Swinging along his miles from Honiton back into Exeter he saw the patteran just within the two-mile-stone. “She wants me. She’s here. Bless her wild heart.” Then he walked into the city, sat in the tree-shaded alley of the inn by Exebridge, and breakfasted, as well he might. He had eaten nothing since yesterday’s noon. At two o’clock, as he leaned, smoking his pipe and looking at the river, he saw Duplessis in a dog-cart drive over the bridge. This was precisely what he had expected the moment he saw the patteran in the road. “He’ll lunch before he moves; he’ll treat himself handsomely. I’ll give him till half-past three. Then we go together—the three of us.” Bingo lowered his ears. Senhouse and he were too old friends for eye-service or tail-signals. Together they crossed the bridge and strolled up the curving street. The second inn-yard they visited showed them the Wraybrook dog-cart, high and yellow-wheeled. “He’s put up. He goes back to-night. He’s lunching. Now what shall we do? I think, a walk.”
He addressed himself to the wooded heights which look down on Exeter. His spirits were high to meet the evening’s battle; he urged Bingo to extend himself, infected him with the fray to come. “My friend, do you know who lives in this town? Do you know whom we are to see by-and-by? A gentle-handed acquaintance, my friend—a lover of yours, whose troubles have been told you and me by signs. Not by words, Bingo, my boy; for words have not been made fine enough to voice her thoughts, half-thoughts and quarter-thoughts: no, but by a sigh scarcely heard, or a hand on your head, by caresses, and lingering touches, and suchlike pretty talk. That’s how we know her, and what we love her for, Bingo; because she’s timid and full of alarms—all on the edge of the real thing, hovering on the threshold of the cage.”
Bingo pricked up his ears, then whined. He moved his head to acknowledge a friendly speech, but he was trembling and looking up the road.
“Bingo, come in,” said Senhouse, and trembled, too. He saw Mary coming up the road, books under her arm. She was rosy with breasting the hill; and he could see that her eyes were very bright. He could see, from the gate at which he leaned, that she was charged with excitement; that her lips were never still, that she looked sideways for events. He had to put his hand on Bingo’s head to keep him back—and to keep himself back. “I’ll give him one more chance,” he told himself, and stayed where he was. Mary passed him, all unconscious, went quickly up the road, stopped at a white gate, and slowly pushed it open. As she went in he saw her pause and look down the road by which she had come. Then she went in, and the gate swung to and fro, and clicked as the latch caught.
Senhouse inspected the gate, then his watch. “Rosemount Academy for Young Ladies—three o’clock. She’s teaching till four. She expects him.” He retired to his trees; but had to call Bingo twice. He was halfway up the drive, nosing out his friend.
Duplessis came up the hill at five minutes to four, and smoked three cigarettes one after another. He looked at his watch incessantly, as he walked up and down the road. Senhouse watched him calmly, not making any effort at concealment—but concealed, because, it was obvious, Duplessis had no notion of his whereabouts. Ladies—young ladies in straw hats—came out of Rosemount Academy in twos and threes and vanished up or down the road, as the case might be. Some rode bicycles, and waved the prouder farewells to their friends afoot. One was fetched in a brougham by a furred matron; two had a maid; and one joined a brother in a cricket cap. Ladies of severer mien, tightly jacketed and in black, came presently; a long-haired music-master—and Mary.
As she stood beyond the gate she saw Duplessis. Senhouse knew that by her look. She had a trick, when she was at a pass, of driving all expression from her eyes. They showed then as masks of black: it was her way of defence. You could not tell whether she was glad or afraid of you.
But she addressed herself to her task; completed, or allowed the young musician to complete, the conversation, bade him a smiling farewell which sent him happily on his way, and then waited, blankly, but with colour, for Duplessis. The road was now empty but for these two.
He came up, lifting his hat; he took her hand, and held it while he bent to spe............