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He began devising absurd plans for escaping. He might suddenly jump up, pretending he had seen a burglar—Stop thief! stop thief! and dash off into the night in pursuit. Or should he say that he felt faint, a heart attack? or that he had seen a ghost—Emily’s ghost— in the garden? Absorbed in his childish plotting, he had ceased to pay any attention to Miss Spence’s words. The spasmodic clutching of her hand recalled his thoughts.

“I honoured you for that, Henry,” she was saying.

Honoured him for what?

“Marriage is a sacred tie, and your respect for it, even when the marriage was, as it was in your case, an unhappy one, made me respect you and admire you, and—shall I dare say the word?—”

Oh, the burglar, the ghost in the garden! But it was too late.

“…yes, love you, Henry, all the more. But we’re free now, Henry. ”

Free? There was a movement in the dark, and she was kneeling on the floor by his chair.

“Oh, Henry, Henry, I have been unhappy, too. ”

Her arms embraced him, and by the shaking of her body he could feel that she was sobbing. She might have been a suppliant crying for mercy.

“You mustn’t, Janet,” he protested. Those tears were terrible, terrible. “Not now, not now! You must be calm; you must go to bed. ” He patted her shoulder, then got up, disengaging himself from her embrace. He left her still crouching on the floor beside the chair on which he had been sitting.

Groping his way into the hall, and without waiting to look for his hat, he went out of the house, taking infinite pains to close the front door noiselessly behind him. The clouds had blown over, and the moon was shining from a c
lear sky. There were puddles all along the road, and a noise of running water rose from the gutters and ditches. Mr. Hutton splashed along, not caring if he got wet.

How heartrendingly she had sobbed! With the emotions of pity and remorse that the recollection evoked in him there was a certain resentment: why couldn’t she have played the game that he was playing—the heartless, amusing game? Yes, but he had known all the time that she wouldn’t, she couldn’t, play that game: he had known and persisted.

What had she said about passion and the elements? Something absurdly stale, but true, true. There she was, a cloud black-bosomed and charged with thunder, and he, like some absurd little Benjamin Franklin, had sent up a kite into the heart of the menace. Now he was complaining that his toy had drawn the lightning.

She was probably still kneeling by that chair in the loggia, crying.

But why hadn’t he been able to keep up the game? Why had his irresponsibility deserted him, leaving him suddenly sober in a cold world? There were no answers to any of his questions. One idea burned steady and luminous in his mind—the idea of flight. He must get away at once.

IV

“What are you thinking about, Teddy Bear?”

“Nothing. ”

There was a silence. Mr. Hutton remained motionless, his elbows on the parapet of the terrace, his chin in his hands, looking down over Florence. He had taken a villa on one of the hilltops to the south of the city. From a little raised terrace at the end of the garden one looked down a long fertile valley on to the town and beyond it to the bleak mass of Monte Morello and, eastward of it, to the peopled hill of Fiesole, dotted with white houses. Everything was clear and luminous in the September sunshine.

“Are you worried about anything?”

“No, thank you. ”

“Tell me, Teddy Bear. ”

“But, my dear, there’s nothing to tell. ” Mr. Hutton turned round, smiled and patted the girl’s hand. “I think you’d better go in and have your siesta. It’s too hot for you here. ”

“Very well, Teddy Bear. Are you coming, too?”

“When I’ve finished my cigar. ”

“All right. But do hurry up and finish it, Teddy Bear. ” Slowly, reluctantly, she descended the steps of the terrace and walked towards the house.

Mr. Hutton continued his contemplation of Florence. He had need to be alone. It was good sometimes to escape from Doris and the restless solicitude of her passion. He had never known the pains of loving hopelessly, but he was experiencing now the pains of being loved. These last weeks had been a period of growing discomfort. Doris was always with him, like an obsession, like a guilty conscience. Yes, it was good to be alone.