Could he give me any assurance whatever of these things he ached no more to enter his heaven than I ached to thrust him in.
Every four seconds, every eleven seconds, Fréhel opened the furnace of his white and blazing eye. Tremulously in and out of the gloom the Calvary seemed to advance and to recede again. Dimly I distinguished Derry's face--young, faithful, agonised, interceding for his lovelier self....
It is a fearful responsibility a man past his prime assumes when he bids such a creature to hope no more, but to veil his face and to return to the pit whence he was digged....
And how had he offended me? He had merely received a note--had not even given it, but had simply accepted it and held for a moment the fingers that had passed it....
Had I, in my own insignificant youth, never done such a thing?
"Derry," I said gently, "I can't go over old ground again. At present--I say at present--I'm staying in the house. I must now decide how much longer I can stay there. But first tell me exactly what it is you propose to do."
"At present you haven't. You hadn't before, but that didn't last. What is it you want?"
"Only that you shouldn't thrust me back into--that other."
"But there will be something beyond that."
He was silent while the Light revolved twice, thrice, then:
"Et revivre pour t'adorer ... like a soft warm sun even in the night," he breathed scarcely audibly. "You can't call it sleeping. Something blessed that you can't see is going on behind it all the time. Something seems to be breathing. That's what happens in the night now. It isn't sleeping; you're too happy to want to go to sleep. Then she smiles. Not like in the toyshop. She didn't smile in the toyshop; that was a different kind of look altogether. She smiled yesterday when we were having tea, but you weren't looking. And twice to-day--twice.... At first I was afraid my painting was going to excite me a bit, upset me. Once or twice it did a little. I didn't want to talk about it much this afternoon for fear of it upsetting me. But everything calms down when she looks and smiles. It's just her being there. There isn't any glass at all; the glass is between us two and everybody else in the world. Painting's perfectly safe with her by me--perfectly safe.... But nothing's safe without. I shall slip again without her now. I felt myself even begin to slip that time you said she was going away. It was frightening.... Don't ask me to try the experiment, sir; it's so horribly risky; but if they were to spring it on me that she _was_ going away I know quite well what would happen. It would be like before; I should have to pack up my traps and disappear again. And that time it would be the end.... But as long as I'm with her it's all clear ahead--the new way--the way I always tried to find and always missed--il est venu le jour----"