She spoke wildly, scarcely knowing what she said; she only knew that she needed this woman with a need so intense, that worthy or unworthy, Angela was all that counted at that moment. And now she stood up, very tall, very strong, yet a little grotesque in her pitiful passion, so that looking at her Angela trembled—there was something rather terrible about her. All that was heavy in her face sprang into view, the strong line of the jaw, the square, massive brow, the eyebrows too thick and too wide for beauty; she was like some curious, primitive thing conceived in a turbulent age of transition.
“Angela, come very far away—anywhere, only come with me soon—tomorrow.”
Then Angela forced herself to think quickly, and she said just five words: “Could you marry me, Stephen?”
She did not look at the girl as she said it—that she could not do, perhaps out of something that, for her, was the nearest she would ever come to pity. There ensued a long, almost breathless silence, while Angela waited with her eyes turned away. A leaf dropped, and she heard its minute, soft falling, heard the creak of the branch that had let fall its leaf as a breeze passed over the garden.
Then the silence was broken by a quiet, dull voice, that sounded to her like the voice of a stranger: “No—” it said very slowly, “no—I couldn’t marry you, Angela.” And when Angela at last gained the courage to look up, she found that she was sitting there alone.
XX
I
For three weeks they kept away from each other, neither writing nor making any effort to meet. Angela’s prudence forbade her to write: “Litera scripta manet”—a good motto, and one to which it was wise to adhere when dealing with a firebrand like Stephen. Stephen had given her a pretty bad scare, she realized the necessity for caution; still, thinking over that incredible scene, she found the memory rather exciting. Deprived of her anodyne against boredom, she looked upon Ralph with unfriendly eyes; while he, poor, inadequate, irritable devil, with his vague suspicions and his chronic dyspepsia, did little enough to divert his wife—his days, and a fairly large part of his nights as well, were now spent in nagging.
He nagged about Tony who, as ill luck would have it, had decided that the garden was rampant with moles: “If you can’t keep that bloody dog in order, he goes. I won’t have him digging craters round my roses!” Then would come a long list of Tony’s misdeeds from the time he had left the litter. He nagged about the large population of greenfly, deploring the existence of their sexual organs: “Nature’s a fool! Fancy procreation being extended to that sort of vermin!” And then he would grow somewhat coarse as he dwelt on the frequent conjugal excesses of greenfly. But most of all he nagged about Stephen, because this as he knew, irritated his wife: “How’s your freak getting on? I haven’t seen her just lately; have you quarrelled or what? Damned good thing if you have. She’s appalling; never saw such a girl in my life; comes swaggering round here with her legs in breeches. Why can’t she ride like an ordinary woman? Good Lord, it’s enough to make any man see red; that sort of thing wants putting down at birth, I’d like to institute state lethal chambers!”
Or perhaps he would take quite another tack and complain that recently he had been neglected. “Late for every damned meal—running round with that girl—you don’t care what happens to me any more. A lot you care about my indigestion! I’ve got to eat any old thing these days from cowhide to bricks. Well, you listen to me, that’s not what I pay for; get that into your head! I pay for good meals to be served on time; on time, do you hear? And I expect my wife to be in her rightful place at my table to see that the omelette’s properly prepared. What’s the matter with you that you can’t go along and make it yourself? When we were first married you always made my omelettes yourself. I won’t eat yellow froth with a few strings of parsley in it—it reminds me of the dog when he’s sick, it’s disgusting! And I won’t go on talking about it either, the next time it happens I’ll sack the cook. Damn it all, you were glad enough of my help when I found you practically starving in New York—but now you’re forever racing off with that girl. It’s all this damned animal’s fault that you met her!” He would kick out sideways at the terrified Tony, who had lately been made to stand proxy for Stephen.
But worst of all was it when Ralph started weeping, because, as he said, his wife did not love him any more, and because, as he did not always say, he felt ill with his painful, chronic dyspepsia. One day he must make feeble love through his tears: “Angela, come here—put your arms around me—come and sit on my knee the way you used to.” His wet eyes looked dejected yet rather greedy: “Put your arms around me, as though you cared—” He was always insistent when most ineffectual.
That night he appeared in his best silk pyjamas—the pink ones that made his complexion look sallow. He climbed into bed with
