He compared himself with her. He thought of her eyes, her lips, her hair, the grace of her figure, the wonderful smallness of her hands. Her voice came back to him--the sultry, emotional, coaxing way she had of using it The arch self-composure of her manner came back--the glances half-mocking, half-tender which she knew how to dart from under her long lashes. She was more elf than woman.
All her actions and speech were unconsciously calculated to win affection. Her beauty was without blemish; the memory of her filled him with self-ridicule. He regarded himself in the mirrors with sorrowful despising. His face was too long, his eyes too hollow, his mouth too sensitive--nothing was right. How could she ever bring herself to love him? How monstrous it seemed to him now that he should have dared to criticize her! There was only one way to win her approbation--to make her admire his talent A thought struck him. Leaving his meal untasted, he ran out in search of a bookshop.
“A copy of _Life Till Twenty-One_. Yes, by Theodore Gurney. Can you deliver it?... No, that’s too late. It’s got to be there by eleven. If you can send a boy now, I’ll give him half-a-crown for his trouble. I’ll drive him in my car to within a hundred yards of the house. It’s most important. The people who want it are sailing for America.”
As the shopman wrapped it up, he remarked, “You were in luck to get a copy. There’s been a run on it. The publishers are out of stock. This is our last one.”
Once again he came within sight of her house. At a discreet distance he set his messenger down and saw the book delivered. His heart fluttered as the door opened; she might--it was just possible--she might come out. But no, all he had was a fleeting glimpse of the maid in the white cap and apron.
The moment the deed was done, he was assailed by trepidations. It might seem egotistical to her, bad taste, vaunting. He could almost hear her laughing. Oh, well, if she troubled to read it--and surely she would do that out of curiosity--she would learn exactly how much she had meant to him. She would see her own face looking out from the pen-and-ink drawings that dodged up and down the margins.
Within the next hour he sent her three telegrams. The first simply gave his address in Eden Row. The second said, “Please write to me.” The third was a bold optimism, “Perhaps coming.” After that he had to stop, for the time was approaching when she would be leaving for the station. The signing of the telegrams gave him much difficulty. The first bore his signature in full, “Theodore Gurney”; the next was less formal, “Theodore”; the last touched the chord of memory, “Teddy.” His difficulty had arisen because he couldn’t remember that she had called him anything.