The Essential E. F. Benson: 53+ Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). E. F. Benson
words—and I begged you to cheat me, I implored you to cheat me, so long as you gave me yourself.
"I didn't care how you took me, so long as you took me. But now I wouldn't take you like that. Now, for this last week, I have seen you and him together, and I know what it is like."
"You haven't seen us together much," said Nadine.
"I have seen you enough: I told you before that your marriage was a farce. I was wrong. It's much worse than a farce. You needn't laugh at a farce. But you can't help laughing, at least I can't, at a tragedy so ludicrous."
Nadine got up. The situation was as violent and sudden as some electric storm. What had been pent-up in him all this week, had exploded: something in her exploded also.
"I think I hate you," she said.
"I am sure I despise you," said he.
He got up also, facing her. It was like the bursting of a reservoir: the great sheet of quiet water was suddenly turned into torrents and foam.
"I despise you," he said again. "You intended me to love you; you encouraged me to let myself go. All the time you held yourself in, though there was nothing to hold in; you observed, you dissected. You cut down with your damned scalpels and lancets to my heart, and said, 'How interesting to see it beating!' Then you looked coolly over your shoulder and saw Seymour, and said, 'He will do: he doesn't love me and I don't love him!' But now he does love you, and you probably guess that. So, very soon, your lancet will come out again, and you will see his heart beating. And again you will say, 'How interesting!' But there will be blood on your lancet. You are safe, of course, from reprisals. No one can cut into you, and see your blood flow, because you haven't any blood. You are something cold and hellish. You often said you understood me too well. Now you understand me even better. Toast my heart, fry it, eat it up! I am utterly at your mercy, and you haven't got any mercy. But I can manage to despise you: I can't do much else."
Nadine stood quite still, breathing rather quickly, and that movement of the nostrils, which she had tried to copy from him, did not make her sneeze now.
"It is well we should know each other," she said with an awful cold bitterness, "even though we shall know each other for so little time more. It is always interesting to see the real person—"
"If you mean me," he said hotly, "I always showed you the real person. I have never acted to you, nor pretended. And I have not changed. I am not responsible if you cannot see!"
Nadine passed her tongue over her lips. They seemed hard and dry, not flexible enough for speech.
"It was my blindness then," she said. "But we know where we are now. I hate you, and you despise me. We know now."
Then suddenly an impulse, wholy uncontrollable, and coming from she knew not where, seized and compelled her. She held out both her hands to him.
"Hughie, shake hands with me," she said. "This has been nightmare talk, a bad thing that one dreams. Shake hands with me, and that will wake us both up. What we have been saying to each other is impossible: it isn't real or true. It is utter nonsense we have been talking."
How he longed to take her hands and clasp them and kiss them! How he longed to wipe off all he had said, all she had said. But somehow it was beyond him to do it. It was by honest impulse that the words of hate and contempt had risen to their lips; the words might be canceled, but what could not be quenched, until some mistake was shown in the workings of their souls, was the thought-fire that had made them boil up. She stood there, lovely and welcoming, the girl whom his whole soul loved, whose conduct his whole soul despised, eager for reconciliation, yearning for a mutual forgiveness. But her request was impossible. God could not cancel the bitterness that had made him speak. He threw his hands wide.
"It's no good," he said. "I am sorry I said certain things, for there was no use in saying them. But I can't help feeling that which made me say them. Cancel the speeches by all means. Let the words be unsaid with all my heart."
"But let us be prepared to say them again?" said Nadine quietly. "It comes to that."
"Yes, it comes to that. I am not jealous of Seymour. I laughed when you suggested it; and I am not jealous, because you don't love him. If you loved him, I should be jealous, and I should say, 'God bless you!' As it is—"
"As it is, you say 'Damn you,'" said Nadine.
Hugh shook his head.
"You don't understand anything about love," he said. "How can you until you know a little bit what it means? I could no more think or say 'Damn you,' than I could say 'God bless you.'"
Nadine had withdrawn from her welcome and desire for reconciliation.
"Neither would make any difference to me," she said.
"I don't suppose they would, since I make no difference to you," said he. "But there is no sense in adding hypocrisy to our quarrel."
Nadine sat down again on the sweet turf.
"I cancel my words, then, even if you do not," she said. "I don't hate you. I can't hate you, any more than you can despise me. We must have been talking in nightmare."
"I am used to nightmare," said Hugh. "I have had six months of nightmare. I thought that I could wake; I thought I could—could pinch myself awake by seeing you and Seymour together. But it's still nightmare."
Nadine looked up at him.
"Oh, Hughie, if I loved you!" she said.
Hugh looked at her a moment, and then turned away from her. Outside of his control certain muscles worked in his throat; he felt strangled.
"I can say 'God bless you' for that, Nadine," he said huskily. "I do say it. God bless you, my darling."
Nadine had leaned her face on her hands when he turned away. She divined why he turned from her, she heard the huskiness of his voice, and the thought of Hughie wanting to cry gave her a pang that she had never yet known the like of. There was a long silence, she sitting with hand-buried face, he seeing the sunlight swim and dance through his tears. Then he touched her on the shoulder.
"So we are friends again in spite of ourselves," he said. "Just one thing more then, since we can talk without—without hatred and contempt. Why did you refuse to marry me, because you did not love me, and yet consent to marry Seymour like that?"
She looked up at him.
"Oh, Hughie, you fool," she said. "Because you matter so much more."
He smiled back at her.
"I don't want to wish I mattered less," he said.
"You couldn't matter less."
He had no reply to this, and sat down again beside her. After a little Nadine turned to him.
"And I said I thought it was such a calm morning," she said.
"And I said that storm was coming," said he.
She laid her hand on his knee.
"And will there be some pleasant weather now?" she said. "Oh, Hughie, what wouldn't I give to get two or three of the old days back again, when we babbled and chattered and were so content?"
"Speak for yourself, miss," said Hugh. "And for God's sake don't let us begin again. I shall quarrel with you again, and—and it gives me a pain. Look here, it's a bad job for me all this, but I came here to get an oasis: also to pinch myself awake: metaphors are confusing things. Bring on your palms and springs. They haven't put in an appearance yet. Let's try anyhow."
Nadine sat up.
"Talking of the weather—" she began.
"I wasn't."
"Yes, you were, before we began to exchange compliments."
She broke off suddenly.
"Oh, Hughie, what has happened to the sun?" she said.
"I know it is the moon," said Hugh.
"You needn't