[_To SYLVESTER GATES_]
She lay on a sofa covered with white marabou, her head sunk deep into a
billowy morass of lace-coloured satin and lace-coloured lace. She could
see her pointed toes emerging and her arm dangling over the edge as if
she had forgotten it. On her finger was a huge emerald ring, a splotch
of crème de menthe spilt on the whiteness of her hand. She felt
entrenched and anchored in an altogether strong position, so fixed that
all advances would have to be made to her. This gave to her voice and to
her gestures an indolent melodious security.
As the door opened she turned her eyes round slowly, suppressing all
eagerness.
"Mortimer!" She wondered if disappointment could be as easily controlled
as joy. "How nice of you to come and see me!"
"Are you glad--really?" He was kissing her hand with an unnecessary
mixture of shyness and intensity.
"How intolerably literal people in love are," she thought petulantly;
"always forcing significance into everything."
"Of course," she said, smiling lazily.
"It is good of you to let me come like this." How she hated his
humility, but--"I like you to," she murmured, automatically kind.
"How lovely you look! Lovelier than ever before--as lovely as ever
before." And then, "I love you."
"Do you think so?" She seemed amused and sceptical.
"Do you doubt it?" He clutched her wrist.
"Not if you put it like that."
"You are laughing at me," he recognised sadly.
"Forgive me." She put her hand on his, lightly, caressingly, her voice
gentle and tender.
"But you do know it, don't you?" He was very insistent.
("Does he think that I am blind and deaf and that no one has ever loved
me before?" she wondered irritably.)
"I think you think so," she prevaricated.
"I know," he was firm. "I shall love you always."
"Nonsense." She was tart with realism. "Why do you fly in the face of
all experience with meaningless generalisations?"
"I have never said it before."
"Then how can you know?"
He hated her barrister mood.
"Elaine, aren't you glad I love you?"
"Of course." She closed her eyes wearily. They talked of other things
and she remembered how intelligent he was. It had been--during these
last months--very easy to forget. But though her interest was
concentrated, his attention was on other things.
"Elaine," he blurted, "are you going to the country to-morrow?"
"I don't know."
"When will you know?"
"I have no idea!"
"But when shall I see you again?"
"I can't tell."
"Elaine, please do put me out of my misery."
"Very well then--I shan't see you again this week."
"Elaine!"
"Yes."
"Please."
"Please what?"
"I _am_ sorry I bothered you; don't punish me. I promise not to ask any
more questions, but please let me know when you come back. Even if you
only ring me up on the telephone I shall have heard your voice!"
"Very well."
"You're not angry with me, are you?"
"Why should I be?"
"I thought perhaps you were."
There was a pause. "Is there anything amusing about being loved?" she
thought; "what patient women the great coquettes of the world must have
been! How I wish I were a crisp intelligent old maid, with a talent
perhaps for gardening or books on the Renaissance!"
"How tired you look!" He had taken her hand and was pressing it with
funny little jerky grasps. "I wish you belonged to me; I wouldn't let
you spend yourself on every Tom, Dick and Harry."
"It is so difficult to know," she murmured, "who is Tom, who is Dick, or
who is Harry!"
"When I think of the way your divine sympathy is imposed upon--the way
your friends take advantage of you!"
"But I like being taken advantage of."
"People's selfishness makes me sick. Look at your white face and your
drooping eyelids, and your tired little smiles."
"I am sorry."
"Sorry! Good God! My beloved, do take care of yourself, please. Promise
me not to see any one after I leave; go to bed and pull the blinds."
"But I am expecting Bill."
"Bill will be all the better for not getting what he wants for once."
"But supposing he doesn't want it?"
"I don't understand."
The door opened.
"Bill!" She put out her left hand, all her features lit up with a quiet
luminous radiance. His eyes were smiling, but his mouth was grave.
"Elaine!" He said it as if it were a very significant remark, and,
though he hadn't meant to, he caressed her name with his voice.
"Mortimer thinks I ought to go to bed and send you away."
"But you won't?"
"Probably not." She was bubbling over with gaiety. "I am very
weak-minded."
The two men were not looking at one another, but currents of hostility
flowed between them. Bill had not fought for Elaine's love; it had come
to him with a strange inevitability. He had no fear of losing it and no
particular desire to keep it, but the thought that you possess something
that some one else passionately covets is always exhilarating. He would
never have admitted it--he could never have admitted it, but she was to
him like an object dangled on a watch chain--not obtrusively displayed
but a possession recognised by everybody and taken for granted by him.
Only he never seemed bored because he was never tired of mobilising his
own charms. And in herself, she delighted him--it was only in her
relations with him that she got on his nerves. He loved to see her with
other men exercising the divine arts of her irresistibility, her every
smile, her every gesture, the intonations of her voice, the turn of her
head, her bubbling brilliance, her cool indifference, the ice of her
intellect, the glow of her sympathy, each contributing to the
masterpiece of her coquetry. But with him she was not even a
coquette--jerky, passionate, nervous, humble, exacting, dull--she tired
him to death.
"Well, I must be going." Mortimer spoke doubtfully. There was a pause.
Then Elaine pulled herself together.
"Why?"
"I have so much to do."
"It was so nice of you to come and see me."
"It was so nice of you to let me come. Please remember your promise to
let me know when you come back."
"Of course." He was gone.
Wearily she shut her eyes. "Do you remember the time when Mortimer was
charming?"
"Indeed I do; he was quite delightful till he fell in love with you. He
is really a warning against loving."
"You hardly heed it, do you?" Her voice was very bitter. How he hated
the entry of the acidulated tragic into all their talks.
"Perhaps not." He felt guilty, knowing how much he was hurting her.
"After all you cannot ask me to model myself on the man who bores you
most in the world."