“She always believed in you,” said Miss Howe with a certain harshness. “Insincere! You should have heard her talk of your _Famous_ _Women_!” And then—“Yes. She believed in you right enough.”
“More than I did in her that night. I couldn’t forget _The Resting-place_. It lay on the table, and every now and then, when I felt most comfort in her, my eyes would fall on it, and it would jar me. She felt it too. When I saw her off at last—it had grown very late—she stopped at the gate and turned and came running back. I thought that she had forgotten her handbag. She nearly always forgot her handbag. But no, it was _The Resting-place_ that was on her mind. It was—‘Nita! try it again. Maybe you’d like it better.’ And then—‘Nita! I enjoyed writing it so.’ ‘That’s something, at any rate,’ I said, not wanting, you know, to be unkind. Then she said—‘I wish you liked it. Because, you know, Nita—’ and stopped as if she wanted to tell me something and couldn’t make up her mind. ‘Well, what?’ I said. It was cold on the steps. She hesitated. She looked at me. For an instant I had an absurd impression that she was going to cry. Then she kissed me. She’d kissed me goodnight once already, though, you know, we never did as a rule. And then, off she went without another word. I was quite bewildered by her. I nearly called her back; but it was one of those deep dark blue nights: it seemed to swallow her up at once. But I heard her footsteps for a long while after—dragging steps, as if she were tired. I wasn’t. It was as if she had put something into me. I went back into the house and I worked till daylight. And all the next day I worked—worked well. I felt, I remember, so hopeful, so full of power. By the evening I had quite a mass of material to show her, if she came. I half expected her to come. But instead—” she fumbled among her papers—“I got this.”
It was a sheet of note-paper, a sheet that looked as if it had been crushed into a ball and then smoothed out again for careful folding. Anita’s fingers were still ironing out the crinkled edge while she read it aloud.
“I want to tell you something. I tried to tell you yesterday, but somehow I couldn’t. It oughtn’t to be difficult, yet all this afternoon I’ve been writing to you in an exercise book, and crossing out, and re-phrasing, and putting in again as carefully and dissatisfiedly as if it were Opus 4. I wish it were, because then you’d be very much pleased with Madala Grey and forget the dreadful shock of Opus 3! I was always afraid you wouldn’t like it, and sorry, because I like it more than all my other work put together. Have you never even begun to guess why? But how should you, when I didn’t know myself until after it was finished? Coming events, I suppose. It’s quite true—one isn’t overtaken by fate: one prepares one’s own fate: one carries it about inside one, like a child. I hear you say—‘Can’t you come to the point?’ No, I can’t. Partly because I’m afraid of what you’ll say, because I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed, and partly, selfishly, because there is a queer pleasure in beating about the bush that bears my flower. It’s too beautiful to pick straight away in one rough snatch of a sentence. Am I selfish? You’ve been so kind to me. I know you will be sorry and that troubles me. And yet—Anita, I am going to be married. You met him once in the churchyard at home, do you remember? I’ve seen him now and then when I took the children down there in the summer. He——