‘That “friendlessness” is the one huge mistake of your life,’ he exclaimed. ‘Gaston is not selfish, would not be selfish, unless your unselfishness forced him into being so. You should never have allowed this morbid love of solitude to grow on you. You ought to assert yourself, to go into the world at Gaston’s side, whether you like it or not.’
‘I should not like it now. When I was a girl, when we first married, my heart was light, against what it is now. It was the end of the London season, you remember. No, I don’t suppose you do?’
Did he not, though—that late July time when, after seeing the marriage ceremony over, he went back to his scholar’s attic in John’s; that Long Vacation when the skies were brazen to him, when day and night alike were one feverish pain!
‘It was the end of the London season, and when Gaston took me to the Opera and twice down to dinner at Richmond I did feel,’ confessed Dinah with humility, ‘that I had it in me to be fond of junketing,—oh, Geff, there’s one of my country words! luckily Gaston can’t hear it—of pleasure, I mean, and society. But the taste has died.’ Of what lingering, cruel death, who should know better than Geoffrey? ‘Ladies of my husband’s class have not called upon me. I have neither rank, talent, nor a million. Without these, Gaston says, no woman can make her way in the English world.’
Hot words were ready to rush from Geoffrey’s lips, but he kept them back. To remain on equal terms with husband and wife in this strange triangular friendship did sorely tax his powers of self-repression at times.
‘Gaston would rejoice in knowing that your life was cheerfuller, no matter how the cheerfulness was brought about. He has told me so, often. Now, here, in Guernsey, eight sea-going hours removed,’ said Geff lightly, ‘from English Philistinism, what should hinder you from joining in any little bit of “junketing” that may offer itself?’
‘The hindrance of having no introduction to the Guernsey ladies.’
‘Mrs. Thorne has called on you.’
‘On Gaston. He is dining with them now. He will dine with them four evenings a week. Yes,’ Dinah’s voice fell, ‘I know, at a glance, the kind of clever person who will amuse my husband. Mrs. Thorne is one of them. She is magnetic.’
‘With the magnetism that repels rather than attracts,’ remarked Geff.