TWO--AND ONE OVER
Stuart’s departure meant for Peter and Merle a period of twoness
deliciously free from the tension of extreme demand which he made upon
their minds and bodies alike. Mentally and physically, they allowed
themselves now to flop; excluding long tramps and dangerous climbs;
mooching for the most part in and about the village, or among the
shallower rocks; hardly talking; secure in the friendship that took
much for granted.
The morning before Carn Trewoofa was to see the last of them, they
awoke to a drenching downpour, which beat sea and moor and sky to one
sodden colourless pulp. All day long the rain descended sullenly;
and towards evening Merle coaxed Mrs. Trenner to transfer live fire,
leaping and flaming on a shovel, from her kitchen to their sitting-room
grate. Then she and Peter drew up their arm-chairs, definitely
abandoned all idea of making an effort, and allowed themselves to be
lulled to that half-hypnotic state of coma produced by warmth within
and rain without; hush unbroken save by the muffled boom of unseen
breakers on the beach.
“Good thing he’s gone,” murmured Merle; “Stuart hasn’t got a fire-light
mood.”
“How d’you know?”
“Instinct.”
“I believe you’re right,” Peter conceded; “he can find pleasure in the
rest he earns by utter exhaustion; none in just volupping.”
“Good word.”
“Yes,” said Peter, and proceeded to volupp, eyes half-closed, arms
hanging over the side of the chair; too luxuriously lazy even to rise
for a cigarette.
Dusk and the rain joined hands beyond the streaming squares of window.
The moving world was very far away from Carn Trewoofa in its greyness.
From the kitchen, two voices rose and fell in sing-song fashion; not
seeming to belong to Mrs. Trenner or Bessy or any human shape; merely
voices, monotonous, ceaseless, chanting.
Merle had since several minutes been watching Peter intently. All of a
sudden she cried: “Don’t!”
The other girl roused herself from reverie: “Don’t what?”
“That sleepy-tiger look of yours. I hate it.”
“Why?”
“It’s so--replete.”
Peter laughed. “Perhaps it has been fed and wants exercise.”
“On a lead? Up and down the Park for twenty minutes every day? Oh,
Peter, why haven’t I too got a tiger to sit beside yours on the wall?”
“It doesn’t sit on a wall,” retorted Peter, who was inclined to take
her tiger seriously.
“Darling, you know it’s only a Nestlé’s-Milk Advertisement Cat. The fat
creamy one. We’ll call it a tiger, if you like. It’s a very fine cat.”
Peter picked up the pair of sand-shoes which Stuart had left a-sprawl
on the fender; and musingly fingered the torn soles: “Millionaire’s
footgear,” she murmured scornfully; certainly they were in a
disgracefully tattered condition. She pulled the two elephants from
the mantelpiece, and laid one at rest in either shoe.... “Elephant
cradles....”
“Are you talking in your sleep?” queried Merle.
“I was pondering the matter of Cheap Sentiment,” lied Peter. “I’ve got
whole Marshes of Cheap Sentiment in my being, which I dare not show,
nor even countenance, but which are unmistakably spreading.”
Merle snuggled deeper into her arm-chair, and cooed encouragement: “Go
on, Peter!”
“Just think,” gently rocking the elephant cradles, “if I admitted
Stuart to my passion for curly-haired small infants; told him that
carols sung on frosty nights bring a lump to my throat; or that organ
music makes me want to be good. Yes, it does, Merle--honest injun! And
I like stroking somebody’s hair in the firelight, and simply ache at
times for the strong shoulder to lean on----”
“Try Stuart’s,” suggested Merle unkindly. And Peter shuddered.
“Shoulders! he’s got ridges; they’d cut like a knife; and what isn’t
ridge is knobs. No, I meant the sort of shoulder, with that traditional
Harris-tweed scent ‘that ever afterwards brought his image with such
cruel distinctness before her mental vision.’ You understand, don’t
you?”
“Of course I do; _Pour qui prenez-vous moi?_ But your marshes are
specially bad. Tell me some more.”
“Call of Spring,” continued Peter, just letting the murmured words drop
from between her lips; “and the scent of jasmine on a hot night.”
“Tiger again?”
“Um.”
Merle had an inspiration: “What about letting that tiger graze on the
marshes?”
“Bad for it to graze anywhere,” said Peter grimly. “Then there’s the
Marsh of ‘do-you-remember’ and ‘this-time-a-year-ago,’ deep slushy
ones, both of them; particular favourites of mine. And the clash of
bells on New Year’s Eve awakens feelings unutterable within me. So do
soldiers marching past; and a cheering crowd. I’m attached to the house
in which I was born. I keep letters. I don’t mind Tennyson half as
much as I pretend. And when I read about lonely children, I cry. And
then I can cry at seeing myself cry--it’s a most pathetic sight!”
“Is all that genuine?” real concern now in her friend’s voice.
“Yes.... And sometimes, Merle, I just long to take the whole bag of
tricks and fling them at Stuart’s head; it would be so good for him!”
A half-smile tilted her lips, as she reflected how she had continually
burlesqued to Stuart these same sentimental weaknesses, without once
letting a hint escape that she shared in them.
The fire yawned audibly, and plopped a coal into the stillness. The
sense of isolation was thick as cotton-wool.
--Crunch of footsteps up the path and on the steps. Then a loud and
penetrating double knock. A dog leapt from the kitchen, barking
furiously. Mrs. Trenner was heard unbolting to the intruder. The door
flew open to great gusts of wind and rain. A gruff voice spoke for a
moment. Retreating steps, closed door, a subdued whine from the dog ...
and Mrs. Trenner brought in two sopping blurred letters that were the
cause of so much sudden tumult. Then returned again to the kitchen.
Silence swallowed the cottage with a gulp, and all was as before.
“Both from Stuart,” quoth Merle, handing one envelope to Peter; “how
typical of him to break in with all that clamour.”
Her communication was the longer of the two, and took her several
minutes to read; once or twice she laughed aloud at some brilliant
flight of nonsense. At last, according to invariable custom, she tossed
the scribbled-over sheets to Peter for inspection--“Here you are,” and
held out her hand for the exchange....
Peter did not stir; her fingers clenched a little tighter on the
letter which lay in her lap. Into her eyes had crept again that look,
brooding and replete, to which Merle had so objected.
... Merle withdrew her hand. Between the two girls lay the sensation of
a moment dead.
One letter which could be shown--and one which couldn’t ... Merle
understood now.
* * * * *
The journey up to London was an uncomfortable one. Peter and Merle
avoided each other as much as possible. Never before had they been
brought to a pass where open discussion was mutually barred. Once,
Peter mentioned very casually that Stuart in his letter ... had
summoned them on arrival to meet him straightway at the Billet-doux for
dinner. Merle courteously acknowledged the invitation. If matters had
been otherwise, she would have rejoiced exceedingly at the prospect
of being hurled direct from their primitive abode in Carn Trewoofa,
to the contrasting blaze and bustle of a London restaurant. But aware
that the stunt had been arranged for Peter, not for herself, she wished
fervently she could withdraw altogether, wondered how long she would
instinctively be forced to obey the call of trio, dance to its elusive
melody. How long?--Why, how long had she already been fooled to the
belief that she was necessary to complete the figure of three? How long
had this--thing--been growing?... The slow train drew up with a jerk at
Exeter, and refused for thirty-five minutes to stir from beside the wet
shining platform. Peter was restless; thudded with her foot against the
ground. And Merle, knowing now the cause, resented her restlessness:
“She can’t wait till she sees him again.”
After interminable jolts and stoppages, Paddington Station. Twenty to
seven,--seven o’clock they were due at the Billet-doux. “What shall
we do with our suit-cases?” “I’m taking mine to Euston waiting-room,
ready to be picked up on my way home.” “Then I’ll leave mine at a
convenient Tube station; Oxford Circus will do.”... They were both
thankful for the suit-cases.
A taxi hailed, and directions given. And whereas Merle, in the whirl
through the lit crowded streets, grieved for the laughter missed, Peter
was reproaching herself for an inexplicable wish to be doing all this
alone; alone to be meeting Stuart at seven o’clock. She had not seen
him since that night on the moors; he had slipped away the next morning
before his companions were out of bed.
Her excitement grew. Merle looked at her, once, by the flashing arc of
a street-lamp--then glanced quickly away again.
Outward circumstances were well in favour of a successful trio party.
Memory of dark green moor and sun-splashed waves and all the details
that went to make Carn Trewoofa,--and at the doors of the Billet-doux
behold now Stuart in evening-clothes and silk hat and a man-about-town
set to his eyeglass: “So glad you could come,” in the Oxford
voice,--had he ever _really_ shown them his bare grazed knees?
“We do look pirates,” exclaimed Peter, laughingly conscious of brown
throat, and hair tangled to a web by the salt winds. And indeed, many
heads were turned to gaze after the two girls in stained tweed skirts,
jerseys and caps, threading their defiant way between the tables, in
the wake of the exquisite dandy.
“The same places as at our first supper?” suggested Stuart.
They assented.
So the mirror reflected the three figures, as once before. And Merle
thought hard of Da Vinci’s masterpiece. She would have liked to ask if
Peter were visited by the same idea, but remembered in time that the
thread of intimacy had been snapped. Easy enough, now that her eyes
were opened, to see what had happened to the two grown-ups, for thus
she contemptuously classified her comrades; and she imagined their
secret evident in every look and word; their lightest remark tingling
with electricity.
... Just this once she would still be faithful to the spirit of trio.
But oh, how she longed to let them know that all this elaborate comedy
of maintaining for her benefit a volley of nonsense talk, was merely
insulting; her eyes were clear of dust.
* * * * *
“Do, for pity’s sake, tell me some tales of Orson Manor, for the
edification of grandmaman.”
“What’s the good?” from Peter; “you know that the very first time I
come to lunch, I shall put my hoof in it up to the hilt.”
Stuart repeated puzzled: “Do hoofs have hilts? do hilts have
hoofs--hooves--hilts--I say, that’s not a bad pub., the ‘Hoof and
Hilt.’ Shall we put it in the Room, Merle?”
“We have seven already,” she reminded him reproachfully.
* * * * *
... Grown-ups, grown-ups both of them! And what was the good of forcing
the play? To allow love to happen, just like other grown-ups--Merle’s
lip curled. Not a man or woman in the assembled crowd but had at some
time of their lives succumbed to this most ordinary passion. But the
trio had boasted of their difference!... Grown-ups.
* * * * *
Stuart began to spin a marvellous tissue of absurdities relative to
their supposed stay with his sister Dorothy in Devon. The Spanish
waiter came and went with dishes. In the gleaming mirror, three
marionettes talked and laughed and gesticulated, faithfully mimicking
the originals at their side. At the side of the gleaming mirror, three
pairs of eyes watched the marionettes, and marvelled at their likeness
to life. At the table and in the mirror, three ghosts were chanting a
dirge for the playtime that was over. But Merle alone heard them.
* * * * *
... “It was such a grotesque nightmare,” Peter was saying; “I was one
side of the moon, and a cow the other. And every time the cow jumped
over the moon, as cows will, I jumped as well, so as always to be on
the other side of the moon to the cow. I’m not partial to cows. But it
was a fearful strain, watching its face, and trying to guess from the
expression exactly when it intended to jump.”
“I should have thought the double motion would become mechanical at
last, like the Flip-Flap. Did you know that Mrs. Trenner asked for my
address before I left, that she might send me a lobster fresh from its
native soil? And can you imagine my mother when it turns up? and the
butler? I haven’t the remotest notion how to account for it; Orson
Manor is miles from the sea, and Dorothy _never_ sends us lobsters.”
* * * * *
Suddenly, from being especially flushed and talkative and brilliant,
Peter dropped to a queer moodiness; mouth sullen; feet swinging
rebelliously against the leg of the table. She wanted to be alone with
Stuart--wanted it--wanted it. Merle’s presence filled her with an
intense exasperation. She tried at first to control these sensations;
the knowledge that they were shared by Stuart would have gone far
towards soothing them. But Stuart betrayed nothing of his point of view
that night; from the mask of his features, he might have been totally
unaware of aught unusual in the atmosphere. His manner to both girls
was equally charming ... a skilled juggler, he tossed his ivory balls.
“I only succeeded once in drawing a salt into conversation,” said Merle
gravely; “I couldn’t understand a word of what he was talking about,
except that it related mainly to whales. So I prattled intelligently in
reply, of harpoons and blubber--oh, quite professional. Peter told me
afterwards that he was referring to his summer holiday at Llandudno.”
* * * * *
... “For God’s sake, be quiet!” prayed Peter inaudibly. All these
inanities--when she and Stuart might already be embarking on the
perilous seas of their double adventure. Would this ghastly meal never
be over? And then what lay in store? Would he contrive somehow to
snatch a moment alone with her? Surely ... somehow.
Merle was also curious to see how they would rid themselves of her
superfluous company. She was disliking Stuart just a little more than
Peter. Her anger against the latter was mixed with a curious sympathy;
if they ever came dispassionately to talk it over, she knew that each
would prove perfectly familiar with the other’s exact state of mind.
But Stuart’s acting, if it were indeed acting, was a shade more perfect
than either of theirs.
“Have you a train to catch, Peter?” he asked nonchalantly. Her heart
drummed thickly.
“Yes. The 9.40 from Euston.”
He drew out his watch: “9.10. We’ve just time for liqueurs.”
The girls drank their pale Chartreuse in silence, too tired, after the
long tense day in the train, to make any further effort. Peter felt
thankfully that the time of her deliverance was at hand.
“We’ll take Peter to Euston, and then I’ll see you home, Merle,” this
in the porch, while they waited for the page-boy to summon a taxi.
Sharply Peter drew in her breath. What game was he playing? Merle ...
fragile little fool! Surely for once she could be trusted to look after
herself.
“Do you think we can’t see through that?” shouted Merle’s pride to
Stuart’s courtesy. But she choked down the longing to make a scene;
her good breeding, put to the test, was proving itself no mere surface
quality.
At Euston, he dashed off into the labyrinth to reclaim the suit-case
and take Peter’s ticket. Nine-thirty-eight by the clock over the
portals.
And now all of Peter was concentrated in the one consuming longing
for a moment alone with him, before the nine-forty whirled her off to
Thatch Lane. She had forgotten even what she wanted from him, what she
expected the coveted moment to yield her. Only knew of a frantic desire
to be quit of the third voice, the third presence....
Trio?... Peter hated the Trio.
--“Come along, quick. You’ll miss your train.” He hurried them down the
stairs and through the gangway--then up again--past the barrier--on to
the platform--in time to see the nine-forty steam slowly away.
Peter let escape a long quivering sigh. Reprieved for a while. There
was still a chance.
“When’s the next to Thatch Lane?”
“Ten-thirteen, sir. Express. Number four platform.”
They crossed to number four. And if Peter dragged behind, Merle
likewise dragged. And if Peter swung ahead--there was Merle still
beside her. Or so it seemed to Peter’s overwrought fancy. And after
about five minutes’ aimless waiting, she could bear it no longer, but
strolled off by herself, down the dark lonely platform, till it sloped
away to meet a gleaming maze of rails.
Footsteps in her wake. She mastered herself sufficiently not to turn,
but triumph clamoured within her. He had understood, and followed, as
she intended he should. The footsteps drew level. It was Merle.
Merle had not noticed the direction Peter had taken; but discovering
the accidental proximity, she tried as naturally as possible to break
an awkward silence: “This was where we broke the egg, wasn’t it?”
For beyond anger and beyond pain, lurked within her an unspoken wish
that Peter would not so far give herself away; fastidious recoil of
girlhood from which the bloom had--not been brushed.
She received merely a look in response to her remark. Then, without
speaking, they turned and walked back to Stuart, who, absorbed in a
study of the ownerless motor-cars that eccentrically bestrew Euston,
had apparently not noticed their absence.
Peter said: “You and Merle had better not wait. My train won’t be in
for another twenty minutes.”
“Oh, very well. You’ll be all right, won’t you? I expect Merle is
fagged; she’s looking awfully white. Good night. It’s been rather a
successful evening, hasn’t it?”
The two girls allowed their eyes to meet in a brief flash of
understanding, sympathy even. Then Peter’s hardened again to antagonism.
“Good night, Stuart. Good night, Merle.”
“Good night.”
She was alone. And Euston was in a forbidding mood; one of those vast
black moods which tend to shrink the individual to the size of a
thimble.
Ten--fifteen minutes. The express thundered in. Peter stepped into a
vacant compartment and sat staring dully at the framed views on the
wall opposite.... So it had never really happened, their fight with the
wind, and the rain-blurred letter afterwards. Never really happened,
or he would have made one sign to show he remembered. She dreaded the
blank journey, and dreaded the blank night to follow, wondering for
what length of time her nerves would continue to throb, throb and pant
like the engine of the ten-thirteen. And now a shudder in the wheels
beneath her, and the train began to move ... faster and faster....
Someone ran alongside, leapt on to the footboard, tore at the handle of
the door. And:
“I told the man to drive like Hell!” said Stuart.
* * * * *
“Oh, Lord!” reflected Stuart the following morning; “I believe I was
dramatic.”
Not alone this, but having perpetrated the abominable crime of a
“dramatic moment,” he now planned no deliberate attempt to destroy it.
Which was significant.
* * * * *
“Oh Lord!” reflected Peter the following morning; “I believe I was
neurotic.”
She was now perfectly normal and serenely happy. The sky streamed
sunshine, and she wanted to pick daffodils. Also her recollections of
the evening before were extremely hazy, beyond a disgusted impression
that she had behaved rather badly.
“What on earth could have been the matter with me?” she splashed
herself with cold water, and put on her best shoes and stockings, by
way of signalling her change of mood. Then came to the comfortable
conclusion that perhaps Merle had noticed nothing. Why, it was the
child’s birthday to-day. They would have a celebration; perhaps
Stuart----
Mature consideration decided that, on the whole, trios had better be
suspended for a while, since their effect upon her temperament was so
demoralizing. No matter! she and Merle would foot it happily in their
two-world; that was still intact. She would not give up Merle, nor yet
Stuart, nor yet anybody. One-world, two-world, three-world; and the
Room and playtime and friendship and tigers and daffodils--she would
keep them all. Why not?
Thus Peter in the train which took her that afternoon to Euston, and on
the ’bus which bore her down Oxford Street.
... And she was very sorry she had been cross last night, and Merle
must forgive her, and be radiantly happy as well. Why not? Who could
fail to rejoice, when the earth was thrilling and teeming and bursting
with the knowledge that she and Stuart were going to be in love. And
they would go on going to be, till the fateful day of have-been. The
actual state of love Peter determined to skip; it was too smug and
settled; too lacking in divine discontent. Thus Peter on the doorstep
of the house in Lancaster Gate. And she startled Madame des Essarts by
singing the Pirate’s Chorus the whole way up the broad and decorous
staircase:
“Come, sail with me ercross ther sea,
Ercross ther dork Lergoon----”
She knocked at Merle’s door.
“Come in.”
“Hullo!” cried Peter in buoyant voice.
Merle, doing nothing in particular, was standing at the dressing-table,
heaped high with dainty expensive presents, and notes, and telegrams;
tokens whereby might be gathered that Mademoiselle des Essarts was
twenty-two.
Mademoiselle des Essarts did not return her friend’s greeting.
“Hullo!” The repetition in a somewhat more subdued tone.
“Did Stuart catch the train?”
“How did you know?” Peter queried, astonished.
“I heard him tell the driver to hurry, the instant he had deposited me
on my doorstep. ‘Drive like Hell!’ was his exact expression, I think.”
“Yes ... he just turned up in time;” a distinctly subdued voice now.
There was something ominous about Merle’s lovely little face; and Peter
was not quite so sure about keeping the two-world intact.
“I say--Merle--was I a beast yesterday?”
“Dear me, no; you were delightful.” It might have been the grandmother
speaking in those tones of frozen hauteur. Then suddenly: “You’re in
love with each other, aren’t you?”
Peter tossed off her hat and coat. “Don’t be--crude.”
“Crude!” the other blazed forth; “perhaps you think you weren’t
crude--last night.”
“Last night was a mood; and I apologize. I’m quite normal again.”
“Naturally. He caught the train.”
“Merle,” Peter’s eyes were deep and troubled; “you mustn’t say that
sort of thing. You. You said it as if you meant it; as if----”
“As if what?”
“As if you were jealous,” Peter blurted out.
“I am. Oh--not of Stuart; he doesn’t count in this, except that I
dislike him for daring to interfere, after all we’ve been to each
other.”
The speech seemed to awake an echo in the room. Peter was faintly
conscious of just such another scene as this, though when and where she
could not remember.
“Need he interfere?” she said at last, haltingly. Then: “I say, we’re
not quarrelling, are we?”
Merle smiled: “Yes, I believe we are.” Then her look shadowed once
more. “Do you think I’m going through again what I sat through at that
horrible supper? The knowledge of being in the way; unwanted; seeing
between you two that secret current of understanding, and all the while
having to pretend I was unaware of it. The trio is dead--dead--dead.
And it’s not I who have killed it. It’s you and Stuart. We found the
most wonderful playtime that ever was--but you had to drag in love,
like any other two people of opposite sex.”
Peter crossed to the window, her back to the room: “It might equally
well have been Stuart and you.”
“For me, the point lies in the fact that it wasn’t.”
“You’d have acted the same. A man and two girls--what else could we
expect, admitting him?”
In the dignified street below, a long line of lights sprang into a
sudden curve of brilliance athwart the dusk. With one hand, Peter held
aside the tapestried hangings ... and the touch brought with it great
floods of memory. Echoes?--she had traced back the echoes now. This
quarrel had been rehearsed. The Inevitable had recoiled with ironic
effect on those who had dared mock it with burlesque.
She wondered at what point Merle would remember the pretence drama they
had perpetrated of jealousy and farewell, when the question was first
raised of admitting a third to their union. But Merle was blinded by a
royal rage, would see nothing clearly till she had delivered herself of
the pent-up storm of emotion:
“We were to have been so different; we three. Oh, how could you spoil
it? I’ve seen thousands look at each other as you looked at one another
last night--but where am I to find the games and the nursery again?
Real children can’t play as we did ... and you and Stuart have fallen
in love!” Her delicate features quivered with scorn for the two who
could not keep it up; who had dropped from the kingdom of magic strange
and new, to an old, old kingdom of magic; old as the hills and the seas
and the oldest road.
Peter said never a word. She was afraid to speak, for fear of again
treading on the heels of that former occasion. It was too absurd that
they should thus be repeating themselves, in the very same setting,
and neither able to laugh at it.
“And we knew.” Merle went on, in performance of just that which Peter
dreaded; “if we hadn’t known beforehand--but we knew, and courted the
danger; we did it ourselves----”
“Don’t!” from Peter ... and she walked sharply away from that--that
damnable window.
Then it struck Merle. “Oh, I see. Yes, it is rather funny.” She laughed
drearily. “The scene ought to go well, considering we’ve played it
before. A pity the parts are reversed. You preferred the rôle of
Unwanted Woman, as giving more scope to your histrionic powers.”
“Look here,” pleaded Peter; and, hands outspread against the
toilet-table behind her, she faced Merle squarely; “this sort of
sparring isn’t worthy of us. For Heaven’s sake, let’s try and get a
sane grip of the business.”
“In exactly that position?” murmured Merle, who had not slept as well
as Peter, and was inclined to be relentless.
Desperately Peter dropped her hands; and wondered if there were one
place in the whole room that she had not by farce made untenable.
“Can’t we throw him out even now?” but while she spoke, she knew it
impossible.
“Pleasant companion you’d be under those circumstances,” remarked the
half-bitter, half-mocking accents that sounded so strange from Merle.
As if weary of conflict, she seated herself on the edge of the bed; the
tapestried canopy casting a deep shadow on the pale cameo of her face.
“All over, Peter.” She held out her hand, with a gesture almost
friendly. “You can’t keep the two of us, my dear, so stop thinking you
can. Stuart can give you all that I give you, and his manhood into the
bargain. So you’re all right. But if I did consent to stay in, I’d be
aware all the while of a great chunk in your life that you were keeping
hidden from me. And we’d be constantly hitting on allusions, and
backing away from them, and being tactful,--and it would all be very
feverish and very uncomfortable. What we’ve had has been too complete
to spoil by compromise. It’s over, Peter.”
“It isn’t over,” Peter retorted fiercely. “I won’t have it over!” And
she pushed hard at the Inevitable.
“Can you give up Stuart?”
“No,” softly.
“Peter, that wonderful type of friendship doesn’t exist, where the one
left out rejoices at the good fortune of the other. If _I_ had tumbled
into Paradise with some man, could you have listened to my exuberant
confidences, and been noble about them?”
And again Peter said softly, “No.”
Merle lay back among the pillows, hands clasped behind her head.... At
any moment she might cry: “_Pax_, Peter, _pax_!”...
“I can’t bear to be the one who lags, for whom allowances must be
made, passion suppressed. There’s nothing to be done, Peter; we’ve
quarrelled, and we’re going to part for ever. Humiliating, isn’t it? I
wonder just how we got here.”
“Playing at God,” muttered Peter savagely; and slung her cloak around
her shoulders, rammed her hat on to her head. She felt she could not
stand much more. Every bit of her was aching to throw strong arms
about the slight figure lying on the elaborate brocade bedspread;
hold her tight, in defiance of the ridiculous notion that anything
could possibly arise between them, with which their boyish brains and
sense of humour and glorious intimacy would be unable to cope.--And
then arose memories of last night ... one must pay for these little
primitive displays. With fatal clarity, she saw Merle’s point of view.
Not for the victor to insult by generosity, to dictate terms of peace;
according to their code, Peter, as top-dog, was powerless to make
overtures; she must simply acquiesce.
“If--when ... the other thing is done with----?” she began.
“Not even then. It would never look the same....”
(Peter bit her lip, anticipating with sickening exactitude the end of
the sentence.)
... “Even after mending,” finished Merle. And a spasm of anger shook
the other girl from head to foot: Merle must be selecting these
particular phrases on purpose!
But it was this same nightmare sense of stepping again in her own
footprints, that took Peter draggingly to the door. And: “I shall want
to come back and talk about it when I get to the foot of the stairs,”
she said, obedient to phantom promptings.
Merle made reply: “Of course. So will I.”
The ghost of a sham farewell had completed its subtle revenge. There
was no more to be said. So Peter went.
On the steps of the house at Lancaster Gate, the knowledge returned,
like the flutter of banners in the sunshine, that for her the world
still contained Stuart.
... Quite irrelevantly, it also struck her that she had omitted to wish
Merle many happy returns of the day.