The Beast in the Jungle. The Figure in the Carpet / Зверь в чаще. Узор на ковре

”

He said this so lucidly and consistently that he could see it further impose itself. If she hadn’t been interested before she’d have been interested now.

“Is it a sense of coming violence?”

Evidently now too again he liked to talk of it. “I don’t think of it as-when it does come-necessarily violent. I only think of it as natural and as of course above all unmistakeable. I think of it simply as the thing. The thing will of itself appear natural.”

“Then how will it appear strange?”

Marcher bethought himself.

“To whom then?”

“Well,” he replied, smiling at last, “say to you.”

“Oh then I’m to be present?”

“Why you are present-since you know.”

“I see.” She turned it over. “But I mean at the catastrophe.”

At this, for a minute, their lightness gave way to their gravity; it was as if the long look they exchanged held them together. “It will only depend on yourself-if you’ll watch with me.

“Are you afraid?” she asked.

“Don’t leave me now,” he went on.

“Are you afraid?” she repeated.

“Do you think me simply out of my mind?” he pursued instead of answering. “Do I merely strike you as a harmless lunatic?”

“No,” said May Bartram. “I understand you. I believe you.”

“You mean you feel how my obsession-poor old thing-may correspond to some possible reality?”

“To some possible reality.

“Then you will watch with me?”

She hesitated, then for the third time put her question. “Are you afraid?”

“Did I tell you I was-at Naples?”

“No, you said nothing about it.”

“Then I don’t know. And I should like to know,” said John Marcher. “You’ll tell me yourself whether you think so. If you’ll watch with me you’ll see.”

“Very good then.” They had been moving by this time across the room, and at the door, before passing out, they paused as for the full wind-up of their understanding.

Chapter II

The fact that she “knew”-knew and yet neither chaffed him nor betrayed him-had in a short time begun to constitute between them a goodly bond, which became more marked when, within the year that followed their afternoon at Weatherend, the opportunities for meeting multiplied.