“My mother hates me,” said the woman, “she would confirm anything that was said of me, if it was bad enough.”
“She is your mother.”
“Oh no, she is not! When I ceased to be a child she ceased to be a mother. We are only two women who are so well acquainted that we can be enemies without any shame of each other.”
“Are you not talking nonsense?”
“I have committed a crime against her. She will never forgive me for being younger than she is, and for being pretty in her own fashion. She left my father because he said I was good-looking.”
“All that … !” said the man with a movement of his shoulder.
“As to what she would do against me, you should know it well enough considering the things she told you before we were married.”
“You admitted that they were not all lies.”
“Some of the facts were true, all of the colouring was false—they are the things a loving mother says about her daughter! but that is an old story now, or I had fancied so.”
“One forgets the old story until the new story drags it to memory,” said he.
She also moved her shoulders slightly.
“I begin to find these conversations tiresome.”
“I can understand that … With her letter your mother enclosed some other letters from her friends—they insist on the facts, and add others.”
“Are they letters, or copies of letters?”
“They are copies.”
“Of course my mother has forbidden you to disclose the fact that she forwarded her friends’ private correspondence to you.”
“Naturally.”
“Very naturally; the reason being that she wrote these letters herself to herself. There are no originals of these copies.”
“Again you are talking nonsense.”
“I know her better than you do, better than she knows herself.”
There was silence between them again for a few moments, and again it was broken by the man.
“There are some things I cannot do,” said he, and paused:
“I cannot search in unclean places for unclean information,” he continued, and again the silence fell between these two people.
She could bear that silence, but he could not:
“You do not say anything!” said he.
“This seems to be so entirely your business,” was her quiet reply.
He moved a hand at that:
“You cannot divorce yourself from me with such ease. This is our business, and we must settle it between us.”
Her hand was resting on the table, and suddenly he reached to her and laid his own hand on hers. She did not withdraw, but the stiffening of her body was more than withdrawal. He drew his hand away again.
“We are reasonable creatures and must question our difficulties,” said he gently, “we must even help each other to resolve them.”
“These difficulties are not of my making.”
“They are, and you are lying to me shamelessly.”
Again between these people a silence fell which was profound but not quiet. That soundlessness was tingling with sound; there were screams latent in it; it was atrocious and terrifying. The man’s hand was pressed against his forehead and his eyes were closed, but what he was looking at was known only to himself in the silence of his being. The woman sat upright an arm’s length from him, and although her eyes were wide and calm, she also was regarding that which was free within herself, and very visible to her.
“There are things I cannot do,” said the man, emerging as with an effort from subterranean caves and secret prospects. He continued speaking, calmly but tonelessly:
“I have striven to make a rule of life for myself and to follow it, but I have not sought to impose my laws on anyone else—not on you, certainly. Still there are elementary duties which we owe to one another and which cannot be renounced by either of us. There is a personal, I might say, a domestic loyalty expected by each of us. …”
“I expect nothing,” said she.
“I exact nothing,” said the man, “but I expect that—I expect it as I expect air for my lungs and stability under my feet. You must not withdraw that from me. You are not the individual you think; you are a member of society, and you live by it; you are a member of my household, and you live by it.”
She turned her face to him but not her eyes.
“I do not ask anything from you,” said she, “and I have accepted as little as was possible.”
He clenched his hand on the table, but when he spoke his voice was without emphasis:
“That is part of my grievance against you. Life is to give and take without any weighing of the gifts. You will do neither, and yet our circumstances are such that we must accommodate each other whether we will or not.”
“I am an exact man,” he continued, “perhaps you find that trying, but I cannot live in doubt. Whatever happens to hinder or assist my consciousness must be known to me. It is a law of my being: it is my ancestral heritage, and I have no command over it.”
“I also,” said she coldly, “am an heir of the ages, and must take my bequests whether I like them or not.”
“I love you,” said the man, “and I have proved it many times. I am not demonstrative, and I am shy of this fashion of speech. Perhaps that shyness of speech is responsible for more than is apparent to either of us in a world eager for speech and gesture, but I say the word now in all sincerity, with a gravity, perhaps, which you find repulsive. Be at least as honest with me, no matter how cruel you are. I cannot live in the half-knowledge which is jealousy. It tears my heart. It makes me unfit for thought, for life, for sleep, even for death. I must know, or I am a madman and no man any longer, a wild beast that will bite itself in despair of hurting its enemy.”
The woman’s tongue slipped over her pale lips in a quick, red flash.
“Have you anything to say to me?” said he.
There was
