“Tell me about him,” said Peregrine.
The girl leaned back in her chair and cupped her chin in her palm.
“I often wonder,” she said, “what made me marry him. Some evil spirit, I
suppose . . . I wasn’t a prisoner then. He is so very obviously not my
style. But for some strange reason or other I fell in love with him,
Perry, and before I knew where I was the damage was done.” She sighed.
“So much for me . . . He married me for my money and because a wife—in
her place—can be a convenient thing. He soon had me in my place. . . .”
She threw back her head there, to stare at the stars. Presently she
continued dreamily.
“I’ve many failings, Perry, but I’ll tell you one of my worst—_I loathe
a row_. . . . It’s a very perilous failing, because you’re at the mercy
of the person who finds it out. . . . Well, that’s how my downfall
began. Rather than have unpleasantness, however just my case, I always
gave way—with the inevitable result that now I’ve lost the very knack
of moral courage, while the unpleasantness I sought to avoid has become
the feature of my life.”
She paused there, to steal a glance at the man. Peregrine was staring
straight ahead, his hands clenching the arms of his wicker chair.
Joan proceeded steadily.
“I said that he wasn’t my style. That’s putting it rather low. He’s
rather like a tiger, while I’m like a poodle-dog. . . . He’s a
brilliant, striking personality—swift, heartless and unearthly strong.
Women go mad about him: men dislike him—but they always give him the
wall. Wherever he goes he dominates. It isn’t force of will, because
it’s effortless: he never makes up his mind to get his own way—he just
takes it, always, no matter at whose cost. But he—he never pays. . . .
Well, if that’s his way with the world, you can imagine, Perry, how far
the poodle gets. . . . But that’s not all. I’ve come—it’s very
natural—I’ve come to irritate him. . . .”
She sighed heavily, and a dreary, hopeless note slid into her voice.
“You’ve seen a leaf on the road before the wind. Well, I’m like a leaf
on a road—the open road of life. A dry, shrivelled leaf before the
north-east wind. The wind’s pitiless—devils the wretched leaf from
pillar to post, never gives it a second’s rest. And the road’s open, and
the leaf . . . can’t get away. . . .”
There was a long silence.