had
learned in the Kentish hop-field that she did not belong to the town; and
he was sure that she would blossom under the soft skies of Dorset to a
rarer beauty. She came in, and he got up to meet her. She was in black,
with white cuffs at her wrists and a lawn collar round her neck. They
shook hands.

"Have you been waiting long?"

"No. Ten minutes. Are you hungry?"

"Not very."

"Let's sit here for a bit, shall we?"

"If you like."

They sat quietly, side by side, without speaking. Philip enjoyed having
her near him. He was warmed by her radiant health. A glow of life seemed
like an aureole to shine about her.

"Well, how have you been?" he said at last, with a little smile.

"Oh, it's all right. It was a false alarm."

"Was it?"

"Aren't you glad?"

An extraordinary sensation filled him. He had felt certain that Sally's
suspicion was well-founded; it had never occurred to him for an instant
that there was a possibility of error. All his plans were suddenly
overthrown, and the existence, so elaborately pictured, was no more than
a dream which would never be realised. He was free once more. Free! He
need give up none of his projects, and life still was in his hands for him
to do what he liked with. He felt no exhilaration, but only dismay. His
heart sank. The future stretched out before him in desolate emptiness. It
was as though he had sailed for many years over a great waste of waters,
with peril and privation, and at last had come upon a fair haven, but as
he was about to enter, some contrary wind had arisen and drove him out
again into the open sea; and because he had let his mind dwell on these
soft meads and pleasant woods of the land, the vast deserts of the ocean
filled him with anguish. He could not confront again the loneliness and
the tempest. Sally looked at him with her clear eyes.

"Aren't you glad?" she asked again. "I thought you'd be as pleased as
Punch."

He met her gaze haggardly. "I'm not sure," he muttered.

"You are funny. Most men would."

He realised that he had deceived himself; it was no self-sacrifice that
had driven him to think of marrying, but the desire for a wife and a home
and love; and now that it all seemed to slip through his fingers he was
seized with despair. He wanted all that more than anything in the world.
What did he care for Spain and its cities, Cordova, Toledo, Leon; what to
him were the pagodas of Burmah and the lagoons of South Sea Islands?
America was here and now. It seemed to him that all his life he had
followed the ideals that other people, by their words or their writings,
had instilled into him, and never the desires of his own heart. Always his
course had been swayed by what he thought he should do and never by what
he wanted with his whole soul to do. He put all that aside now with a
gesture of impatience. He had lived always in the future, and the present
always, always had slipped through his fingers. His ideals? He thought of
his desire to make a design, intricate and beautiful, out of the myriad,
meaningless facts of life: had he not seen also that the simplest pattern,
that in which a man was born, worked, married, had children, and died, was
likewise the most perfect? It might be that to surrender to happiness was
to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.

He glanced quickly at Sally, he wondered what she was thinking, and then
looked away again.

"I was going to ask you to marry me," he said.

"I thought p'raps you might, but I shouldn't have liked to stand in your
way."

"You wouldn't have done that."

"How about your travels, Spain and all that?"

"How d'you know I want to travel?"

"I ought to know something about it. I've heard you and Dad talk about it
till you were blue in the face."

"I don't care a damn about all that." He paused for an instant and then
spoke in a low, hoarse whisper. "I don't want to leave you! I can't leave
you."

She did not answer. He could not tell what she thought.

"I wonder if you'll marry me, Sally."

She did not move and there was no flicker of emotion on her face, but she
did not look at him when she answered.

"If you like."

"Don't you want to?"

"Oh, of course I'd like to have a house of my own, and it's about time I
was settling down."

He smiled a little. He knew her pretty well by now, and her manner did not
surprise him.

"But don't you want to marry ME?"

"There's no one else I would marry."

"Then that settles it."

"Mother and Dad will be surprised, won't they?"

"I'm so happy."

"I want my lunch," she said.

"Dear!"

He smiled and took her hand and pressed it. They got up and walked out of
the gallery. They stood for a moment at the balustrade and looked at
Trafalgar Square. Cabs and omnibuses hurried to and fro, and crowds
passed, hastening in every direction, and the sun was shining.