The Immortal Moment Part 31

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'You won't be tied to me a minute longer than you like.'"]

"That's it. I shan't be tired of you. I've a different feeling for you from any I've ever had for any other woman, for the simple reason that you're a different woman every time I see you. That's the secret of your fascination. Didn't you know it?"

She shook her head, but she was not attending to him.

"If you don't know it there's no harm in telling you that I'm very fond of you."

"What earthly use is it, Wilfrid, being fond of me, as long as I'm not fond of you?"

Ah, that was a mistake. He was on perilous ground. She was strong there.

She matched his bloodless, unblushing candour with her throbbing, pa.s.sionate sincerity.

"That's all the better," he said. "It wouldn't pay you, Kitty, to be fond of me. If I thought you were fond of me to-day it would leave me with nothing to look forward to to-morrow. If you were as fond of me as you are of Lucy, it would bore me horribly. What's more, it would bore you. It would tire you out, and you'd bolt in a week's time. As, I can tell you, you'll bolt from him."

"You think I shall do that. He doesn't. That's why I'm fond of him."

"I wouldn't be too fond of him. It never pays. Either you'll tire of him in a week, or, if you go on being fond of him you'll end by being afraid of him. You need never be afraid of me."

"I _am_ afraid of you."

"Not you. I understand you, Kitty, and he doesn't."

"You mean you know the worst of me?"

"Precisely. What's more, I should condone what you call the worst of you, and he wouldn't."

"I know you would. That's why I'm afraid of you. You only know the worst of me, and he--he knows, he understands, the rest. There's something in me that you've never seen; you couldn't see it; you wouldn't believe in it; you'd kill it if I stayed with you. It's no use talking, for I won't."

"Why not?" he asked as if nothing she had said had been of any moment.

"I've told you why not. But I don't expect you to understand it."

"If there's anything in it I shall understand it in the end. I'm not a fool."

"No, you're not a fool. I'll say that for you."

"Unless it's folly to be as fond of you as I am."

"Oh, no, that's not folly. You'll be fond of me just as long as I'm nice to look at; as long as it doesn't bore you to talk to me; as long as I don't give you any trouble."

"Good G.o.d! Why, look at the trouble you're giving me now."

"Yes, the trouble I'm giving you now, when I'm young and pretty and you can't have me. But when you _have_ had me; when I'm tired out and ill and--and thin; will you be fool enough to be fond of me then?"

"You have been ill, you were ill last night, and--I've got over it."

"You never came near me when I was ill at Matlock. You call that giving me what Robert Lucy gives me? Robert has seen me when I've been as ugly as sin, when my eyes have been bunged up with crying. And it made no difference. He'll love me when I'm thin and ill and old. When I'm dead he'll love me."

He faced her pa.s.sion as it flamed up before him, faced it with his cold, meditative smile.

"That's just what makes it such a beastly shame."

"My not giving him up? How _can_ I give him up?"

"I see your point. You think you're exchanging a temporary affection for a permanent one. You admit that I shall love you as long as you're nice to look at. Very well. You'll be nice to look at for some considerable time. I shall therefore love you for some considerable time. Robert Lucy will love you just as long as he believes in you. How long will that be?"

She did not answer.

"You don't know. Have you calculated the probable effect of gradual enlightenment on our friend's mind?"

"I've calculated nothing."

"No. You are not a calculating woman. I just ask you to consider this point. I am not, as you know, in the least surprised at any of your charming little aberrations. But our friend Lucy has not had many surprises in his life. He'll come to you with an infinite capacity for astonishment. It's quite uncertain how he'll take--er--anything in the nature of a surprise. And, if you ask me, I should say he'd take it hard. Are you going to risk that?"

He was returning to his point even when he feigned to have lost sight of it. Tortured and panting she evaded it with pitiful subterfuges. He urged her back, pressing her tender breast against the p.r.i.c.k of it.

"I'm going to risk everything," she said.

"Risk it, risk it, then. Tie yourself for life to a man you don't know; who doesn't really know you, though you think he does; who on your own showing wouldn't marry you if he did know. You see what a whopping big risk it is, for he's bound to know in the end."

She sickened and wearied. "He is not bound to know. Why is he?"

"Because, my dear girl, you're bound to give yourself away some day.

I know you. I know the perverse little devil that is in you. When you realise what you've let yourself in for you'll break loose, suddenly--like that." He threw out his arms as if he burst bonds asunder. "You can't help yourself. You simply can't live the life.

You may yearn for it, but you can't live it."

"I don't want to be respectable. It isn't that."

"What is it then?"

"Can't you see?"

He looked at her closely, as if he saw it for the first time.

"Are you so awfully gone on him?"

"Yes," she said. "You _won't_ tell him? It'll kill me if he knows."

"You think it will, but it won't."

"I shall kill myself, then."

"Oh no, you won't. You only think you will. It's Lucy I'm sorry for."

"And it's me you're hard on. You were always hard. You say you condone things, but you condone nothing, and you're not good yourself."

"No, I'm not good myself. But there is conduct and conduct. I can condone everything but the fraud you're practising on this innocent man." He rose. "It's--well--you see, it's such a beastly shame."