even listen to that. He would refuse to listen and absolve her unshriven.
Then it came to her with a shock, as an extraordinary oversight, that she could never tell Manning about Ramage—never.
She dismissed the idea of doing so. But that still left the forty pounds! …
Her mind went on generalizing. So it would always be between herself and Manning. She saw her life before her robbed of all generous illusions, the wrappered life unwrappered forever, vistas of dull responses, crises of make- believe, years of exacting mutual disregard in a misty garden of fine sentiments.
But did any woman get anything better from a man? Perhaps every woman conceals herself from a man perforce! …
She thought of Capes. She could not help thinking of Capes. Surely Capes was different. Capes looked at one and not over one, spoke to one, treated one as a visible concrete fact. Capes saw her, felt for her, cared for her greatly, even if he did not love her. Anyhow, he did not sentimentalize her. And she had been doubting since that walk in the Zoological Gardens whether, indeed, he did simply care for her. Little things, almost impalpable, had happened to justify that doubt; something in his manner had belied his words. Did he not look for her in the morning when she entered—come very quickly to her? She thought of him as she had last seen him looking down the length of the laboratory to see her go. Why had he glanced up—quite in that way? …
The thought of Capes flooded her being like long-veiled sunlight breaking again through clouds. It came to her like a dear thing rediscovered, that she loved Capes. It came to her that to marry any one but Capes was impossible. If she could not marry him, she would not marry any one. She would end this sham with Manning. It ought never to have begun. It was cheating, pitiful cheating. And then if some day Capes wanted her—saw fit to alter his views upon friendship… .
Dim possibilities that she would not seem to look at even to herself gesticulated in the twilight background of her mind.
She leaped suddenly at a desperate resolution, and in one moment had made it into a new self. She flung aside every plan she had in life, every discretion. Of course, why not? She would be honest, anyhow!
She turned her eyes to Manning.
He was sitting back from the table now, with one arm over the back of his green chair and the other resting on the little table. He was smiling under his heavy mustache, and his head was a little on one side as he looked at her.
“And what was that dreadful confession you had to make?” he was saying. His quiet, kindly smile implied his serene disbelief in any confessible thing. Ann Veronica pushed aside a tea-cup and the vestiges of her strawberries and cream, and put her elbows before her on the table. “Mr. Manning,” she said, “I HAVE a confession to make.”
“I wish you would use my Christian name,” he said.
She attended to that, and then dismissed it as unimportant.
Something in her voice and manner conveyed an effect of unwonted gravity to him. For the first time he seemed to wonder what it might be that she had to confess. His smile faded.
“I don’t think our engagement can go on,” she plunged, and felt exactly that loss of breath that comes with a dive into icy water.
“But, how,” he said, sitting up astonished beyond measure, “not go on?”
“I have been thinking while you have been talking. You see—I didn’t understand.”
She stared hard at her finger-nails. “It is hard to express one’s self, but I do want to be honest with you. When I promised to marry you I thought I could; I thought it was a possible arrangement. I did think it could be done. I admired your chivalry. I was grateful.”
She paused.
“Go on,” he said.
She moved her elbow nearer to him and spoke in a still lower tone. “I told you I did not love you.”
“I know,” said Manning, nodding gravely. “It was fine and brave of you.”
“But there is something more.”
She paused again.
“I—I am sorry— I didn’t explain. These things are difficult. It wasn’t clear to me that I had to explain… . I love some one else.”
They remained looking at each other for three or four seconds. Then Manning flopped back in his chair and dropped his chin like a man shot. There was a long silence between them.
“My God!” he said at last, with tremendous feeling, and then again, “My God!”
Now that this thing was said her mind was clear and calm. She heard this standard expression of a strong soul wrung with a critical coldness that astonished herself. She realized dimly that there was no personal thing behind his cry, that countless myriads of Mannings had “My God!”-ed with an equal gusto at situations as flatly apprehended. This mitigated her remorse enormously. He rested his brow on his hand and conveyed magnificent tragedy by his pose.
“But why,” he said in the gasping voice of one subduing an agony, and looked at her from under a pain-wrinkled brow, “why did you not tell me this before?”
“I didn’t know— I thought I might be able to control myself.”
“And you can’t?”
“I don’t think I ought to control myself.”
“And I have been dreaming and thinking—”
