"I suppose human beings aren't ever satisfied. At first, just being
free was enough. But after a while I began to get--well, lonely, I
suppose. I began to think about my baby that died. If only I had had
my baby! I wanted it as a baby, and also as a plaything. I wanted
dreadfully something or someone to play with. It sounds silly and
childish, but there it was."
"I understand," said Mr. Satterthwaite gravely.
"It's difficult to explain the next bit. It just--well, happened, you
see. There was a young Englishman staying at the hotel. He strayed into
the garden by mistake. I was wearing Spanish dress and he took me for
a Spanish girl. I thought it would be rather fun to pretend I was one,
so I played up. His Spanish was very bad but he could just manage a
little. I told him the villa belonged to an English lady who was away.
I said she had taught me a little English, and I pretended to speak
broken English. It was such fun--such fun--even now I can remember what
fun it was. He began to make love to me. We agreed to pretend that the
villa was our home, that we were just married and coming to live there.
I suggested that we should try one of the shutters--the one you tried
this evening. It was open and inside the room was dusty and uncared
for. We crept in. It was exciting and wonderful. We pretended it was
our own house."
She broke off suddenly, looked appealingly at Mr. Satterthwaite.
"It all seemed lovely--like a fairy tale. And the lovely thing about
it, to me, was that it wasn't true. It wasn't real."
Mr. Satterthwaite nodded. He saw her, perhaps, more clearly than
she saw herself--that frightened lonely child entranced with her
make-believe that was so safe because it wasn't real.
"He was, I suppose, a very ordinary young man. Out for adventure, but
quite sweet about it. We went on pretending."
She stopped, looked at Mr. Satterthwaite, and said again, "You
understand? We went on pretending--"
She went on again in a minute. "He came up again the next morning to
the villa. I saw him from my bedroom through the shutter. Of course
he didn't dream I was inside. He still thought I was a little Spanish
peasant girl. He stood there looking about him. He'd asked me to meet
him. I'd said I would but I never meant to.
"He just stood there looking worried. I think he was worried about me.
It was nice of him to be worried about me. He _was_ nice--"
She paused again.
"The next day he left. I've never seen him again.
"My baby was born nine months later. I was wonderfully happy all the
time. To be able to have a baby so peacefully with no one to hurt you
or make you miserable. I wished I'd remembered to ask my English boy
his Christian name. I would have called the baby after him. It seemed
unkind not to. It seemed rather unfair. He'd given me the thing I
wanted most in the world, and he would never even know about it! But
of course I told myself that he wouldn't look at it that way--that to
know would probably only worry and annoy him. I had been just a passing
amusement for him, that was all."
"And the baby?" asked Mr. Satterthwaite.
"He was splendid. I called him John. Splendid. I wish you could see him
now. He's twenty. He's going to be a mining engineer. He's been the
best and dearest son in the world to me. I told him his father had died
before he was born."
Mr. Satterthwaite stared at her. A curious story. And somehow, a story
that was not completely told. There was, he felt sure, something else.
"Twenty years is a long time," he said thoughtfully. "You've never
contemplated marrying again?"
She shook her head. A slow, burning blush spread over her tanned cheeks.
"The child was enough for you--always?"
She looked at him. Her eyes were softer than he had yet seen them.
"Such queer things happen!" she murmured. "Such queer, queer things.
You wouldn't believe them--No, I'm wrong, _you_ might, perhaps. I
didn't love John's father, not at the time. I don't think I even knew
what love was. I assumed, as a matter of course, that the child would
be like me. But he wasn't. He mightn't have been my child at all. He
was like his father--he was like no one but his father. I learned to
know that man--through his child. Through the child, I learned to love
him. I love him now. I always shall love him. You may say that it's
imagination, that I've built up an ideal, but it isn't so. I love the
man, the real human man. I'd know him if I saw him tomorrow--even
though it's over twenty years since we met. Loving him has made me into
a woman. I love him as a woman loves a man. For twenty years I've lived
loving him. I shall die loving him."
She stopped abruptly--then challenged her listener. "Do you think I'm
mad--to say these strange things?"
"Oh! my dear," said Mr. Satterthwaite. He took her hand again.
"You do understand?"
"I think I do. But there's something more, isn't there? Something that
you haven't yet told me?"
Her brow clouded over. "Yes, there's something. It was clever of you to
guess. I knew at once you weren't the sort one can hide things from.
But I don't want to tell you--and the reason I don't want to tell you
is because it's best for you not to know."
He looked at her. Her eyes met his bravely and defiantly.
He said to himself, _This is the test. All the clues are in my hand. I
ought to be able to know. If I reason rightly I shall know._