ost of that
ideal occasion when her being was so sensitive that it responded to
everything, and so well pleased at having safely borne her son that she
saw everything as evidence of creation's virtue. He had added stroke to
stroke with the modest confused smile with which he entered the room, as
if he felt his vast bulk ridiculous in this room of small rosebud
patterns; the uneasy laughter with which he disguised his embarrassment
when they could find no chair big enough for him; the shy wonder with
which he put out his hand and hooded the tiny black head with it, and
uncurled the little hand with his obese forefinger; the reticence with
which he checked his remark that he had always wanted to have a child of
his own. And he perfected the picture that he desired her to see by the
assurance he gave murmurously from the darkness of the open door. "Get
well soon.... You needn't be afraid of me. We made a bargain. I mean to
stick to it." He had caught the very tune that dogged sincerity plays on
the voice's chords. She lay happy after he had gone because she and her
child had so true a friend.

It was, of course, from no malice against her that he set out to deceive
her, but from the natural desire to protect his being from alterations
hostile to its quality. Long after, sitting with Richard in a cafe in
Rio de Janeiro, she had looked at the men who were taking the lovely
painted women to themselves, and she detected behind the gross mask that
the prospect of physical enjoyment set on the faces an expression of
harsh spiritual defensiveness; and thenceforward she had understood why
Peacey had practised this fraud on her. He had known, as all men know,
that there is a beneficent magic in the relationship between men and
women; the evil man, at war with all but himself, cannot but admit that
for his supremest pleasure he depends on one other than himself, and by
his gratitude to her is tainted with altruism and is no longer
single-minded in his war on others. Such men uphold prostitution because
it exorcises sex of that magic. It is not a device to save sensuality,
for love with a stranger is like gulping new spirit, and love with a
friend is drinking old wine. Its purpose is indeed this very
imperfection of the embraces that it offers, for they leave the soul as
it was.

Peacey, she understood in the light of this discovery, had desired her
with a passion that, uncircumvented, would have swept him on to love and
a life on