"Yes."
"There are two of us now. Eve is on my side."
"So I have heard." He went to Eve, took her arm, and led her away almost
by force to the shadow at some distance from the fire. "What in the
world has made you change so?" he said. "Do you know--it's abject."
"Yes, it's abject," Eve answered. She could see him looking at her in
the dusky darkness; she had never been looked at in such a way before.
"It's brave, too," she added, trying to keep back the tears.
"I don't understand riddles."
"I think you understand mine." She had said it. She had been seized with
a sudden wild desire to make an end of it, to put it into words. The
overweight of daring which nature had given her drew her on.
"Well, if I do, then," answered Paul, "why don't you want to please me?"
She turned her head away, suffocated by his calm acceptance of her
avowal. "It would be of no use. And I want to make one woman happy; so
few women are happy!"
"Do you call it happy to have Ferdie knocking her about?"
"She does."
"And knocking about Jack, too?"
"I shall be there, I can take care of Jack."
"I see I can do nothing with you. You have lost your senses!"
He went back to Cicely. "Ferdie has his faults, Cicely, as we both know;
but you have yours too, you make yourself out too important. How many
other women do you think he has cared for?"
"Before he saw me, five hundred, if you like; five thousand."
"And since he saw you--since he married you?"
Cicely laughed happily.
"I will bring you something," said Paul. He went off to his tent.