In the winter twilight Elaine and Wilfred were sunk in easy chairs side
by side before the fire in the Sturges sitting-room, the smoke of their
cigarettes mounting lazily. In that serene atmosphere Wilfred was least
serene. Whenever he sat there his heart beat too fast; and the clamorous
thoughts jostled confusedly in his brain. The smiling servants had
softly brought the tea things, and later, had carried them away. A
lovely, gracious life! Should he ever be able to take it as if it were
his by right? The Sturges house was almost exactly opposite Bella
Billings; distant about three hundred yards; but social deeps rolled
between.
Elaine was sliding down in the deep chair on the small of her back, her
long legs inelegantly thrust out, her feet crossed. Elaine could yield
to any common impulse without losing the quality of distinction, he
thought. The firelight was strong in her resolute face. It was not
beautiful in the ordinary sense. He despised the insipidity of pretty
women. There was something much greater here; character; passion; and
that divine assurance of herself. Whence arose Elaine’s magnificent air?
It was because she held herself one of the elect of earth. Ordinary
people were so far beneath her, she could afford to exhibit them every
kindness. All wrong! thought Wilfred. A preposterous assumption! Yet
there it was! And it beat him down!
They were good enough friends to be silent together when they felt like
silence. But those silences! At a certain point Wilfred’s heart would
begin to rise slowly into his throat. There she sat a yard away, and so
remote! He ached for her intolerably. Was this love? More like an
insanity. Suppose she were to cast herself suddenly into his arms, would
he know what to do with her? Would he not turn clammy? Did he ever know
what he wanted? An insanity! Being denied her, he ached and burned.
Burned, while he sat still and answered her cool remarks, coolly. Why
was he forced to go on thinking and thinking about her in her presence?
Making figments of her while the reality was at his side!
Elaine herself never thought, though she liked to suppose that she did:
all her acts, words were struck out of her, instant and bright as fire.
How natural for her to despise one like him! She _did_ despise him
sub-consciously, though they were good friends; her speculative glance
often confessed it. That high air of hers was a continual challenge to
his masculinity, and he dared not take it up. Wilfred believed that she
was just a little higher with him than with others. It suggested that
she believed he was a coward in the presence of women. In other quarters
he had not been considered so. What good was that to him here? By
thinking him a coward she made him a coward in _her_ presence.
Yet she had singled him out, him, the insignificant scribbler, amongst a
crowd of glittering young men who dangled after her. These hours that
Wilfred spent alone with her had been specially contrived by her.
Nothing happened by accident in Elaine’s busy life. In dealing with men,
she enveloped herself in an atmosphere of high mystery. During Wilfred’s
hour she never volunteered the least information as to how she had spent
the other twenty-three. It tormented him unbearably. He knew that other
men came to the house on other days. He had seen some of them springing
eagerly up the steps. Well, and why not? He had nothing to reproach her
with. She was always clear-eyed and candid. But she ordained how much of
herself each was to have. An hour to Wilfred twice a week perhaps,
leaving him to spend the others in torment. He suffered when he was with
her; he suffered when he was away. His only moment of happiness came
when _he_ went springing up the steps. Things had come to such a pass
with him, he could no longer do his work.
Why had she singled him out for even these infrequent hours? That he
might talk to her. There was no secret about it. “Nobody talks to me
like you,” she had said once, while her eyes flickered with unconscious
contempt for the young man who was a talker. And Wilfred accepted it,
hating himself. They sat in front of the fire talking like disembodied
intelligences while Wilfred eyed her.
After such a silence, Elaine said: “The trouble with me is, I don’t know
anything.”
“Hear! Hear!” said Wilfred.
“Oh, you needn’t get funny,” she retorted. “It’s something to know that
you don’t know anything. . . . I mean. . . . What do I mean? I mean I
don’t know anything in my head. I know lots of things by intuition. I
think I know more than you do, that way. . . .”
“Not a doubt of it,” said Wilfred.
“But the voice of intuition is dumb,” Elaine went on. “I act as I act
without knowing why. There is no residue. Intuition prompts you how to
act at the moment; but it doesn’t help you to lay out a course.”
How exactly, sometimes, unconscious people can convey what is in their
minds! thought Wilfred enviously. “What about books?” he suggested.
“Books! Pshaw! Books are a kind of dope!” said Elaine.
“You read only novels—and those, not the best.”
“I _do_ read the best!” she said indignantly.
“I don’t mean the latest best,” said Wilfred.
“I read poetry, too. . . . But poetry just lifts you up—and lets you
drop again. Oh, I suppose it’s my fault. Really serious books bore me.”
“There are good novels,” said Wilfred.
“They get on so slowly!” said Elaine with a sigh. “And when you do
disentangle the meaning, it’s only what you know already.”
“What is it, exactly, that you are after?” asked Wilfred.
“Knowledge of life,” she said promptly. “Old people pretend that they
have all the knowledge. I _feel_ that they are wrong.”
“In what, for instance?”
“Well, it’s a platitude amongst old people that love always dies.”
“I don’t know of any book that would assure you that it doesn’t,” said
Wilfred, lowering his eyes.
“Never mind books. What do you think? Does love die?”
“What kind of love?” he asked with a sinking heart.
“What kind?” she repeated staring. “I mean love between a man and a
woman, of course.”
“Passion burns itself out,” said Wilfred, “but I suppose something fine
may come of it.”
“Oh, that’s just like an old person,” said Elaine. “The cooling-off
process is hideous to me! I don’t want any left-overs!”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?” he asked.
“It doesn’t help to be cynical!”
“What does your own heart tell you?”
“My heart tells me that love dies,” murmured Elaine unexpectedly. She
was staring into the fire. “I was hoping for some reassurance.”
“I hope it does,” said Wilfred flippantly. He observed that his teeth
were clenched together.
She ignored this. “Even though love is transitory, should we not stake
everything on it, anyway?” she murmured.
“Everybody must decide that for themselves,” he said composedly, feeling
like a little waxy-faced oracle.
“But what do _you_ think?” she insisted.
“It’s too complicated!” he said with a burst of irritation. “I could not
possibly give an answer to cover the whole question.”
Another silence.
“Do you believe in the devil?” asked Elaine.
“In my own individual devil, yes.”
“What’s he like?”
“He’s a wet blanket!”
Elaine laughed. “How original! Mine is a more conventional sort of
devil.”
“Yes, I know.”
“How do you know?” she asked quickly.
“Can’t I have intuitions too?”
“Well, you’re entirely wrong about _me_,” she said vivaciously. “You
have been from the first. You have a ridiculous notion that I am a sort
of cavewoman. Why, if I were, would I be talking to you like this now?”
Wilfred smiled into the fire.
“Oh well, if it amuses you . . . !” said Elaine, shrugging.
“You know that big statue of Barnard’s,” she presently went on; “I Feel
Two Natures Struggling Within Me”?
“All rot!” he said rousing himself. “I imagine that is just a little
joke of Barnard’s on the dear public. What he is really portraying is
the Triumph of Youth Over Age! It was a favorite subject during the
renaissance. . . . Two natures! Life is not so simple! That is merely a
theological distinction. Body and soul are _not_ at war with each other.
We can’t get anywhere without Body. In the complete life you would find
Body and Soul pulling in double harness.”
“But is there ever a complete life?” asked Elaine.
“Well . . . no! I suppose not!” murmured Wilfred, falling through space.
“It is only an ideal. . . .”
Their eyes were suddenly drawn together. They exchanged a startled,
questioning glance like prisoners beholding each other from separate
towers. Forever solitary and wistful. They knew each other then. They
hastily looked away, laughing in an embarrassed way; each terrified lest
the other might speak of what he had surprised. But neither spoke, and
they secretly softened towards each other.
After awhile Elaine got up, and switched on the lamps. She glanced at
the clock. “There’s a man coming directly,” she said.
Wilfred stood up.
“Don’t be silly!” said Elaine. “Suppose I _was_ giving you a hint to go,
why be in such haste to take it? It’s not very flattering.”
“I’ve had my hour,” he said, trying to speak lightly.
“You said that just like an actor! Oh, I wish I could teach you how to
deal with women!”
“Well, if it comes to that, why is it always up to the man?” demanded
Wilfred.
Elaine opened her eyes. “Well, women have to be won, don’t they?”
He spread out his hands. All wrong! All wrong! But he could not dispute
her. She had stolen his strength.
“Sit down again,” she said. “You ought to know by this time that I never
deal in hints. What I have not yet had a chance to say is, I want you to
meet this man. An unusual specimen!”
Wilfred discovered that he still had reserves of pain. Was _that_ the
rôle he was to be called upon to play?
Far-off in the great house Wilfred heard the buzz of the door-bell.
After an interval the front door opened and closed again with its
opulent thud. He entered quickly, thought Wilfred. There were rapid
footsteps on the stairs. Coming up two steps at a time. Wilfred’s heart
beat suffocatingly. That treacherous heart of his!
“It’s Joe Kaplan,” said Elaine, shielding her face from the fire.
“Oh, Joe Kaplan,” said Wilfred with an air of interest. His belly
suddenly failed him. Rising, he caught sight of the grinning,
white-faced manikin in the mirror over the fireplace, and quickly
lowered his eyes in disgust.
“You have heard of him?” asked Elaine.
“Who hasn’t?” said Wilfred.
Joe swept in. “Hello, Elaine!”
She had risen, and was helping herself to a fresh cigarette from the
mantelpiece. “Hello, Joe,” she said, without looking around.
Having caught sight of Wilfred, Joe stopped short in his eager progress.
“This is Mr. Pell,” drawled Elaine. “. . . Mr. Kaplan.”
Joe jerked into motion again. “I know him,” he said. “Hello, Pell! What
the devil are you doing here?”
It was said with a good-humored grin, though Joe’s eyes were snapping.
To Wilfred’s relief, he did not put out his hand. Perceiving enmity,
Wilfred had not sufficient self-command to match the feigned good humor.
Inside him there was howling, black confusion. Yet the necessity of good
form was strong upon him, too. All he could do was to stand grinning in
a sickly way. How craven he must appear, knuckling under to Joe at the
first word!
Joe wasted no time on him. Elaine had reseated herself, and he plumped
into the chair that Wilfred had lately occupied. “I say, Elaine,” he
said; “I saw that blue chow to-day. He’s a sweet-tempered little beast;
but my man says if you want to show him, he’s not good enough. So I
thought we had better wait until something first-class turned up.”
“But I liked him,” said Elaine. “And he liked me!”
“Oh, in that case, Princess, he shall be here to-morrow!”
So Joe has become a sporting gentleman, thought Wilfred with curling
lip. Wilfred was left standing like a clown with a witless grin daubed
on his face. What he ought to have done was to leave, he knew; but he
was incapable of making a good exit; and he would not slink out like a
whipped dog. So he stayed. He sat down on a straight-backed chair a
little to one side of the fireplace, facing the other two. The faces of
Elaine and Joe were strongly revealed in the firelight. It was nothing
to them if Wilfred watched them.
They rattled on. It appeared that they shared a hundred small interests.
Joe had achieved the precise tone of Elaine’s world. The rattle was all
a blind, Wilfred suspected. The fact that they never looked at each
other, gave the game away. He imagined that he heard a rich quality in
their laughter, having nothing to do with the trifles they discussed.
Hidden things escaped in their laughter. Elaine’s superb nonchalance
might very well be a sham. She could get away with anything. Such a
woman recognized only one truth; the truth of her emotions. Color had
stolen into her cheeks; it was an effort to keep her lips decorous.
Secrets! secrets! between these two! Diana was only a woman of the
flesh! What a handsome male Joe was, damn him! Wilfred felt as if he
would die with the beating of his heart, and the pressure of blood
against his temples.
Knowing himself, he strove desperately to make a stand against this
madness. You are imagining it all! You cannot honestly say that Elaine
has changed in the slightest degree. She treats Joe precisely the same
as she treated you. . . .
Elaine sought to draw Wilfred into the talk. “Funny you two should be
acquainted,” she said.
“Oh yes,” said Joe with a mocking laugh in Wilfred’s direction. “It’s
ten years since we first laid eyes on each other. Remember that night,
Pell?”
“I remember,” said Wilfred, seeking Joe’s eyes in wonder. Joe’s eyes
skated laughingly away. Clever and daring as Satan! thought Wilfred.
Joe went on to give a humorous account of the psychical evening at the
house of Wilfred’s Aunts long ago. Elaine was to infer that this was the
occasion of their first meeting. In telling the story, Joe allowed his
own soullessness to appear quite nakedly. He didn’t care; nor,
apparently, did Elaine. It was a good joke.
Meanwhile Wilfred was working himself up to the point of going. He
finally stood up with a jerk. “Well, I must trot along,” he said in a
thin voice.
“So long, Wilfred,” said Elaine in her boyish way.
“Ta-ta, old man,” said Joe ironically.
You be damned! thought Wilfred, looking straight ahead of him.
He went out stiffly. Silence in the room behind him. Already! Already!
What if he should go back? . . . Why go back? He knew without going
back. And it wouldn’t shame _them_! . . . Elaine . . . and that soulless
blackguard! All her brave colors hauled down! Abandoning herself . . .
his practised embraces! Oh, Christ! . . .
He hurried out of the house with a shrieking in his ears.
V
After having resisted the temptation for many days, Wilfred pushed a
button at the door of one of the little flats in the Manhanset Building
on Fifty-Ninth street. He was ashamed to drag his dead and alive self
there for succor; nevertheless a feeling of thankfulness sprang up in
his breast like water in dusty earth. What a blessing it was to have a
place where you could drop in without an appointment, and be sure of
your welcome. Perhaps he could conceal from Frances Mary how far gone he
was.
She opened the door. His eyes were gratified by the sight of her bland
and dusky fairness; her calm. Frances Mary was always the same. “Hello!”
she said with her ironical smile, while her eyes beamed with
friendliness. She had a quality of voice that worked magic with
refractory nerves. “Come in!”
She walked away from the door, leaving Wilfred to close it and follow.
If she had read anything in his face she gave no sign of it.
“Hope I’m not interrupting your work,” he said, trying not to sound
perfunctory. He knew he was interrupting.
“I was ripe for an interruption.”
At the end of a tiny hall was her general room, a mellow retreat highly
characteristic of its owner. It had two windows looking northward over
the flat roofs of dwellings below. The effect was of green and brown and
gold. Wilfred looked around him thirstily; it provided just what he
needed then.
“This room is as right as a natural thing,” he said grinning. “Nothing
sticks out. It doesn’t ask to be admired, but to be flopped in.
Demoralizing I call it. Makes me feel tearful.”
Frances Mary looked most ironical when she was flattered. “Want a
hanky?” she asked.
There was a hard coal fire burning in the grate. She put a plump brass
kettle on the trivet and swung it in.
“Don’t bother about tea,” said Wilfred; “at least not for me.”
“I want it,” she said. They always carried through this little fiction.
She moved about the room, bringing out the tea things. She had the gift
of getting things done without any fuss. A tall woman, of an essentially
feminine tenderness of flesh, her glance was not tender but level. The
leaf-colored room was a fit setting for her. Wilfred’s frantic feeling
passed away. How restful! How blessedly restful! Her unexpressed
sympathy was like sleep stealing on.
He could always count on her sympathy, he reflected, though she rarely
agreed with him. There was a wholesome astringent quality in her nature.
She was not generally popular he had observed with surprise. People
complained that she seemed to mock at everything. They would not see
that her mockery was only a thin shield for her heavenly kindness of
heart. He felt that he alone understood Frances Mary. She had a slightly
invidious smile; and her gentle glance was generally veiled. In
particular, stupid women hated her for her smile. Yet she was what is
known as a woman’s woman; she had devoted friends amongst the best sort
of women. On the other hand she seemed to know but few men, and they not
the best sort of men; women’s men.
Frances Mary was predestined to die single, Wilfred supposed, watching
her. And she so splendidly made; what a pity! Loved babies, too. But she
lacked any disturbing quality for men. Well, she was one of the rare
women who could do without a man. There would be no souring here. Not
with that serene mind. The happiest person he knew. Noble. If one had
only had the luck to fall in love with a woman like that instead of
. . . well, it would be just the difference between life and death! But
you couldn’t fall in love with Frances Mary. She was too intelligent. A
hollow laugh sounded inside Wilfred. What would be said of a man who
uttered such a sentiment in a story?—But it was true just the same.
Nature disregarded intelligence in the business of mating. Perhaps
intelligence was too modern for Nature. It was a truism that a man’s man
and a woman’s woman were the best types of each sex. What a ghastly joke
anyhow, the whole damned business of sex! The peach-like Frances Mary
doomed to shrivel, ungathered; and he to his Hell of base jealousy!
She did not look at him while she moved about, nevertheless Wilfred felt
that he was being explored with a faculty other than sight—that
withdrawn glance of hers; that hint of a smile. In haste he said, still
in the tone of one determined not to be perfunctory—he could hear it!
“How is your work going?”
At the tone, her smile deepened; but she answered simply: “I’ve been
working at the ‘Æolian Harp.’ I’d like you to read part of it later.”
“I expect I shan’t like it,” he said. “A little bird tells me you have
been niggling at it. I warned you to leave it alone. It was all right as
it was.”
An adorable look of anxiety came into Frances Mary’s face. It gave
Wilfred a pleasant sense of power. She came to a stop; looking at him;
biting her lip. “I . . . I thought I had improved it,” she faltered.
“Your vice is, never knowing when to leave a thing alone,” he said
severely. “You lose sight of the whole in the parts.”
“I expect I do,” she said with a disarming humility. “Your criticism is
awfully good for me. . . . What are you doing?”
Wilfred relapsed into the depths. “Nothing,” he said. The blackness was
real enough; but he equivocated respecting its cause. For days past he
had not even tried to write. “I’m still stuck in the middle of my
restaurant story.”
“What’s the matter with it?”
“Too damn sentimental!”
Frances Mary was silent.
Wilfred found he was not so deadened, but that he could still feel the
pin-pricks of wounded self-love. “You don’t say anything,” he said
bitterly. “You think it’s tripe, too.”
“Oh, not as bad as that!” she said. “The sentimentality was implicit in
the original design. . . .”
“Why didn’t you tell me so then?”
“I tried to, but you wouldn’t have it so. . . . Why not finish it now,
frankly in a sentimental vein; and go on to something else.”
“Why not advise me to tear it up?”
“But it has charm. It will sell readily.”
“You think that’s all I’m good for!”
She shook her head. “You can be as brutal as you like, next time. Your
Rivington street story wasn’t sentimental.”
“Ah! don’t throw that up to me! I’ve never been able to equal it!”
“Every artist knows that feeling!”
“You manage to maintain the level of your stuff. It makes me sore, you
write so much better than I do!”
Frances Mary smiled somewhat dryly. “I’ve been at it longer than you.”
“That hasn’t got anything to do with it. You have an instinct for
perfection, while I’m all over the place!”
“Perfect stories of perfect ladies to adorn the chaste pages of our
leading family magazine!” she said, smiling still.
“It doesn’t matter what they’re about, they’re well done!” said Wilfred.
“I suppose I do write better than you do now,” she said, ceasing to
smile. “But my work is much the same as it was ten years ago when I
began. There is more hope in your unevenness than in my dead level.”
“I truckle to the editors,” said Wilfred glooming.
“So you do,” admitted Frances Mary—and laughed when he looked up
resentfully. “But as long as you know it, the case is not hopeless.”
“I’m no good!” said Wilfred, touching bottom.
“Have it your own way,” she said. “You are in one of your
self-accusatory moods to-day, and to argue with you only strengthens
your obstinacy. I’ll wait until you come out of it.”
“It’s not only to-day!” Wilfred burst out. “I shall never write again!
I’ve utterly lost the knack. I can’t put together an intelligible
sentence! I have gone dead inside!”
Frances Mary looked at him levelly before answering. Wilfred knew that
look. It was to enable her to decide if this was the mere froth that he
sometimes gave off, or if there was really something in it. He couldn’t
tell which she decided. She said:
“Why not drop work for a while? Take a day or two off to walk in the
country. There is snow on the Connecticut roads.”
He shook his head. “Can’t leave town just now,” he said, looking down.
She made no comment. The tea was made. Extending a cup she said: “Try
hot tea.”
Wilfred forgot his guard for a moment. Raising his eyes to hers, he
broke out laughing. “What a fool you must think me!” he said.
For an instant, the veil was lifted from her glance too. By his laughter
she knew that he was in real pain. She laughed too. “Perfect!” she said.
Her laughter; her warm glance made Wilfred feel that existence was a
little less like a vacuum.
* * * * *
He allowed himself to be persuaded to stay for dinner. Dinner in Frances
Mary’s flat had the effect of a miracle. Without any heat or fuss or
noise, a little table appeared in the center of the room, and was
dressed in snow and silver. She wafted in and out of the room, keeping
up the conversation from the kitchenette. An enticing odor gradually got
itself recognized, and in a surprisingly short space of time, behold!
there was the dinner on the table, an exactly right meal, never quite
the same as anybody else’s dinner. Like her room, and like her stories,
it revealed the Frances Mary touch. There was even a little bottle of
wine to grace the board. At the last moment she had made an opportunity
to go change her dress. Wilfred, who knew something about housekeeping,
always marvelled how it was done.
He suddenly discovered a renewed zest for food. “Oh, this is good!” he
said continually; and Frances Mary trying in vain to look ironical,
smiled all over like a little girl. A tinge of color had come into her
magnolia-petal cheeks and her eyes were bright. Feeding herself
abstractedly, she eagerly watched every mouthful he took, and filled his
glass before it was half emptied. They talked shop, and Wilfred
experienced a precarious happiness. Outside of that enchanted haven the
beast might be waiting to rend him—let it wait!
When the table was cleared they gave themselves up to talk. Frances Mary
had an insatiable curiosity concerning Wilfred’s friends, whom she had
never seen, and his daily doings. He enjoyed feeding it of course; but
was sometimes troubled by the feeling that he was inflicting himself
unduly on his friend. When he remembered to try to draw her out, she was
generally too many for him.
“What have you been doing lately, Frances Mary?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me about your friends.”
“I can’t make them sound as interesting as you do yours.”
“What do you do with yourself? You can’t write all the time.”
“I ruminate,” said Frances Mary flippantly.
Wilfred laughed. “I can see you!” he said unguardedly. “I know you so
well!”
She looked at him quickly, started to speak, and thinking better of it,
pulled down the corners of her mouth mockingly.
“Oh, sure, that was a fatuous thing to say,” muttered Wilfred, blushing.
“It’s what everybody says to everybody,” she said.
“But I ought to have known better. Nobody knows anybody, really.”
“I don’t know,” said Frances Mary, “when two people live together they
may. Because then they have a chance to watch each other in the company
of others. But you and I travel in entirely separate orbits. The only
point of intersection is your coming here to see me. And you don’t come
very often. And if you find anybody else here you clear out
immediately.”
“But surely we get more out of it. . . .”
“Surely! The point I was making is that all you see is your own facet of
me.”
“Do you mean you show a different facet to everybody?”
“Oh, nothing so exciting. Alas! I am not different from other girls. I
am always the same—at least I think I am. What I mean is, that you only
see in me what you wish to see, and there is never anybody else around
to upset your self-pleasing notions.”
“Oh, come!” said Wilfred.
“It’s just as well,” said Frances Mary with her mocking smile—she was
mocking herself now. “Who wants the truth to be known about oneself?
Especially a woman. Mystery is her existence. No matter how clever she
is, she cannot escape the common fate of woman. Her own concerns are so
unreal to her! . . . Mercy, what nonsense I am talking!”
A note of real bitterness had crept into Frances Mary’s voice, and
Wilfred felt that he was on the brink of a disclosure. But while he was
still trying to puzzle out her meaning in his mind, he discovered that
he had been hurried on to something else. It was a trick of hers. She
was now asking him about his experiences in society.
“Oh, I couldn’t keep that up,” said Wilfred with his glib, surface mind.
“It was useful to see a few interiors, and get a line on the way those
people talk; but it’s deadly, really. You can’t let yourself go. It was
cruel hard on a child of nature like me! And Mrs. Gore’s dinners weren’t
as good as yours. Not by a damn sight.”
“I thought perhaps you might make a friend or two.”
“Hardly, in that milieu.”
“That brilliant girl you told me about; Elaine Sturges; she sounded
promising.”
This name had the effect of a cave-in under Wilfred’s feet. He dropped
sickeningly; the waters of wretchedness closed over his head. Just when
he had succeeded in forgetting it, too. He carefully made his face a
blank. The skin of it grew tight in the effort. “Oh, yes, she has
character,” he said carelessly.
“Don’t you see her any more?”
“She leads a crowded life,” said Wilfred. “Occasionally she vouchsafes
me an hour.”
“How picturesque, such a life!” murmured Frances Mary. “Has she got the
imagination to conceive its picturesqueness?”
Wilfred attended closely to his pipe. His heart swelled and seemed to
squeeze his lungs. He cautiously drew a long breath. He wondered if
Frances Mary was doing this on purpose, but dared not look at her, for
he suspected that she was looking at him. Her eyes were sharp.
“Hardly imaginative,” he said, after a pause, as if for consideration.
“If she isn’t imaginative, what on earth do you find to talk about?”
asked Frances Mary.
Wilfred thought of venturing a laugh; decided against it. He shot a
glance at Frances Mary through his lashes. She was no longer looking at
him. The line of her averted face suggested the same agonized
self-consciousness that he felt. Of course, he thought, I am giving
everything away, and she feels for me. She has guessed everything. Why
not be open with her? He trembled with a horrible internal weakness. No!
he thought desperately. If I let a single word out, I should go
completely to pieces. Make a disgusting exhibition of myself; this
thing’s got to be clamped down. . . .
“Oh, she likes me to explain her to herself,” he said lightly.
Frances Mary let the subject drop.