第43章

He could not understand this.He continued in a vein which mingled true imagination and false.What he said wasn't wrong,but it wasn't right,and a false note jarred.One little twist,they felt,and the instrument might be in tune.One little strain,and it might be silent for ever.He thanked the ladies very much,but he would not call again.There was a moment's awkwardness,and then Helen said:"Go,then;perhaps you know best;but never forget you're better than Jefferies."And he went.Their hansom caught him up at the corner,passed with a waving of hands,and vanished with its accomplished load into the evening.

London was beginning to illuminate herself against the night.Electric lights sizzled and jagged in the main thoroughfares,gas-lamps in the side streets glimmered a canary gold or green.The sky was a crimson battlefield of spring,but London was not afraid.

Her smoke mitigated the splendour,and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately painted ceiling,which adorned while it did not distract.

She has never known the clear-cut armies of the purer air.Leonard hurried through her tinted wonders,very much part of the picture.

His was a grey life,and to brighten it he had ruled off a few corners for romance.The Miss Schlegels--or,to speak more accurately,his interview with them--were to fill such a corner,nor was it by any means the first time that he had talked intimately to strangers.The habit was analogous to a debauch,an outlet,though the worst of outlets,for instincts that would not be denied.Terrifying him,it would beat down his suspicions and prudence until he was confiding secrets to people whom he had scarcely seen.It brought him many fears and some pleasant memories.Perhaps the keenest happiness he had ever known was during a railway journey to Cambridge,where a decent-mannered undergraduate had spoken to him.They had got into conversation,and gradually Leonard flung reticence aside,told some of his domestic troubles,and hinted at the rest.The undergraduate,supposing they could start a friendship,asked him to "coffee after hall,"which he accepted,but afterwards grew shy,and took care not to stir from the commercial hotel where he lodged.

He did not want Romance to collide with the Porphyrion,still less with Jacky,and people with fuller,happier lives are slow to understand this.

To the Schlegels,as to the undergraduate,he was an interesting creature,of whom they wanted to see more.But they to him were denizens of Romance,who must keep to the corner he had assigned them,pictures that must not walk out of their frames.

His behaviour over Margaret's visiting-card had been typical.His had scarcely been a tragic marriage.Where there is no money and no inclination to violence tragedy cannot be generated.

He could not leave his wife,and he did not want to hit her.Petulance and squalor were enough.Here "that card"had come in.Leonard,though furtive,was untidy,and left it lying about.Jacky found it,and then began,"What's that card,eh?""Yes,don't you wish you knew what that card was?""Len,who's Miss Schlegel?"etc.

Months passed,and the card,now as a joke,now as a grievance,was handed about,getting dirtier and dirtier.It followed them when they moved from Cornelia Road to Tulse Hill.It was submitted to third parties.