Coleport, Spode, Copeland, and other bric-a-brac – for I hardly ever arrived without bringing something – lay about, for all my efforts, in a dusty hurly-burly more reminiscent of a junk shop than a civilized room. Georgie was, somehow, not designed by nature to possess things. Whereas when Antonia or I bought anything, which we constantly did, it found its place at once in the rich and highly integrated mosaic of our surroundings, Georgie seemed to have no such carapace. There was no one of her possessions which she would not, at the drop of a hat, have given away and not missed; and meanwhile her things lay about in a sort of impermanent jumble on which my continually renewed sortings and orderings seemed to have little effect. This characteristic of my beloved exasperated me, but since it was also a part, after all, of Georgie's remarkable detachment and lack of worldly pretension, I admired it and loved it as well. It was, moreover, as I sometimes reflected, the very image and symbol of my relation to Georgie, my mode of possessing her, or more precisely the way in which I, as it were, failed to possess her. I possessed Antonia in a way not totally unlike the way in which I possessed the magnificent set of original prints by Audubon which adorned our staircase at home. I did not possess Georgie. Georgie was simply there.
When Georgie had finished with her stockings, she leaned back against the armchair and looked up at me. She had, with her dark heavy hair, rather light clear greyish-blue eyes. Her face was broad, strong rather than delicate, but her remarkably pale complexion had a finish of ivory. Her large somewhat upturned nose, her despair and my joy, which she was always contracting and stroking in a vain attempt to make it aquiline, now forgotten in repose, gave to her expression a certain attentive animal quality which softened the edge of her cleverness. Now in the incense-laden half-light, her face was full of curves and shadows. For some time we held each other's gaze. This sort of quiet gazing, which was like a feeding of the heart, was something which I had not experienced with any other woman. Antonia and I had never looked at each other like that. Antonia would not have sustained such a steady gaze for so long: warm, possessive, and coquettish, she would not so have exposed herself.
'River goddess,' I said at last. 'Merchant prince.' 'Do you love me?' 'Yes, to distraction. Do you love me?' 'Yes, infinitely.' 'Not infinitely,' said Georgie. 'Let us be exact. Your love is a great but finite quantity.' We both knew what she referred to, but there were some topics which it was profitless to discuss, and this we both knew also. There was no question of my leaving my wife. 'Do you want me to put my hand in the fire?' I said. Georgie still kept my gaze. At such moments her intelligence and her lucidity made her beauty ring like a silver coin. Then with a quick movement she turned about and laid her head upon my feet, prostrating herself before me. As I briefly contemplated her homage I reflected that there was no one in the world at whose feet I would myself have lain in such an attitude of abandonment. Then I knelt down and gathered her into my arms. A little later when we had finished for the moment with kissing each other and had lit cigarettes, Georgie said, 'She knows your brother.' 'Who knows my brother?' 'Honor Klein.' 'Are you still on about her? Yes, I believe so. They met on some committee at the time of the Mexican Art Exhibition.' 'When am I going to meet your brother?' said Georgie. 'Never, as far as I'm concerned!' 'You said you always used to pass your girls on to him, because he couldn't get any of his own!' 'Maybe,' I said, 'but I'm certainly not going to pass you on!' Ever since I had made that injudicious remark my brother Alexander had become an object of romantic fantasy to my mistress. 'I want to meet him,' said Georgie, 'just because he's your brother. I adore siblings, having none of my own. Does he resemble you?' 'Yes, a bit,' I said. 'All Lynch-Gibbons resemble each other. Only he's round-shouldered and not so handsome. I'll introduce you to my sister Rosemary if you like.' 'I don't want to meet your sister Rosemary,' said Georgie, 'I want to meet Alexander, and I shall go on and on at you about it, just as I shall go on and on at you about that trip to New York.' Georgie had an obsession about seeing New York, and I had in fact very rashly promised to take her with me on a business trip which I had made to that city last autumn. At the last moment, however, some qualm of conscience, or more likely some failure of nerve, at the prospect of having to lie on quite such a scale to Antonia made me change my mind. I have never seen anyone as bitterly and so childishly disappointed; and I had since then renewed my promise to take her with me on the next occasion. 'There's no need to nag me about that,' I said. 'One of these days we'll go to New York together, on condition I hear no more nonsense about paying your own fare. Think how much you disapprove of unearned income! You might at least let me spend mine on a sensible project!' 'Of course it's ludicrous your being a businessman,' said Georgie. 'You're far too clever. You ought to have been a don.' 'You imagine that being a don is the only proper way of being clever. Perhaps you are turning into a blue stocking after all.' I caressed one of her legs. 'You got the best History first of your year, didn't you?' said Georgie. 'What did Alexander get, by the way?' 'He got a second. So you see how unworthy of your attention he is.' 'At least he had the sense not to go into business,' said Georgie. My brother is a talented and quite well- known sculptor. I was in fact half of Georgie's opinion that I should have been a don, and the subject was a painful one. My father had been a prosperous wine merchant, founder of the firm of Lynch-Gibbon and McCabe. On his death the firm had split into two parts, a larger part which remained with the McCabe family, and a smaller part which comprised the original claret connexion in which my grandfather had been interested, which I now managed myself. I knew too, although she never said so, that Georgie believed that my having stayed in business had something to do with Antonia. Her belief was not totally erroneous. As I had no taste for this particular discussion and also wanted to get off the subject of my dear brother, I said, 'What will you be doing on Christmas Day? I shall want to think about you.' Georgie frowned. 'Oh, I shall be out with some of the chaps from the School. There'll be a big party.' She added, 'I won't want to think about you. It's odd how it hurts at these times not to be part of your proper family.' I had no answer to that. I said, 'I shall be having a quiet day with Antonia. We're staying in London this time. Rosemary will be at Rembers with Alexander.' 'I don't want to know,' said Georgie. 'I don't want to know what you do when you're not with me. It's better not to feed the imagination. I prefer to think that when you aren't here you don't exist.' In fact, I thought along these lines myself. I was lying beside her now and holding her feet, her beautiful Acropolis feet as I called them, which were partly visible through the fine blue stockings. I kissed them, and returned to gazing at her. The heavy rope of hair descended between her breasts and she had swept a few escaping tresses severely back behind her ears. She had a beautifully shaped head: yes, positively Alexander must never meet her. I said, 'I'm bloody lucky.' 'You mean you're bloody safe,' said Georgie. 'Oh yes, you're safe, damn you!' 'Liaison dangereuse,' I said. 'And yet we lie, somehow, out of danger.' 'You do,' said Georgie. 'If Antonia ever found out about this, you'd drop me like a hot potato.' 'Nonsense!' I said. Yet I wondered if she wasn't right. 'She won't find out,' I said, 'and if she did, I'd manage. You are essential to me.' 'No one is essential to anyone,' said Georgie. 'There you go looking at your watch again. All right, go if you must. What about one for the road? Shall I open that bottle of Nuits de Young?' 'How many times must I tell you never to drink claret unless it has been open at least three hours?'
