got back to London and she herself had a great many tiresome engagements, but she did hope they would be able to manage it.
'Then let's settle a day now, shall we?'
George's face – florid, smiling, insistent. 'I thought perhaps one day the week after next – Wednesday or Thursday? Thursday is November 2nd. Would that be all right? But we'll arrange any day that suits you both.'
It had been the kind of invitation that pinned you down – there was a certain lack of social savoir-faire. Stephen noticed that Iris Marle had gone red and looked embarrassed.
Sandra had been perfect. She had smilingly surrendered to the inevitable and said that Thursday, November 2nd, would suit them very well.
Suddenly voicing his thoughts, Stephen said sharply, 'We needn't go.'
Sandra turned her face slightly towards him. It wore a thoughtful considering air.
'You think not?'
'It's easy to make some excuse.'
'He'll only insist on us coming some other time – or change the day. He – he seems very set on our coming.'
'I can't think why. It's Iris's party – and I can't believe she is so particularly anxious for our company.'
'No – no –' Sandra sounded thoughtful
Then she said: 'You know where this party is to be?'
'No.'
'The Luxembourg .'
The shock nearly deprived him of speech. He felt the colour ebbing out of his cheeks. He pulled himself together and met her eyes. Was it his fancy or was there meaning in the level gaze?
'But it's preposterous,' he said, blustering a little in his attempt to conceal his own personal emotion. 'The Luxembourg where – to revive all that. The man must be mad.'
'I thought of that,' said Sandra.
'But then we shall certainly refuse to go. The – the whole thing was unpleasant. You remember all the publicity – and the pictures in the papers.'
'I remember all the unpleasantness,' said Sandra.
'Doesn't he realise how disagreeable it would be for us?'
'He has a reason, you know, Stephen. A reason that he gave me.'
'What was it?'
He felt thankful that she was looking away from him when she spoke.
'He took me aside after lunch. He said he wanted to explain. He told me that the girl – Iris – had never recovered properly from the shock of her sister's death.'
She paused and Stephen said unwillingly: 'Well, I daresay that may be true enough – she looks far from well. I thought at lunch how ill she was looking.'
'Yes, I noticed it too – although she has seemed in good health and spirits on the whole lately. But I am telling you what George Barton said. He told me that Iris has consistently avoided the Luxembourg ever since as far as she was able.'
'I don't wonder.'
'But according to him that is all wrong. It seems he consulted a nerve specialist on the subject – one of these modern men – and his advice is that after a shock of any kind, the trouble must be faced, not avoided. The principle, I gather, is like that of sending up an airman again immediately after a crash.'
'Does the specialist suggest another suicide?'
Sandra replied quietly, 'He suggests that the associations of the restaurant must be overcome. It is, after all, just a restaurant. He proposed an ordinary pleasant party with, as far as possible, the same people present.'
'Delightful for the people!'
'Do you mind so much, Stephen?'
A swift pang of alarm shot through him. He said quickly: 'Of course I don't mind. I just thought it rather a gruesome idea. Personally I shouldn't mind in the least… I was really thinking of you. If you don't mind –'
She interrupted him.
'I do mind. Very much. But the way George Barton put it made it very difficult to refuse. After all, I have frequently been to the Luxembourg since – so have you. One is constantly being asked there.'
'But not under these circumstances.'
'No.'
Stephen said: 'As you say, it is difficult to refuse – and if we put it off the invitation will be renewed. But there's no reason, Sandra, why you should have to endure it. I'll go and you can cry off at the last minute – a headache, chill – something of that kind.'
He saw her chin go up.
'That would be cowardly. No, Stephen, if you go, I go. After all,' she laid her hand on his arm, 'however little our marriage means, it should at least mean sharing all our difficulties.'
But he was staring at her – rendered dumb by one poignant phrase which had escaped her so easily, as though it voiced a long familiar and not very important fact.
Recovering himself he said, 'Why do you say that? However little our marriage means?'
She looked at him steadily, her eyes wide and honest.
'Isn't it true?'
'No, a thousand times no. Our marriage means everything to me.'
She smiled.
'I suppose it does – in a way. We're a good team, Stephen. We pull together with a satisfactory result.'
'I didn't mean that.' He found his breath was coming unevenly. He took her hand in both of his, holding it very closely – 'Sandra, don't you know that you mean all the world to me?'
And suddenly she did know it. It was incredible – unforeseen, but it was so. She was in his arms and he was holding her close, kissing her, stammering out incoherent words.
'Sandra – Sandra – darling. I love you… I've been so afraid – so afraid I'd lose you.'
She heard herself saying: 'Because of Rosemary?'
'Yes.' He let go of her, stepped back, his face was ludicrous in its dismay.
'You knew – about Rosemary?'
'Of course – all the time.'
'And you understand?'
She shook her head.
'No, I don't understand. I don't think I ever should. You loved her?'
'Not really. It was you I loved.'
A surge of bitterness swept over her. She quoted: 'From the first moment you saw me across the room? Don't repeat that lie – for it was a lie!'
He was not taken aback by that sudden attack. He seemed to consider her words thoughtfully.
'Yes, it was a lie – and yet in a queer way it wasn't. I'm beginning to believe that it was true. Oh, try and understand, Sandra. You know the people who always have a noble and good reason to mask their meaner actions? The people who 'have to be honest' when they want to be unkind, who 'thought it their duty to repeat so and so,' who are such hypocrites to themselves that they go through to their life's end convinced that every mean and beastly action was done in a spirit of unselfishness! Try and realise also that the opposite of those people can exist too. People who are so cynical, so distrustful of themselves and of life that they can only believe in their bad motives. You were the woman I needed. That, at least, is true. And I do honestly believe, now, looking back on it, that if it hadn't been true, I should never have gone through with it.'
She said bitterly: 'You were not in love with me.'
'No. I had never been in love. I was a starved, sexless creature who prided himself – yes, I did – on the fastidious coldness of his nature! And then I did fall in love 'across a room' – a silly violent puppy love. A thing like a midsummer thunderstorm, brief, unreal, quickly over.' He added bitterly: 'Indeed a 'tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.''
He paused, and then went on: 'It was here, at Fairhaven , that I woke up and realised the truth.'
