‘No,’ I said. ‘Do not come before lunch.’
‘Not before lunch! Why?’
He was surprised. But I had been my own mistress for five years, with my own habits, rules, privacies. I had never seen anyone before lunch. And to-morrow, of all days, I should have so much to do and to arrange. Was this man to come like an invader and disturb my morning? So felt the celibate in me, instinctively, thoughtlessly. That deep-seated objection to the intrusion of even the most loved male at certain times is common, I think, to all women. Women are capable of putting love aside, like a rich dress, and donning the peignoir of matter-of-fact dailiness, in a way which is an eternal enigma to men.... Then I saw, in a sudden flash, that I had renounced my individual existence, that I had forfeited my habits and rules, and privacies, that I was a man’s woman. And the passionate lover in me gloried in this.
‘Come as soon as you like, dearest friend,’ I said.
‘Nobody except Mary will know anything till we are actually gone,’ he remarked. ‘And I shall not tell her till the last thing. Afterwards, won’t they chatter! God! Let ’em.’
‘They are already chattering,’ I said. And I told him about Mrs. Sardis. ‘When she met you on the landing,’ I added, ‘she drew her own conclusions, my poor, poor boy!’
He was furious. I could see he wanted to take me in his arms and protect me masculinely from the rising storm.
‘All that is nothing,’ I soothed him. ‘Nothing. Against it, we have our self-respect. We can scorn all that.’ And I gave a short, contemptuous laugh.
‘Darling!’ he murmured. ‘You are more than a woman.’
‘I hope not.’ And I laughed again, but unnaturally.