ready to drop. But the double row of lights at the station drew nearer. Suddenly:
“There she is!” he cried, breaking into a run.
There was a faint rattling noise. Away to the right the train, like a luminous caterpillar, was threading across the night. The rattling ceased.
“She’s over the viaduct. You’ll just do it.”
Clara ran, quite out of breath, and fell at last into the train. The whistle blew. He was gone. Gone!—and she was in a carriage full of people. She felt the cruelty of it.
He turned round and plunged home. Before he knew where he was he was in the kitchen at home. He was very pale. His eyes were dark and dangerous-looking, as if he were drunk. His mother looked at him.
“Well, I must say your boots are in a nice state!” she said.
He looked at his feet. Then he took off his overcoat. His mother wondered if he were drunk.
“She caught the train, then?” she said.
“Yes.”
“I hope her feet weren’t so filthy. Where on earth you dragged her I don’t know!”
He was silent and motionless for some time.
“Did you like her?” he asked grudgingly at last.
“Yes, I liked her. But you’ll tire of her, my son; you know you will.”
He did not answer. She noticed how he laboured in his breathing.
“Have you been running?” she asked.
“We had to run for the train.”
“You’ll go and knock yourself up. You’d better drink hot milk.”
It was as good a stimulant as he could have, but he refused and went to bed. There he lay face down on the counterpane, and shed tears of rage and pain. There was a physical pain that made him bite his lips till they bled, and the chaos inside him left him unable to think, almost to feel.
“This is how she serves me, is it?” he said in his heart, over and over, pressing his face in the quilt. And he hated her. Again he went over the scene, and again he hated her.
The next day there was a new aloofness about him. Clara was very gentle, almost loving. But he treated her distantly, with a touch of contempt. She sighed, continuing to be gentle. He came round.
