On the third night of Joyce’s visit two little incidents occurred which were of importance. She had danced, reluctantly, with Robin Webster, and he had guided her to the end of the terrace away from the others. Suddenly he stopped.
“I can’t go on like this,” he said in a voice of fever. “You must come down into the garden and talk to me. It’s horrible what I am going through”; and he held her off from him, and again his eyes slid over her greedily from her head to her shoes, so that she felt herself dishonoured. She wrenched her hands away and said simply, “I’ll come,” and turning at his side, went down with him into the garden.
“It was hateful,” Joyce said, “but I was afraid he would make some sort of revolting scene publicly, and that I should have to go away from Suvlac in consequence. We walked across the lawn to the hedge which separates the garden from the strip of marshland by the river, and then I turned to him.
“ ‘You see, I can’t hide any more,’ he began at once, his mouth trembling, and his words overtaking one another. ‘Up till now it has always been easy—amusing, too—to keep different things going—if you understand me—’ I had no difficulty at all in understanding him. The amazing feature of him was his frankness, considering what his object was—I mean myself. It never seemed to occur to him at all that I might perhaps believe in another subject under M to O inclusive—monogamy.
“ ‘Now I find it very difficult,’ he continued. ‘I can’t trouble about concealments—I don’t want them either—I want you—and you—and you—and all the world to see it. Joyce! I walk up and down my room half the night repeating it. Joyce! Joyce! I have thought that no one could want anyone else so—so overwhelmingly, without that other one being forced to come. I have expected to hear your step upon the gravel—to see the door open and you with your eyes full of wonder and soft light in the doorway. I knew all the time that I was a fool—that the way with women was to keep your head and only seem to lose it. But I can’t help myself. I am like the man in hell. I want my drink of water beyond anything in the world—you, Joyce, you!’ and his hands reached out to me shaking, and drew back and reached out again.
“I was in trouble too. I didn’t dare to giggle because I was in the presence of a predatory animal. My whole object was to prevent a crisis for as long as I could—until after Wednesday week, at all events. I babbled a few remarks inanely. ‘I have never had anything like this happen to me. I have never before been told that I was one of a number, even if for the moment the top one,’ and luckily at that moment Evelyn Devenish ran down the steps of the terrace and across the green towards us. It was Robin Webster’s turn to say ‘Hush! Hush!’ now. I made my escape at once and, a little more shaken than I had believed myself to be, I slipped into the drawing-room, which was empty.
“I sat there for a few moments watching the couples dancing outside, and then Diana joined me. She sat down beside me with an embarrassed smile, and began at once to talk to me rapidly.
“ ‘I am going to tell you something, Joyce. I haven’t told it to any of my friends yet. So you must keep it a secret for the moment. I don’t mean to have people advising and interfering in what isn’t any concern of theirs. They probably won’t know at all until it is done. I am going to marry Robin Webster.’
“I was really startled by her announcement, and no doubt my face showed it. For she continued quickly:
“ ‘You’re astonished, but you don’t know him. He’s wonderful, really wonderful.’
“ ‘But—but—’ I protested a little confusedly, ‘are you sure that—I mean that you are rich and he—after all, he seems to have friends already, doesn’t he?’
“I wasn’t very tactful, but I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t stop to phrase things very decently. Diana, however, wasn’t offended at all. She took my protest with the utmost calmness.
“ ‘I know what you mean,’ she answered. ‘He is a good deal with Evelyn Devenish. But he loves me.’ It is impossible to give you any idea of the simple, serious fatuity with which she spoke. I felt that no evidence would shake her at all. ‘Since you came, Joyce, he has been showing you some attention too. He is just setting up so many screens to prevent anyone guessing until we want them to.’
“ ‘But when are you going to be married?’ I gasped.
“ ‘Next month,’ she answered; and then the most curious look, half pride, half fear, shone upon her face. ‘I can’t tell you everything. But we are set apart, he and I—and—a few other people. It’s the most terrific secret. I was frightened at first—perhaps I still am a little. But one’s carried away … one wouldn’t go back if one could. It’s a belief—no doubt people—who didn’t understand would take us out and stone us … but there are many, many, many of us, not only here—in Paris, in Italy. And people who are right are
