"Oh, but I should hate to think that."
"But why?"
"Oh, I don't know. I'm silly, but if you only love me now, then before—oh, it doesn't matter, you love me now, don't you?"
And he answered her in the only possible way.
One hour they had together, an hour of rich enchantment. The blinds were drawn, the lamp unlighted; she sat on the floor with the firelight playing over her, leant back against him while he told her of Bruges and its waterways, the proud boulevards of Brussels, the great cathedral at Köln, the noble sweep of the Rhine and the hills on either side of it. She followed little of what he said to her; it was enough for her, after three long months, to be soothed by his presence, to hear his voice, to hold his hand in hers, and to feel from time to time his breath grow warm upon her neck and cheek as he bent to kiss her. It was the tenderest hour their love had brought to them.
But for Roland it was followed by a reaction. He felt, in a confused manner, that he had been playing a part, that he had said what was but half true. He had certainly been exasperated by Mrs Curtis's conversation, but it was her talk, the supreme futility of her talk, that had exasperated him. It had annoyed him in itself and not as being a barrier between himself and April. He had told a lie.
And it was not for the first time, he reminded himself. Half lies had been an essential part of their love-making. At every crisis of their relationship he had tampered with the truth. He had told her he had only made love to Dolly because she had rejected him that evening at the ball. He had told her that it was her belief in him that had inspired his success at Hogstead. He had mistaken the fraction for the whole. Were they never to meet on terms of common honesty? What was their love worth if it had to live on lies?
He returned home to find the drawing-room fire almost out.
"Will these servants never do their work?" he grumbled.
That evening the soup plates happened to be cold and the joint overdone.