“Those long days together,” he began dreamily, “that frock you wore—and your hair brushed away from your face.”
She frowned, puzzled by his words. “But we scarcely saw each other in the daytime.”
“Nights I meant,” he said hurriedly. “Long, long nights. Sometimes there was a moon making patterns on the floor. You used to put your hands over your eyes to hide yourself from the light.”
“Did I really?”
“Yes—you know you did. And often we’d come back hungry—neither of us with any money in our pockets, Perhaps only enough to halve a ham sandwich. And you’d be cold—I’d have to give you my coat—but you’d wrinkle up your nose in contempt saying ‘Who wants to get warm that way.’ Then, because I loved you so much, I’d want to strangle you, and …”
He stopped short, dazzled by his own imagination, and a little hurt at the astonished expression on her face.
“I’ve forgotten all that,” she told him. “I’m sure you always had plenty of money. And we never halved ham sandwiches, we nearly always dined with Mother.”
He glared at her, shocked and confused. His ideas were so much more romantic. She was spoiling everything. Why must she drag in her relations?
“I always hated your Mother,” he said coldly, “we never got on. I didn’t like to tell you at the time.”
She stared at him blankly.
“But why ever didn’t you say so? You know it would have made all the difference in the world.”
He brushed her statement aside. He would not talk about her mother. He saw himself young, miserable, very much in love. This was the only thing that mattered.
“I tried drinking at first,” he went on gloomily, “but it wasn’t any good. I never could get your face out of my thoughts, never for a single instant, night and day. It was complete and utter hell—”
“What about your ambition, surely that gave you some sort of interest? And then when success came to you?”
“Ambition? Success?” He laughed scornfully, throwing his cigarette into the fireplace. “What were they compared with my love for you? Don’t you understand that after you sent me away I was broken, done in? You took from me the only chance of happiness I ever had. I was young, I had ideals, I believed in you more than anything in the world. Then, for some reason that I shall never know, you chucked me. You didn’t care what became of me, and you have the face to sit there and tell me that the fact of my being successful should have put you out of my mind. Don’t you know that success has not brought one grain of happiness to me, that always in the depth of my heart I’ve known that you were the only thing that mattered?”
He blew his nose noisily, and poured himself out another drink. His eyes were red and his hands trembled with emotion.
She rose from the sofa and laid her hand on his shoulder. “I’d no idea you felt it in that way,” she said gently, “please, please don’t reproach me like this. I believed I was doing it for your good. I thought I would be a drag on you.”
He refused to be comforted. He shook his head miserably.
“You were the sweetest influence in my life—the one reason for existence,” he said. He glanced down at the wedding ring on her hand, and was aware of his unreasoning jealousy. “Who is this fellow you’ve married, anyway?” he asked roughly. “This John Pearce—damn his eyes. So you couldn’t even be faithful to one …”
“I met him eighteen months after you went away,” she answered. “John and I have been married twenty-seven years now. Four grown-up children—just think of that! We lead a very peaceful life down in Devonshire. Don’t you remember how I always loved the country? That dream has come true, anyway. I have a snapshot of my youngest boy here in my bag. He’s rather a darling, don’t you think? He’s doing so well in Burma.”
He scarcely looked at the snapshot. He wasn’t interested in her children, or in her house in Devonshire.
“Does your husband know about us?”
She put the photo away in her bag.
“Oh! yes, I tell him everything.”
“Then he doesn’t mind?”
“Why should he? He’s scarcely likely to bother over something that happened thirty years ago! He’s always very interested in you. We read your notices together. He’s going to be terribly excited when I tell him I’ve been round to see you.”
He did not want it to be like this. He wanted a hulking brute of a husband who treated her badly, who never understood her. He wanted her to be lonely and unloved, leaning out of a window, watching for a star. He could not allow her to be married for twenty-seven years and have four grown-up children. She seemed to take it all for granted, too. She made no allowance for his feelings.
“So much for fidelity,” he said grimly, “so much for vows and promises, and all the things that go to make up belief. We used to hold each other and whisper words like ‘never’ and ‘forever.’ Just a silly little string of lies, that’s what they were. You’ve killed my last illusions today; you’ve made me feel as though nothing’s worth while.”
She shrugged her shoulders and began to draw the gloves on her large brown hands.
“You talk as though you had never made love to other women,” she laughed comfortably.
“Other women?” He waved the idea away. He would not even discuss it. In his mind he saw a meaningless procession, all to whom he had sworn the same things. The thought irritated him. He found it unattractive. He would have liked men and women to be as birds on a tree—the male bird dumb and inconsolable on a high
