“Yes,” agreed Miss Marley, “it would look better.”
“I dare say,” said Winn after rather a long pause, “you see what I mean? The idea is — our idea, you know — to be together as much as we can for a fortnight. It’ll be all right, of course; only I rather wondered if you’d see us through.”
“See you through being all right?” Miss Marley asked with the directness of a knife-thrust.
“Well — yes,” said Winn. “It would just put people off thinking things. Everybody seems to know you up here, and I somehow thought I’d rather you knew.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Marley, briefly.
She turned back to the fire again. She had seen all she wanted to see in Winn’s eyes. She saw his intention. What she wasn’t sure about was the fortnight. A fortnight can do a good deal with an intention.
Miss Marley knew the world very well. People had often wanted to use her for a screen before, and generally she had refused, believing that the chief safeguard of innocence is the absence of screens. But she saw that Winn did not want her to be that kind of a screen; he wanted her to be in the center of his situation without touching it. He wanted her for Claire, but he wanted her also a little for himself, so that he might feel the presence of her upright friendliness. He intensely trusted her.
There are people who intend to do good in the world and invariably do harm. They enter eagerly into the lives of others and put their fingers pressingly upon delicate machinery; very often they destroy it, more seldom, unfortunately, they cut their own fingers. Miss Marley did not belong to this type. She did not wish to be involved and she was scrupulous never to involve others. She hesitated before she gave her consent, but she couldn’t withstand the thought that Claire was only nineteen. She spoke at last.
“What you suggest,” she said quietly, “is going to be rather hard for you both. I suppose you do realize how hard? You see, you are only at the beginning of the fortnight now. Unhappy men and very young girls make difficult situations, Major Staines.”
He got up and walked to the window, standing with his back to her. She wondered if she had said too much; his back looked uncompromising. She did not realize that she could never say too much in the defense of Claire. Then he said, without looking round: