Anne made no more mistakes, but the irreparable had happened. She had
put Nina in the wrong. She was guilty of no such intention, but she had
turned upon Nina the devastating force of contrast. In the full torrent
of his honeymoon ardour, no other woman, no other standard had existed
for Norman. Nina overshadowed the world and blotted out her entire sex.
But from this universal flood Anne’s figure slowly emerged. There was
another standard after all, and by this other standard Norman began to
judge Nina. While Nina had been alone with Anne, she had seen for
herself points to remedy in her own immature code. She had readily
believed that Anne’s ways were better than hers and, with a humility
which did credit to them both, Nina had tried to behave more like Anne.
But after her marriage the need for care and effort abruptly faded.
Norman prized her most for her differences from Anne. He found her short
swift ways perfection. Little by little she slipped out of the small
considerations, the muffled approaches and evasions she had learned
instinctively from Anne. Small swear words once more decorated her
vocabulary, and audacity, innocent but a little roughshod, reassumed
command of her manners. King Cophetua may have made the same mistake
with his beggar maid, until he became aware of what the Court thought of
her. Norman had become aware. Sensitive men are apt to take small
breaches of conventionality with undue seriousness. Toby would have
laughed at some of the mistakes which tortured Norman; unfortunately,
Norman was not used to being tortured. What he could not take lightly he
took very hardly, and without patience.
From the moment he saw that a change in Nina was desirable, he set to
work to effect it without stopping to think of the painfulness of the
process involved. It seemed bad enough to Norman to have to find fault
with her, without having Nina make any objection to his faultfinding.
Nina could perhaps have changed herself to please Norman if she had been
given more time, and if she had not been obliged to see how much he
thought it was necessary. As it was she was cut to the heart by her fall
from perfection. If Norman had ceased to think her perfect, surely it
must be because he no longer loved her? This is the logic of love, and
all young lovers are at the mercy of their own logic.
When people are on the lookout to improve each other, opportunities
occur with fatal ease and frequency. The very day that Norman had
decided that Nina must speak in a lower voice, refrain from laughing out
loud in public places, and that she must make her requests to servants
with rather more politeness than to her equals, she did something so
flagrant that it caused a catastrophe.
Among the visitors in the hotel was a small party of Germans. They were
not aggressive Germans, and they were sensitive as to what the attitude
of the only English people in the hotel would be towards them. Nina
believed that Germans were gargoyles—monsters once dangerous and now
merely laughable. None of the people with whom she was accustomed to
associate had any other idea. She did not know that to her companions
Germans were human beings precisely like themselves, to whom English
people in particular owed all the more courtesy because they had been
obliged to put them (after a struggle so terrible as to have nearly worn
out antagonism) at a disadvantage. Nina thought there was something
smart in being rude to what you disliked, and something vaguely
meritorious in disliking Germans. It was some time before she took in
that the party at the table next to them suffered from this defect.
Austrians, she knew, were different. No English people needed to dislike
Austrians, though unfortunately they spoke the same language, so that
one might by mistake have been polite to a German without knowing it. A
chance word undeceived Nina and showed her plainly where her duty lay.
Encouraged by the friendly curiosity to which the English party had
accustomed them, Herr Schmidt presented to the younger of the two
English ladies, whose complexion was an international asset, a basket of
wild strawberries. Nina gave him a long and hostile stare, and then said
slowly in a language which she had taken the trouble to acquire, “I
don’t take presents from Germans.” She glanced at her three stunned
companions for applause, tossed her flaming head and marched out of the
room. Anne instantly begged that she might be allowed to accept the
strawberries, thanked Herr Schmidt with effusion, and apologising with
“Our friend is so young she does not know the war is over,” helped to
muffle the sharpness of the encounter. Norman, crimson to the roots of
his hair, made a formal apology for his wife and hurried after Nina. He
found her on their balcony smoking a cigarette and triumphantly awaiting
his approval. “I turned them down that time all right, didn’t I?” she
said as he approached. “Damn cheek of theirs to speak to us at all,
isn’t it?”
“Nina,” said Norman in a low tense voice, “you have done a dreadful
thing, and I doubt if we can stay in this hotel after it. How could you
insult that perfectly harmless family anxious to do you a little
kindness? I have never in my life been so ashamed.”
“Ashamed? Ashamed of me?” gasped Nina. For a moment her consternation
checked her anger. It is confusing to an idol to be accused of a
peccadillo by a worshipper. The laws of the universe appear to have
slipped out of place. “Why on earth—” Her cigarette dropped from her
nervous fingers. “Why on earth should you be ashamed?”
“Surely you must see for yourself,” said Norman with that controlled
exasperation which is so much harder to bear than an outbreak of temper,
“how appallingly vulgar such behaviour is? People are not to blame for
their nationality. If you expose Germans to insult, why should you be
surprised if in return they insult you? These people did the exact
opposite; they offered you a courtesy and you not only reject it, but
you make it quite plain that you reject it in order to insult them. Of
course the result of your behaviour is that Anne and Toby will probably
have to spend the rest of the evening with them to try to make up for
your conduct. I couldn’t face that. I simply apologised for you and came
away.”
“Apologised? Apologised for me?” cried Nina, “to a German?”
“My dear, don’t be ridiculous,” said Norman. “To a gentleman, because I
was responsible for my wife’s having behaved not at all like a lady.”
Nina leaned forward and struck him in the face.
Never in her life had she felt such a horrible sensation. It was like a
rebellion of her own flesh and blood. For Norman to think her in the
wrong was bad enough but that he should actually admit it to a fallen
enemy, and on such a plea—that she hadn’t behaved like a lady—was
beyond the limits of self-control. Norman had used an irreparable
phrase. He could have used it to Anne, and beyond the pain of its being
the mark of his displeasure, he would have roused no overwhelming
sensation in Anne’s heart. But the point had escaped his imagination.
Anne knew that she was a lady, and Nina was not always sure.
Norman drew back after her blow in utter silence. It was far worse for
Nina than if he had struck her in return. His silence and his withdrawal
brought home to her the torment of their difference. She gave a cry like
a wounded animal and dashed past him into her room. Norman ought to have
followed her but he was too angry with her to understand, and far too
hurt himself to have any pity for the greater hurt he had inflicted upon
Nina. He walked out into the pine woods and wondered what he was going
to do with the rest of his life. He bitterly regretted that he had left
Anne but not for a moment did it occur to him to return to her.
Toby and Anne disposed at length of the appeased Germans and looked for
the others on the terrace. They found no trace of them. “They’re
together then,” said Anne with a little sigh of relief. “That’s
something.”
“One can’t tell whether they’re together or not,” objected Toby; “I’m
afraid that was a serious business.”
“It’s all my fault,” said Anne miserably. “I ought of course to have
told her about the Germans before. You see she hasn’t been brought up to
understand——”
“Telling doesn’t do any good,” interrupted Toby gloomily. “You oughtn’t
to have been here, so that Norman could see the difference between
you—that’s where you’ve made your mistake.”
“But surely, Toby, it would have happened whether I was here or not?”
Anne pleaded.
“Possibly,” said Toby, “but we shouldn’t have been here to see it
happen. Half of the tragedies of life are made by onlookers. Norman
wouldn’t have been so angry with her, and she wouldn’t be so sick at his
being angry with her—if we hadn’t had to see it happen.”
“If I thought she was alone, I’d go to her,” said Anne after a pause.
“What good would that do?” asked Toby. “If you take her part it would be
silly; if you take Norman’s it will be worse.”
“Couldn’t I just be nice to her?” Anne pleaded. “You know she does love
me, Toby?”
“She did, before Norman took to telling her to behave like you,” said
Toby drily.
“Oh I know! I know!” moaned Anne. “He’s so stupid! so very stupid.
Couldn’t you _tell_ him, Toby? I can’t—but surely you could explain, he
_mustn’t_ treat her like that! It’s so foolish, because she’s so ready
to learn if only he’ll admire her enough!”
“I don’t know that a man can admire a woman and teach her how to behave
at the same time,” objected Toby. “He can adore her, of course, and
teach her, but that isn’t quite the same thing. It doesn’t seem to
answer as well.”
“It doesn’t answer at all,” said Anne with conviction. “Nobody likes
being adored and not admired. It’s almost as bad as being venerated
instead of loved—but perhaps not quite.”
“There’s something worse than either of those,” said Toby in a low
voice, “being treated like a placid friend when you want to be an ardent
lover.”
“But there isn’t any question of that,” said Anne. “Fortunately we
haven’t got that contingency to bother about.”
“No,” agreed Toby, slowly puffing at his cigar in the friendly darkness,
“I don’t suppose we need bother about it. What is it you suggest I
should say to Norman, Anne? Personally I’m all against giving advice to
lovers. The only advice I believe in is that of passive resistance. I
should leave them entirely alone if I were you. No doubt they’ll scratch
each other’s eyes out, but they’ll probably scratch them in again
afterwards.”
Anne thought that Toby’s theories of love were a little coarse, but she
respected his judgment. He mightn’t see the necessity of doing what she
wanted, but he would do it quite well, when he had made up his mind to
it. “If you would take Norman for a walk to-morrow, Toby,” she
explained, “and just point out that Nina must be much more considered in
her feelings than anyone else, because if it’s hard for him to have to
correct her—and Norman will find it very hard—it is even worse for her
to have to be corrected. And whatever happens, he’s not to drag in my
name. It would be cruel to her and to me. He’s so naturally kind that if
he’d any idea of the pain it must be to her, he’d not mind being hurt
himself to save her.”
“I’m to tell Norman that—from you?” asked Toby.
“Not particularly from me—from both of us,” said Anne, “it’s the same
thing.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” said Toby, “but please
don’t stop to think what it means, for fear you should take it back.”
Anne looked startled for a moment; there was a dangerous gentleness in
Toby’s voice, mixed with a hint of laughter. She wasn’t quite sure what
he meant, and it occurred to her for the first time that perhaps she
ought to find out. Then the seriousness of Norman’s problem submerged
her. “I do hope they _are_ together!” she murmured, turning towards the
house.