“How can I excuse myself?” he cried, as he took her hands. “But if you knew what a whirl I live in! How marvellous it is to see you again! Not changed at all. As lovely as ever.” He looked intently into her face. The same serene pale eyes, the same full and melancholy lips. “And looking so wonderfully well!”
She smiled back at him. His eyes were a very dark brown; from a little distance they seemed all pupil. Fine eyes, but rather disquieting, she found, in their intent, bright, watchful fixity. She looked into them a moment, then turned away. “You too,” she said. “Just the same. But then, I don’t know why we should be different.” She glanced back into his face and found him still intently looking at her. “Ten months and travelling in the tropics don’t turn one into somebody else.”
Everard laughed. “Thank heaven for that!” he said. “Let’s come down to lunch.”
“And Philip?” he asked, when the fish had been served. “Is he also the same as ever?”
“A little more so, if possible.”
Everard nodded. “A little more so. Quite. One would expect it. Seeing blackamoors walking about without trousers must have made him still more sceptical about the eternal verities than he was.”
Elinor smiled, but at the same time was a little offended by his mockery. “And what’s been the effect on you of seeing so many Englishmen walking about in pea-green uniforms?” she retorted.
Everard laughed. “Strengthened my belief in the eternal verities, of course.”
“Of which you’re one?”
He nodded. “Of which, naturally, I’m one.” They looked at one another, smiling. It was Elinor again who first averted her eyes.
“Thanks for telling me.” She kept up the note of irony. “I mightn’t have guessed by myself.” There was a little silence.
“Don’t imagine,” he said at last in a tone that was no more bantering, but serious, “that you can make me lose my temper by telling me that I’ve got a swelled head.” He spoke softly; but you were conscious of huge reserves of power. “Other people might succeed perhaps. But then, one doesn’t like to be bothered by the lower animals. One squashes them. But with fellow humans one discusses things rationally.”
“I’m most relieved to hear it,” laughed Elinor.
“You think I’ve got a swelled head,” he went on. “And I suppose it’s true in a way. But the trouble is, I know it’s justified—experimentally. Modesty’s harmful if it’s false. Milton said that ‘nothing profits more than self-esteem founded on just and right.’ I know that mine is founded on just and right. I know, I’m absolutely convinced, that I can do what I want to do. What’s the good of denying the knowledge? I’m going to be master, I’m going to impose my will. I have the determination and the courage. Very soon I shall have the organized strength. And then I shall take control. I know it; why should I pretend that I don’t?” He leaned back in his chair and there was a long silence.
“It’s absurd,” Elinor was thinking, “it’s ridiculous to talk like that.” It was the protest of her critical intellect against her feelings. For her feelings had been strangely moved. His words, the tone of his voice—so soft, yet with such vibrating latencies of power and passion divinable beneath its softness—had carried her away. When he had said, “I’m going to be master,” it was as though she had taken a gulp of mulled wine—such a warmth had suddenly tingled through her whole body. “It’s ridiculous,” she inwardly repeated, trying to avenge herself on him for his easy conquest, trying to punish the traitors within her own soul who had so easily surrendered. But what had been done could not wholly be undone. The words might be ridiculous; but the fact remained that, while he was uttering them, she had thrilled with sudden admiration, with excitement, with a strange desire to exult and laugh aloud.
The servant changed the plates. They talked of indifferent matters—of her travels, of doings in London while she had been away, of common friends. The coffee was brought, they lit their cigarettes; there was a silence. How would it be broken? Elinor wondered apprehensively. Or rather did not wonder; for she knew, and it was this prophetic knowledge that made her apprehensive. Perhaps she could forestall him by breaking the silence herself. Perhaps, if she rattled on, she could keep the conversation insignificant till it was time for her to go. But there seemed suddenly to be nothing to say. She felt as though paralyzed by the approach of the inevitable event. She could only sit and wait. And at last the inevitable duly happened.
“Do you remember,” he said slowly, without looking up, “what I told you before you went away?”
“I thought we’d agreed not to talk about it again.”
He threw back his head with a little laugh. “Well, you thought wrong.” He looked at her and saw in her eyes an expression of distress and anxiety, an appeal for mercy. But Everard was merciless. He planted his elbows on the table and leaned toward her. She dropped her eyes.
“You said I hadn’t changed to look at,” he said in his soft voice with its latencies of violence. “Well, my mind hasn’t changed either. It’s still the same, Elinor, still the same as it was when you went away. I love you just as much, Elinor. No, I love you more.” Her hand lay limp on the table in front of her. He stretched out one of his and took it. “Elinor,” he whispered.
She shook her head, without looking at him.
Softly and passionately he talked on. “You don’t know what love can be,” he said. “You don’t know what I can give you. Love
