Part 11 (1/2)
”I don't believe it.”
”Yet I was, physically, not a bad sample of a man. Now the Lord knows what I am!--a husk, I suppose. There's a man inside me somewhere still.”
”You look as if there were, and you sound it.”
She laughed, not pleasantly. It was one of her defects that her laughter seldom had a pleasant sound, as if it were only the spirit of malice which had power to move her to mirth.
”You've confessed why you married me. Do you know why I wanted to marry you, or any one? I'd have married your friend Nannie if she'd agreed, but she refused point-blank.”
”Is that true?”
”Quite. It was only when she persisted in her refusal that the doctor thought of the woman he'd found in a ditch. Since anything in the shape of a woman would serve he hauled you up the stairs.” She was still. She was standing in her favourite position by the open window, looking out at the woods on the slope of the hill. ”Shall I tell you why, when already looking into h.e.l.l--and I had a good look, I promise you!--I wanted to marry any one?”
”I know.”
”Who told you?”
”Dr. Twelves.”
”He seems to have imparted to you a good deal of useful information. What did he tell you?”
”That you'd made a will in some one's favour, which you wanted to break, and that was the easiest way to break it.”
”Did he tell you who the some one was?”
”No.”
”It was a woman. Do you hear--it was a woman!”
”I hear.”
”A young woman--younger than you and prettier. Prettier? My G.o.d!
You're not bad-looking in a way, but there's a streak of the vulgar in you now. No one could ever mistake you for a lady.
You're one of the blowzy sort; you'll become impossible; hard-featured; flame-coloured cheeks; bold, staring eyes; huge, unwieldy, gross. She!--she's the most perfect woman G.o.d ever made, and she'll only improve as the years go by.”
”I've met that kind of woman before.”
”Not you. She's not to be found in the sort of society in which you've moved.”
”She's to be found in the penny novelettes--never out of them.
You and your perfect women! In spite of her perfection you don't seem to have found her all milk and honey, or you wouldn't have been so keen to break that will of yours.”
”Do you know why I wanted to break it?”
”Some silly nonsense. Because she tried to scratch your eyes out, I daresay--serve you right if she did.”
”Because she wouldn't marry me.”
”Because----!” She stopped to burst into noisy, strident laughter. ”She must have been a fool. I should have thought any one would have married you if you'd made it worth their while.”