A lady and her husband

by Amber Reeves Blanco White

Mary moved her aching head further from his hand. She could not think, she felt, with these cigar-scented fingers against her face. "Yes,—I can forgive you, at least I think so," she told him, her whole mind bent on an effort to be honest, "but even if I forgive you, it will still be different."

James bent nearer her. "What will be different, little wife of mine? My love for you has never been different!" Then, as she did not answer, he slipped one arm under her shoulders and lifted her until her head lay against his neck. "Do you remember the last time you were ill?" he asked her, "how you said that I could take the pain away? The things that matter will never be different, Mary,—this isn't different!" and he kissed her softly.

For a moment Mary lay still. After the jar of pain which his movement had caused, it seemed so simple, so natural, to lie in the circle of James's familiar arm, to feel his kisses on her tired face, that for a moment she accepted it; then as his clasp grew tighter she realised what she was doing. She was accepting the warmth and comfort of his caresses exactly as he himself had accepted the kisses of the other woman. James felt her body stiffen. "Please don't kiss me," she said, "I had rather you didn't."

Her words shocked him, and he put her down. From her cold tired voice he realised that something was different. He got up from the bed and without thinking, mechanically, since the darkness oppressed him, he switched on the lamp of the bed.

Mary gave a little cry and covered her face with her hands, but not before James had seen it, white and ravaged, surrounded untidily by her ageing hair. A deep discouragement came over him. He felt as if the tie which had held her to him had slipped from his hand. The figure which lay quivering in the bright circle thrown by the lamp was unfamiliar and repellent, he could not imagine it as the body of his friend and his lover. "I beg your pardon," he said, "is the light too much for you? Shall I turn it down again?"

Mary moved her hands; he could see her dark eyes between them, and their puckered lids. "Yes, if you don't mind," she said, "my eyes are aching!"

James pressed the switch again and she was hidden. He stood still for a minute, his discouragement turning already into a practical perplexity. "You mean, I suppose," he said at last, "that you don't love me any more?"

Mary tried to answer truthfully. "I don't know," she said, "I expect I shall love you again when I've got more used to it, but I don't know if I shall ever love you like that!"

"My love doesn't matter then?" he pressed. "After all these years you've grown indifferent to it?"

Mary did not answer. She did not wish to say anything hard or bitter, but as the memory of his love rose before her she could see it only as a long tyranny, a hypocrisy, an exaction. James's discomfort deepened. "You women are not very merciful," he said.