HEY said good-bye to each other at the corner of the square. So far he had accompanied her without question, but there she had stopped and held out her hand, smiling.
“We'd better say good-bye now,” she said. “Our ways part here, don't they?”
For a minute, he could only gaze down at her in aghast silence. More than her words, careless though they sounded, her smile hurt him by its emptiness, its conventional sweetness. She appeared to him as someone he did not know, a stranger with a mocking resemblance to a woman he loved.
“Do you realize it's the end of the term?” he asked at last. “How shall we see each other, Margaret?”
“We are not going to see each other,” she answered, with the same forced lightness. “I am going away with my new companion, Miss East. We are going to travel—”
“Margaret!” He controlled his voice by a great effort and went on hurriedly. “Dear, I don't understand. You've changed. Something has happened. How long will you be away?”
“Months, perhaps.”
“And then—you are coming back—here?”
“No—never. I've given it up. I'm—going to be married.”
He stood there as though he had been turned to stone, the youth, the life stamped out of his face, leaving it a white mask of pain. She looked away from him, the smile frozen on her lips.
“Geoff, don't take it like that! I've been trying to persuade myself that it's all been very silly—a boy and girl affair—that neither of us is serious—let's think of it in that way—help me—”
“You can think of it as you like, he burst out. “I shan't help you to humbug yourself.” He seized her hands roughly. “You know as well as I do that for me, at any rate, this is either the beginning or the end of all things. I am not a boy any longer, but even if I were—boys also have their constancies. It's you or no one in this life, Margaret. I'd storm heaven itself for you. Dear, you can't mean what you say? Was it my idiotic pride? I don't care how rich, how great you are. I'd marry you if you were the king's daughter—”
She laughed with a bitterness which choked his passionate enthusiasm in an icy grip.
“Would you, Geoff? Oh, I daresay you would. But that's not going to help us. I've thought things over, too. You yourself said there was a barrier—”
“One I'll surmount,” he ground out between his teeth.
“You can't—it's bigger than you know. I wouldn't ask you to surmount it. I wouldn't do it myself. I've my own pride—”
“You mean—I'm not good enough?”
She turned her dry, wide-open eyes to his face.
“Yes, perhaps that's the best way to put it.”
“And this man—you're going to marry? He's rich, I suppose—your class. He knows who you are? You didn't play with him, pretend to be something you're not, lying to him—”
She put up her hand with such a gesture of appeal that even his jealous-goaded madness yielded to it.
“Yes—I haven't deceived him. He knows everything about me. He's going to give me what I need most—name—position—things I wouldn't take from you. I've treated him fairly, anyhow. I'm trying to treat you fairly now. I did deceive you—more than I meant. But you won't be deceived any more. It's all over—done with—”
She stopped, battling for breath; and he released her hands.
“That's all right,” he said, harshly: “It's no use making words about it. I was a fool not to understand what you meant when you took me home that day. Well, I've grasped it now. Let's make an end. There's a taxi coming. You look pretty rotten. You'd better drive back.”
“Geoff—you don't hate me?”
He held open the taxi-door with an icy courtesy.
“Hate you? No. Why should I? It's been a pleasant little comedy—I shall be able to laugh about it soon—”
Then suddenly, as he saw her face, his young cynicism broke down. “Margaret, don't be unhappy. It's been the most glorious thing in my life—a glorious bit of color in all the grayness. I shall never forget—never change—never cease to thank God for the brief vision of you—don't cry, Margaret—don't cry!”
The door closed. He drew back, and watched the commonplace taxi as it passed out of sight. He was shaking from head to foot, battling with the first tragedy of his life. A passer-by might have seen that his cheeks were wet, might have heard the harsh, drawn breath, but he himself knew nothing save his own agony.