Intolerable quagmire of lies and deceit! The degrading of all that to them was sacred—a very gross degrading of love, and through love a gross degrading of Mary. Mary … so loyal and as yet so gallant, but so pitifully untried in the war of existence. Warned only by words, the words of a lover, and what were mere words when it came to actions? And the ageing woman with the faraway eyes, eyes that could yet be so cruel, so accusing—they might turn and rest with repugnance on Mary, even as once they had rested on Stephen: “I would rather see you dead at my feet. …” A fearful saying, and yet she had meant it, that ageing woman with the faraway eyes—she had uttered it knowing herself to be a mother. But that at least should be hidden from Mary.
She began to consider the ageing woman who had scourged her but whom she had so deeply wounded, and as she did so the depth of that wound made her shrink in spite of her bitter anger, so that gradually the anger gave way to a slow and almost reluctant pity. Poor, ignorant, blind, unreasoning woman; herself a victim, having given her body for Nature’s most inexplicable whim. Yes, there had been two victims already—must there now be a third—and that one Mary? She trembled. At that moment she could not face it, she was weak, she was utterly undone by loving. Greedy she had grown for happiness, for the joys and the peace that their union had brought her. She would try to minimize the whole thing; she would say: “It will only be for ten days; I must just run over about this business,” then Mary would probably think it quite natural that she had not been invited to Morton and would ask no questions—she never asked questions. But would Mary think such a slight was quite natural? Fear possessed her; she sat there terribly afraid of this cloud that had suddenly risen to menace—afraid yet determined not to submit, not to let it gain power through her own acquiescence.
There was only one weapon to keep it at bay. Getting up she opened the window: “Mary!”
All unconscious the girl hurried in with David: “Did you call?”
“Yes—come close. Closer … closer, sweetheart. …”
II
Shaken and very greatly humbled, Mary had let Stephen go from her to Morton. She had not been deceived by Stephen’s glib words, and had now no illusions regarding Anna Gordon. Lady Anna, suspecting the truth about them, had not wished to meet her. It was all quite clear, cruelly clear if it came to that matter—but these thoughts she had mercifully hidden from Stephen.
She had seen Stephen off at the station with a smile: “I’ll write every day. Do put on your coat, darling; you don’t want to arrive at Morton with a chill. And mind you wire when you get to Dover.”
Yet now as she sat in the empty study, she must bury her face and cry a little because she was here and Stephen in England … and then of course, this was their first real parting.
David sat watching with luminous eyes in which were reflected her secret troubles; then he got up and planted a paw on the book, for he thought it high time to have done with this reading. He lacked the language that Raftery had known—the language of many small sounds and small movements—a clumsy and inarticulate fellow he was, but unrestrainedly loving. He nearly broke his own heart between love and the deep gratitude which he felt for Mary. At the moment he wanted to lay back his ears and howl with despair to see her unhappy. He wanted to make an enormous noise, the kind of noise wild folk make in the jungle—lions and tigers and other wild folk that David had heard about from his mother—his mother had been in Africa once a long time ago, with an old French colonel. But instead he abruptly licked Mary’s cheek—it tasted peculiar, he thought, like sea water.
“Do you want a walk, David?” she asked him gently.
And as well as he could, David nodded his head by wagging his tail which was shaped like a sickle. Then he capered, thumping the ground with his paws; after which he barked twice in an effort to amuse her, for such things had seemed funny to her in the past, although now she appeared not to notice his capers. However, she had put on her hat and coat; so, still barking, he followed her through the courtyard.
They wandered along the Quai Voltaire, Mary pausing to look at the misty river.
“Shall I dive in and bring you a rat?” inquired David by lunging wildly backwards and forwards.
She shook her head. “Do stop, David; be good!” Then she sighed again and stared at the river; so David stared too, but he stared at Mary.
Quite suddenly Paris had lost its charm for her. After all, what was it? Just a big, foreign city—a city that belonged to a stranger people who cared nothing for Stephen and nothing for Mary. They were exiles. She turned the word over in her mind—exiles; it sounded unwanted, lonely. But why had Stephen become an exile? Why had she exiled herself from Morton? Strange that she, Mary, had never asked her—had never wanted to until this moment.
She walked on not caring very much where she went. It grew dusk, and the dusk brought with it great longing—the longing to see, to hear, to touch—almost a physical pain it was,
