Chapter 23 - Page 2

narrow tunnels, where all is
recognisably human, one travels comfortable and secure,
contriving to forget that all round and below and above them
stretches the blind mass of earth, endless and unexplored. Yes,
give me the Tube and Cubismus every time; give me ideas, so snug
and neat and simple and well made. And preserve me from nature,
preserve me from all that's inhumanly large and complicated and
obscure. I haven't the courage, and, above all, I haven't the
time to start wandering in that labyrinth."

While Mr. Scogan was discoursing, Denis had crossed over to the
farther side of the little square chamber, where Anne was
sitting, still in her graceful, lazy pose, on the low chair.

"Well?" he demanded, looking at her almost fiercely. What was he
asking of her? He hardly knew himself.

Anne looked up at him, and for answer echoed his "Well?" in
another, a laughing key.

Denis had nothing more, at the moment, to say. Two or three
canvases stood in the corner behind Anne's chair, their faces
turned to the wall. He pulled them out and began to look at the
paintings.

"May I see too?" Anne requested.

He stood them in a row against the wall. Anne had to turn round
in her chair to look at them. There was the big canvas of the
man fallen from the horse, there was a painting of flowers, there
was a small landscape. His hands on the back of the chair, Denis
leaned over her. From behind the easel at the other side of the
room Mr. Scogan was talking away. For a long time they looked at
the pictures, saying nothing; or, rather, Anne looked at the
pictures, while Denis, for the most part, looked at Anne.

"I like the man and the horse; don't you?" she said at last,
looking up with an inquiring smile.

Denis nodded, and then in a queer, strangled voice, as though it
had cost him a great effort to utter the words, he said, "I love
you."

It was a remark which Anne had heard a good many times before and
mostly heard with equanimity. But on this occasion--perhaps
because they had come so unexpectedly , perhaps for some other
reason--the words provoked in her a certain surprised commotion.

"My poor Denis," she managed to say, with a laugh; but she was
blushing as she spoke.