He took her down a mile-long ride, over rabbit-nibbled turf as smooth as green velvet. Immense beeches walled it on either side; behind them the summer trunks stood hushed in a silvery dimness, regardful of the dryad. Farther down, towards where his old house stood, the beeches gave place to mighty oaks, bronzed, lichened, antlered, Virgilian. He had her peep into glades aflame with willow-herb, and others rusty with the turning bracken. The rabbits scuttled off in all directions; the hare limped away with many a backward glance; the coppery pheasant rose, clattering like a dragon, its long tail rippling dragon-like behind it. The great woodpecker, laughing heartily over something or other, swooped on from tree to tree before them all the way home.
All this time Edward had said scarcely a word, and had hardly dared to look into her face to see what she was feeling. Now, on the threshold of the cottage, he took her hands in his, and, gazing deep into her eyes, he asked her: «Well? How did you like it?»
She replied: «Lousy.»
Edward's chagrin was so sudden and so fierce that for a moment he was bereft of his senses. Recovering them, he saw Susie cowering away in the very likeness of a spitting cat, and he realised his right hand was raised menacingly in the air. He lowered it. «Don't be afraid,» he said breathlessly. «I am incapable of striking a woman.»
Susie must have believed him, for she did not hesitate to offer some very unflattering reasons for this incapacity. Oddly enough, he himself was not so convinced, and his conscience so bit and tore at him that he scarcely heard what she was saying. He waited till six, gave her her capsule, and then strode out of the cottage and off over the dark and windy hills like a man pursued. After several miles at a very high speed, the turmoil within him abated a little, and he came to his conclusion. «I was enraged because she would not accept my standards: the standards of a man who is capable (for I lied when I said I wasn't) of striking a helpless girl. There is only one thing to do.»
It is a sad reflection on life that when there is only one thing to do it is always extremely unpleasant. Next day, Edward arranged for the little daily maid to stay with Susie overnight, while he himself went up to town to see his lawyer.
«How much would I get if I sold everything I have?» asked Edward, in a somewhat grating voice.
«Including the little place you are living in?»
«The whole damned shoot»
The lawyer consulted his files, scribbled on a pad, deprecated the state of the market, and finally told Edward he might expect between four and five thousand pounds.
«Then sell,» said Edward, and, brushing aside all expostulation, he repaired to a hotel, and next day took the train back home.
Just as he approached the cottage, he saw his Susie coming towards him along the path that led from the woods. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were bright, her hair was a little disordered.
«What is this?» said he, as they met «Don't tell me you have been in the woods!»
«I don't know where else there is to go,» she replied.
«Come inside,» said Edward, «and I will tell you of somewhere else. How would you like us to go to Hollywood, California?»
«Are you kidding?» she asked in astonishment «I thought yon was broke.»
«I am selling what I have left,» said Edward. «It will not bring enough to live there very long, or on a very grand scale, but since that is what you want it seems to me you should have it»
Susie was silent for a little. «Aw, shucks!» she said at last «Not if it's your last cent.»
Edward, astounded at her magnanimity, tried to explain the reasons for his change of heart. However, she cut him short. «Forget it,» she said. «I'd just as soon stick around here. For a while, anyway.»
Edward heard this with the emotions of a man reprieved, if not from the gallows, at least from transportation. «What has happened?» cried he. «Is it possible we have both changed, only in opposite directions? Ah, I know! You have been in the woods. Something there has touched you.»
«You'd better shut your big trap,» said she almost angrily. «You don't know what the hell you're talking about»
«I know,» said he, «that these feelings can be very delicate and private ones; vague gropings that one prefers not to discuss. For example, I think you would not have felt what you felt today had I been there. My presence on Monday was a mistake, much as I hoped to share these sensations with you. In future you shall go alone.»
So thereafter she went every afternoon alone into the woods, and Edward remained at home, and every day she came back smiling more sweetly than before.
«The woods are working for me,» thought Edward, and his imagination followed her like a dog. He seemed to see her in the dappled sun and shade under the great trees, or paddling in the brook, or fanning herself with a fern frond, or staining her mouth with blackberries. Finally he felt he could live no longer without seeing these pretty things with his own eyes, so one afternoon he slyly followed her among the trees.
He kept a good way behind her, thinking to come up quietly when she stopped to rest, but instead of stopping she went on faster and faster, and at last broke into a run, and for a while he lost her altogether. He pressed on to where he heard a jay scolding in the distance, and when he got there he looked all around, but saw no sign of her. Suddenly he heard her laugh. «She must have seen me all the time!» he thought.
Her laugh had a low, sweet, inviting quality that made his heart beat fast. It came from a little dell near by, where the ground fell away at the wood's edge. Edward stepped softly to the upper edge of this dell, half-expecting, yet not daring to expect, that he'd see her there looking up at him, and with her arms spread wide. He parted the twigs and looked down. She was there indeed, and her arms were spread wide, but it was the better to embrace Edward's corpulent and detested neighbour.
Edward walked quietly away, and returned to the cottage. There he awaited Susie, who came back very late, and smiling more sweetly than ever.
«You may take that smile off your face,» said Edward. «You dirty, double-crossing little harlot… .»
She at once obliged him in the matter of the smile. «Why, you low-down, snooping bastard,» she began, and the conversation continued with the utmost vivacity. Edward so far forgot himself as to utter a threat or two, which she treated with the most galling derision, as if secure in the protection of her paramour.
«He's got a big film company up in London,» she said, «and he's promised to put me in a picture.»
«You forget,» said Edward, «that I happen to hold your contract.»
«You mean to say you'd stop me?»
«Why not?»
«Because I'm going to the cops right now,» said Susie. «And do you know what I'm going to tell 'em? About when I was asleep?» She was about to supply the information when she was interrupted by an enormous yawn.
Edward glanced at his watch, and saw that the hour of six had long ago slipped by unnoticed.
«Well?» said he. «What?»
«Enough to … put you in jail for …» she muttered, in a voice like a slowing phonograph record, and she yawned again. Her head drooped down and down till her cheek rested on the table.
«Pleasant dreams!» said Edward, and taking the little box of capsules from the mantelpiece, he pitched it into the fire. Susie observed this operation with a glazing eye. A little flame of fury flickered up in it to match the leaping flame on the hearth. It died, and the eye closed. She looked ravishing.
Edward put her to bed, and came downstairs and wrote a letter to a firm that advertised motor caravans and trailers. Next summer he was at Blackpool, in a spotless white coat, addressing the multitude from under a sign that read:
