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When, like me, you have an open wound, which something is always inflaming, you can't wonder, can you, that fever escapes into the air. Derek may have caught the infection of my fever that's all! But I shall never lose that fever, Nedda never!" "But, Aunt Kirsteen, this haunting is dreadful. I can't bear to see it." "My dear, Derek is very highly strung, and he's been ill.
And they all went into the garden. "Through here," said Mr. Pogram, coming to a side door in the garden wall, "we can make a short cut to the police station. As we go along I shall ask you one or two blunt questions." And he thrust out his under lip: "For instance, what's your interest in this matter?" Before Felix could answer, Derek had broken in: "My uncle has come out of kindness.
All that Derek had effected by his careful diplomacy had been to convince his mother that he considered his bride-elect something to be broken gently to her. She stopped and faced him. "Who is she?" she demanded. "Who is this girl?" Derek flushed. "I thought I made everything clear in my letter." "You made nothing clear at all."
Derek turned and walked out of the little wood. But when he had put a field between him and the sound of Gaunt's bill-hook, he lay down and buried his face in the grass, chewing at its green blades, scarce dry of dew, and with its juicy sweetness tasting the full of bitterness.
It had been the one jarring note in the sweet melody of her love-story, this apprehension of Derek's regarding his mother. The Derek she loved was a strong man, with a strong man's contempt for other people's criticism; and there had been something ignoble and fussy in his attitude regarding Lady Underhill. She had tried to feel that the flaw in her idol did not exist.
But she knew it was he before she heard him whisper: "Nedda!" and, clutching him by the sleeve, she drew him in and closed the door. He was wet through, dripping; so wet that the mere brushing against him made her skin feel moist through its thin coverings. "Where have you been? What have you been doing? Oh, Derek!" There was just light enough to see his face, his teeth, the whites of his eyes.
Jill glanced towards the head of the stairs. Derek was there. He was alone. Lady Underhill presumably had gone up to her room in the elevator. Wally was holding out his hand. His face was stolid, and his eyes avoided hers. "Good-bye," he said. "Good-bye," said Jill. She felt curiously embarrassed. At this last moment hostility had weakened, and she was conscious of a desire to make amends.
But that fortnight was even more wonderful for Derek, caught between two passions both so fervid. For though the passion of his revolt against the Mallorings did not pull against his passion for Nedda, they both tugged at him. And this had one curious psychological effect. It made his love for Nedda more actual, less of an idealization.
A feeling of bewilderment came upon Derek. It was wrong, it was all wrong. Of course, she might be speaking like this to cloak intense feeling, but, if so, she had certainly succeeded. From her manner, he and she might be casual acquaintances. A pleasant trip! In another minute she would be asking him how he had come out on the sweepstake on the ship's run.
One would say that Derek became himself again, but that the mood of gentle remorse which came upon him as he lay in the arm-chair was one so foreign to his nature. Freddie had never seen him so subdued. He was like a convalescent child. Between them, the all-night chemist and the Dry-Salters seemed to have wrought a sort of miracle.
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