Part 31 (1/2)

[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, unblus.h.i.+ng 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.