“I feel it, too,” she answered breathlessly. “I’m sure people have said this before, but they’ve never meant it.”
“Never meant it,” he agreed gravely.
“Whereas with us everything is completely natural; neither of us has to pretend,” she told him.
“That’s what is really so marvellous,” he said. “Have some iced water, darling; the wine here is terrible. No, what I was saying is that no two people have ever loved the same way as we have. It’s so much more than just, you know. Sometimes I feel I could be completely happy if I didn’t touch you, if. …” He saw the cloud come over her face, so he changed his phrase with great presence of mind. “If only one didn’t have a bodily existence it would be comparatively simple; you and I would never go through our agonies of separation. As it is I suffer tortures when we are apart.”
“I know; that’s why we ought to go away,” she broke in.
“No, no—you must not. I will not muck your life.” He spoke firmly, and stuck his fork into his mixed grill. “After all, we are happy in our fashion, aren’t we? We see each other every day; we love each other; and there is no danger. No one will find out.”
“Yes, it’s perfect—but somehow—and since just a few days ago—I want to do so much for you. I want to slave for you; I want to be with you always!”
He had an uneasy pain in the pit of his stomach. Must she still harp on the subject? Was this affair going to be the same as the last one, all over again?
“God! If only I had some money of my own,” he said gloomily. He stuck out his jaw and frowned.
“Money! What does money matter?” she said impatiently. “I hate money! I’d like to give it all away, and for you and I to go away on some old dirty ship.”
He smiled weakly without enthusiasm.
“One day soon we will,” she said.
His spirits sank rapidly.
“Of course there’s no kick in being rich,” he remarked carelessly, “but there’s no doubt it does mean something in this callous world. One gets tired of striving and fighting, and sometimes one thinks, Why write? Why go on? To what end? It’s agony being poor.”
“But, darling, you know that you need never want for anything now you have me. All I have is yours, anything you care to ask for.”
He wondered if she had forgotten about the car she had promised him.
“I can’t go on taking things from you,” he muttered. “You don’t know how it hurts, how terrible it makes me feel.”
“Now you’re silly, you forget we are ‘us,’ and not two other people. Loving each other as we do these things become so simple and so natural. I mean, if our positions were reversed you’d do the same for me. Besides, I adore helping you.”
“Do you? If only I wasn’t so confoundedly proud.”
“Oh! But you’re a genius—no one expects you to understand money. You’re above the sordid material things of life.”
“Um—I suppose I am.” He frowned and drummed with his fingers on the table.
Poor lamb, she thought, how artistic he is, how temperamental.
“You will let me help you, won’t you?” she pleaded.
He shrugged his shoulders and pushed away his plate.
“If you must,” he said sullenly.
He decided that the time had come for a change of mood. “Let’s forget money, work, everything but that we are together,” he said smiling. “After all, there is nothing else in the world, is there?”
“Nothing,” she agreed.
“If only these people were not here and we were quite alone—like yesterday. D’you remember last night?”
“Remember—what do you think?”
Once more she felt for his hand under the table.
“Tell me, that woman you told me about, do you ever see her now?”
“Good Lord, no; besides, there was nothing in it, nothing at all. She was never anything more than a friend. She’s gone abroad, I believe, with her children.”
He bent to light a cigarette. Then he closed his eyes and waved aside the smoke.
“I want to kiss you for twenty-four hours without stopping.”
She revelled in the old, worn words.
“Shall we go?” she murmured.
There was a slight awkwardness with the bill. She insisted on paying and he protested. Then, as he looked away, the distasteful moment passed.
To make up for this he hailed a taxi, aggressively rattling the change in his pocket. “But, of course, I’m going to see you home,” he said reproachfully as she held out her hand. The taxi bumped amidst the traffic, and their kisses though ardent, were unsuccessful.
“If we could be like this always,” he lied.
She smiled in ecstasy and fumbled for her powder puff.
He leant back with his feet on the opposite seat and prodded the floor with his stick.
“By the way,” he began, “about that car you mentioned, I’ve been thinking it over …”
Th party had been dull, tedious, and after all the man had never turned up. Only his daughter, a young unsophisticated girl, red elbows in evening dress. Not unattractive in profile, but too young, much too young. Still, he had made the most of his time. After all, her father was an important man. It never did to let opportunities like this occur merely to pass them by.
He spoke to her early in the evening, and towards the end he was still by her side.
“Do you know, I swear I am not flattering you, but the moment I saw you I said to myself ‘There is someone who will understand.’ It was something about your eyes, I think.”
The girl gazed at him, flushing.
“Oh! but nobody has ever talked to me like this before. You see, being my father’s daughter they expect me to echo his remarks, and they don’t seem to imagine for an instant that I have a mind of my own.”
He laughed scornfully.
“Absurd! After five minutes with you one realises—so much more than the ordinary thing.”
“I admit I was disappointed not to meet your father
