to
greet me.
"You've come home," she said.
"As I wrote to you."
She stood very still, a dusky figure against the bright window.
"Where have you been?" she asked.
"East Coast," I said easily.
She paused for a moment. "I KNOW," she said.
I stared at her. It was the most amazing moment in any life....
"By Jove!" I said at last, "I believe you do!"
"And then you come home to me!"
I walked to the hearthrug and stood quite still there regarding this new
situation.
"I didn't dream," she began. "How could you do such a thing?"
It seemed a long interval before either of us spoke another word.
"Who knows about it?" I asked at last.
"Smithie's brother. They were at Cromer."
"Confound Cromer! Yes!"
"How could you bring yourself"
I felt a spasm of petulant annoyance at this unexpected catastrophe.
"I should like to wring Smithie's brother's neck," I said....
Marion spoke in dry, broken fragments of sentences. "You... I'd always
thought that anyhow you couldn't deceive me... I suppose all men are
horrid--about this."
"It doesn't strike me as horrid. It seems to me the most necessary
consequence--and natural thing in the world."
I became aware of some one moving about in the passage, and went and
shut the door of the room, then I walked back to the hearthrug and
turned.
"It's rough on you," I said. "But I didn't mean you to know. You've
never cared for me. I've had the devil of a time. Why should you mind?"
She sat down in a draped armchair. "I HAVE cared for you," she said.
I shrugged my shoulders.
"I suppose," she said, "SHE cares for you?"
I had no answer.
"Where is she now?"
"Oh! does it matter to you?... Look here, Marion! This--this I didn't
anticipate. I didn't mean this thing to smash down on you like this.
But, you know, something had to happen. I'm sorry--sorry to the bottom
of my heart that things have come to this between us. But indeed, I'm
taken by surprise. I don't know where I am--I don't know how we got
here. Things took me by surprise. I found myself alone with her one day.
I kissed her. I went on. It seemed stupid to go back. And besides--why
should I have gone back? Why should I? From first to last, I've hardly
thought of it as touching you.... Damn!"
She scrutinised my face, and pulled at the ball-fringe of the little
table beside her.
"To think of it," she said. "I don't believe I can ever touch you
again."
We kept a long silence. I was on
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