He thought, I think I won’t try to talk to her after all. I’m too drunk. I would just disgust her, appearing like this. Be sides, there’s Miles and Diana. More deeply he thought: Let her have a little more time to reflect about me. I’ll wait until she has answered my letters. More deeply still he thought: As things are now I can still hope and imagine. If I see her she may kill hope. He turned away from the door. But the sense of her proximity arrested him magnetically like a jerked-upon rope. He would not talk to her. But he could not go away.
He stood a moment in puzzlement. If only he could see her without being seen.
The houses in Kempsford Gardens formed a terrace with no gaps between. Danby began to retrace his steps towards the Old Brompton Road. There must be some way round the back. He walked down beside some garages and surveyed the back of the terrace, scattered with lighted windows, curving away into the flickering rainy dark. The walled gardens ran down to meet their opposite numbers in Eardley Crescent. There was no pathway, there were no back gates. Danby gauged the height of the nearest wall. At the next moment he was on the top of it. As he felt just then he could have swarmed up the side of St. Paul’s. He slid rather muddily down, tramped across a dark garden and got himself up onto the next wall. He sat astride it for a moment. What was he supposed to be doing? Oh yes. But he ought to be counting the houses. He had lost count already. Somebody behind him opened a window and he fell down into some extremely thick and prickly foliage in the next garden. He pulled himself out, hearing his trousers ripping quietly. A long thorn seemed to be imbedded in the soft flesh of his thigh. He blundered clear and stood for a moment retrieving his sense of direction. Straight on, where an uncurtained window lighted a tract of green rain-beaten grass, another wall, or was it two walls, three walls.
An increasing amount of bricks and rubble seemed to be coming off the tops of the walls and weighing him down, lodged in his shoes and in his pockets. As he stumbled forward his leg came into contact with something which, as it keeled over and subsequently broke, he recognized to be a leering red-capped gnome. That couldn’t possibly be in Miles’s garden. Where was he? Panting now a little he negotiated the next wall, taking off from a stout branch of wisteria which cracked loudly under him. He was suddenly feeling very weak and tired and the St. Paul’s sensation had quite gone. There was a throbbing pain in his left knee, which he must have knocked rather badly without noticing it. He stood in the middle of the lawn, breathing deeply and trying by sundry jerks and wriggles to dislodge the thorn, which still seemed to be piercing the inside of his thigh. Then in the dim light from the next-door house he recognized the yew archway, the humpy mounds of small shrubs, and the gleaming expanse of wet pavement. The thorn came away.
The French window, outlined in light from within, was well curtained. Danby, who felt that up to a moment ago he must have been making a great deal of noise, moved forward as quietly as he could, stepping from the grass onto the pavement. The soles of his shoes seemed to stick to the wet pavement, from which they detached themselves with a soft sucking sound. But the steady hissing of the rain absorbed the little noise. The two sides of the window showed no chink, but there seemed to be a tiny gap left in the middle where the curtains just failed to meet. Danby’s questing hand touched the glass and he shuddered at its brittle feel and steadied himself on wide-apart legs. Leaning forward from the waist, his eyes trying to grow out of his head on stalks, he attempted to look through the gap. He took another cautious shuffle forward and now he could see into the room. It was a peaceful scene. Miles, Lisa, and Diana were all curled up with books. Miles and Diana sat in armchairs on either side of the fireplace, where a very small wood fire was burning. Lisa sat a little way back on the sofa, facing the window. Danby controlled his breathing and with a strong hand contained the acceleration of his already violently beating heart.
Miles, who had his back half turned to Danby, was raising his head from his book. He looked first at the bowed head of Diana and then at the bowed head of Lisa. As Diana began to raise her head Miles returned his attention to his book. Diana looked first at the bowed head of Miles and then at the bowed head of Lisa. As Lisa began to raise her head Diana returned her attention to her book. Lisa looked first at the bowed head of Diana and then at the bowed head of Miles. As Miles began to raise his head again Lisa returned her attention to her book. Profound silence reigned. Danby stared at Lisa. Her legs were half tucked under her and her heavy dark sweep of hair drooped down to brush the pages. She was wearing a sort of navy blue shift dress with a shirt collar and a green scarf tucked in at the neck. It occurred to Danby that it was the first time he had seen her without her brown mackintosh on. It was the first time he had seen one of her dresses. It was the first time he had seen the tension of her body inside her clothes, observed the silky sweep of her stockinged knees, contemplated her legs. She was wearing soft blue and green check bedroom slippers. Danby apprehended the curled weight of her body, the thrust of her breasts against the navy blue dress, the sleek stretched curve of the hip, the bony slimness of the ankle, and what it would be like to kneel down and very quietly take one of those soft-shod feet into his hand. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them he realized that Diana was looking with a startled expression straight at the gap in the curtain.
Danby swung round and sidled quickly away from the window, trampling upon soft earth and springy wet vegetation. He stumbled back off the pavement onto grass, and with long quiet strides retreated down the garden. The yew hedge loomed up and he passed through the black space in the middle of it into the little enclosure between the hedge and the wall. He blundered through a heap of wet clinging stuff which might have been the remnants of a bonfire. Lighted windows of houses seemed to be all around him now, vague blank accusing eyes. A little diffused light showed him the wall, the outline of roofs and chimney pots and trees, the faint lines of the rain against the reddish-black London sky. He began to fumble at the wall. It seemed to have grown higher. He tried to pull himself up but his arms were as weak as putty and he fell violently back into the heap of sticky ash.
A figure materialized suddenly very close to him.
”Danby, is it you?”
”Diana!”
”Sssh. The others didn’t see you.”
”Diana, I’m terribly sorry-“
”Whisper, don’t shout! However did you get in here?”
”I came over the walls.”
”Well, you’d better go back over the walls!”
”Yes, of course, Diana. I was just trying to climb up when you arrived.”
”You are an absolute fool. You shouldn’t come here at night like this.”
”Diana, I’ve been meaning to write to you-“
”Thank God Miles didn’t see you. Now for God’s sake go quietly. Can’t you get up?”
”No, it’s a bit difficult. The thing is this, Diana, I meant to write-“
”Don’t write, you idiot. You can easily see me during the day. All you’ve got to do is telephone.”