§ 6
She was so annoyed with George on the way home that she arrived at the astonishing decision: I will not marry him....
That evening, under the trees of the Bockley High Road, she produced the typewritten anonymous letter and asked him point-blank: “Did you write this?”
“No,” he said immediately.
“Did you type it, then?” (It showed her mean opinion of him that she judged him capable of such a quibble.)
“No.”
“Do you know its contents?”
“How should I?”
“Then please read it.” She handed it to him.
“If you like,” he said, and read it. “Well?” he remarked, after doing so.
“How am I to know if you are telling the truth?”
“You have only my word.”
“But, according to the letter, you may be telling me a lie.”
“That is presuming that I wrote it.”
“And you didn’t?”
“No.”
Pause. Then suddenly she stopped and faced him defiantly.
“I don’t believe you!” she snapped.
“Well——”
“Look here. You did write this thing. Tell the truth. Own up to it. It’s very clever and all that, but it shouldn’t be kept up seriously like this. I’m certain you wrote that letter.”
“You don’t take my word for it?”
“Not in this case.”
“In other words, I’m a liar. Eh?”
“I suppose it comes to that.”
“Well, you’re very polite, I must say. Perhaps you’ve a few more things you’d like to say about me?”
“Don’t try to be sarcastic. But there is one thing if you really want to know.”
“What’s that?”
She paused, and then hurled it at him with terrible effect.
“I don’t love you a bit.... Not a tiny bit....”
She saw him whiten. It was thrilling to see how he kept his emotion under control. She almost admired him in that moment.
“Is that so?” he said heavily.
“Yes.”
He bit his lip fiercely.
“Then our engagement, I presume, is—is dissolved?”
“Presumably.... Here’s your ring.”
Here occurred a touch of bathos. She tried to get the ring off her finger, but it would not pass the first joint.
“Let me try,” he said humbly, and the episode became almost farcical. It came off after a little coaxing. But the dramatic possibilities of the incident had been ruined.
“Well,” he said stiffly, “I suppose that’s all. It’s your doing, not mine. You’re breaking up our prospects without the least shadow of reason.”
It did seem to her an incredibly wanton thing that she was doing. And at this particular moment, if he had uttered her name slowly and passionately she would have burst into tears and been reconciled to him. But he missed the opportunity.
“I shall return your letters,” he continued coldly. (There were not many of them, she reflected.)
“Good-bye,” she said.
They shook hands. And she thought: “Fancy having been kissed every night for months and months and suddenly turning to a handshake!” That, more than anything, perhaps, indicated to her the full significance of what had happened. That and the peculiar sensation of chilliness round her finger where the ring had been.
As she turned into Gifford Road she asked herself seriously the question: “What has come over me? Am I mad? ...”