"I don't think I should have known you, Mary."
Maurice Jourdain had come. In the end Uncle Victor had let him. He was
sitting there, all by himself, on the sofa in the middle of the room.
It was his third evening. She had thought it was going to pass exactly
like the other two, and then her mother had got up, with an incredible
suddenness, and left them.
Through the open window you could hear the rain falling in the garden;
you could see the garden grey and wet with rain.
She sat on the edge of the fender, and without looking up she knew that
he was watching her from under half-shut eyelids.
His eyelids were so old, so tired, so very tired and old.
"What did you cut it all off for?"
"Oh, just for fun."
Without looking at him she knew that he had moved, that his chin had
dropped to his chest; there would be a sort of puffiness in his cheeks
and about his jaw under the black, close-clipped beard. When she saw it
she felt a little creeping chill at her heart.
But that was unfaithfulness, that was cruelty. If he knew it--poor
thing--how it would hurt him! But he never would know. She would behave
as though she hadn't seen any difference in him at all.
If only she could set his mind moving; turn the crystal about; make it
flash and shine.
"What have they been doing to you?" he said. "You used to be clever. I
wonder if you're clever still."
"I don't think I am, very."
She thought: "I'm stupid. I'm as stupid as an owl. I never felt so stupid
in all my life. If only I could _think_ of something to say to him."
"Did they tell you what I've come for?"
"Yes."
"Are you glad?"
"Very glad."
"Why do you sit on the fender?"
"I'm cold."
"Cold and glad."
A long pause.
"Do you know why your mother hates me, Mary?"
"She doesn't. She only thought you'd killed Papa."
"I didn't kill him. It wasn't my fault if he couldn't control his
temper.... That isn't what she hates me for.... Do you know why you were
sent to school--the school my aunt found for you?"
"Well--to keep me from seeing you."
"Yes. And because I asked your father to let me educate you, since he
wasn't doing it himself. I wanted to send you to a school in Paris for
two years."
"I didn't know. They never told me. What made you want to do all that for
me?"
"It wasn't for you. It was for the little girl who used to go for walks
with me.... She was the nicest little girl. She said the jolliest things
in the dearest little voice. 'How can a man like _you_ care to talk to a
child like _me_?'"
"Did I say that? I don't remember."
"_She_ said it."
"It sounds rather silly of her."
"She wasn't silly. She was clever as they make them. And she was pretty
too. She had lots of hair, hanging down her back. Curling.... And they
take her away from me and I wait three years for her. She knew I was
waiting. And when I come back to her she won't look at me. She sits on
the fender and stares at the fire. She wears horrible black clothes."
"Because Papa's dead."
"She goes and cuts her hair all off. That isn't because your father's
dead."
"It'll grow again."
"Not for another three years. And I believe I hear your mother coming
back."
His chin dropped to his chest again. He brooded morosely. Presently Catty
came in with the coffee.
The next day he was gone.