“As little as I could possibly tell her. She knows that I can’t get on with my mother, and that my mother won’t ask her to Morton; but she doesn’t know that I had to leave home because of a woman, that I was turned out—I’ve wanted to spare her all I could.”
“Do you think you were right?”
“Yes, a thousand times.”
“Well, only you can judge of that, Stephen.” He looked down at the carpet, then he asked abruptly: “Does she know about you and me, about …”
Stephen shook her head: “No, she’s no idea. She thinks you were just my very good friend as you are today. I don’t want her to know.”
“For my sake?” he demanded.
And she answered slowly: “Well, yes, I suppose so … for your sake, Martin.”
Then an unexpected, and to her very moving thing happened; his eyes filled with pitiful tears: “Lord,” he muttered, “why need this have come upon you—this incomprehensible dispensation? It’s enough to make one deny God’s existence!”
She felt a great need to reassure him. At that moment he seemed so much younger than she was as he stood there with his eyes full of pitiful tears, doubting God, because of his human compassion: “There are still the trees. Don’t forget the trees, Martin—because of them you used to believe.”
“Have you come to believe in a God then?” he muttered.
“Yes,” she told him, “it’s strange, but I know now I must—lots of us feel that way in the end. I’m not really religious like some of the others, but I’ve got to acknowledge God’s existence, though at times I still think: ‘Can He really exist?’ One can’t help it, when one’s seen what I have here in Paris. But unless there’s a God, where do some of us find even the little courage we possess?”
Martin stared out of the window in silence.
III
Mary was growing gentle again; infinitely gentle she now was at times, for happiness makes for gentleness, and in these days Mary was strangely happy. Reassured by the presence of Martin Hallam, reestablished in pride and self-respect, she was able to contemplate the world without her erstwhile sense of isolation, was able for the moment to sheathe her sword, and this respite brought her a sense of well-being. She discovered that at heart she was neither so courageous nor so defiant as she had imagined, that like many another woman before her, she was well content to feel herself protected; and gradually as the weeks went by, she began to forget her bitter resentment.
One thing only distressed her, and this was Stephen’s refusal to accompany her when she went to Passy; she could not understand it, so must put it down to the influence of Valérie Seymour who had met and disliked Martin’s aunt at one time, indeed the dislike, it seemed, had been mutual. Thus the vague resentment that Valérie had inspired in the girl, began to grow much less vague, until Stephen realized with a shock of surprise that Mary was jealous of Valérie Seymour. But this seemed so absurd and preposterous a thing, that Stephen decided it could only be passing, nor did it loom very large in these days that were so fully taken up by Martin. For now that his eyesight was quite restored he was talking of going home in the autumn, and every free moment that he could steal from his aunt, he wanted to spend with Stephen and Mary. When he spoke of his departure, Stephen sometimes fancied that a shade of sadness crept into Mary’s face, and her heart misgave her, though she told herself that naturally both of them would miss Martin. Then too, never had Mary been more loyal and devoted, more obviously anxious to prove her love by a thousand little acts of devotion. There would even be times when by contrast her manner would appear abrupt and unfriendly to Martin, when she argued with him over every trifle, backing up her opinion by quoting Stephen—yes, in spite of her newly restored gentleness, there were times when she would not be gentle with Martin. And these sudden and unforeseen changes of mood would leave Stephen feeling uneasy and bewildered, so that one night she spoke rather anxiously:
“Why were you so beastly to Martin this evening?”
But Mary pretended not to understand her: “How was I beastly? I was just as usual.” And when Stephen persisted, Mary kissed her scar: “Darling, don’t start working now, it’s so late, and besides …”
Stephen put away her work, then she suddenly caught the girl to her roughly: “How much do you love me? Tell me quickly, quickly!” Her voice shook with something very like fear.
“Stephen, you’re hurting me—don’t, you’re hurting! You know how I love you—more than life.”
“You are my life … all my life,” muttered Stephen.
LIV
I
Fate, which by now had them well in its grip, began to play the game out more quickly. That summer they went to Pontresina since Mary had never seen Switzerland; but the Comtesse must make a double cure, first at Vichy and afterwards at Bagnoles de l’Orne, which fact left Martin quite free to join them. Then it was that Stephen perceived for the first time that all was not well with Martin Hallam.
Try as he might he could not deceive her, for this man was almost painfully honest, and any deception became him so ill that it seemed to stand out like a badly fitting garment. Yet now there were times when he avoided her eyes, when he grew very silent and awkward with Stephen, as though something inevitable and unhappy had obtruded itself upon their friendship; something, moreover, that he feared to tell her. Then one day in a blinding flash of insight she suddenly knew what this was—it was Mary.
Like a blow that is struck full between the eyes, the thing stunned
