They remained at the inn for five days. But though physically their relation was unrestrained, entire, frenzied, no faintest intimacy of any other kind grew up between them, unless it may be counted as intimacy that they were perfectly at ease with each other in their hours of bodily calm, and could walk together across the frozen fields, silent or nearly so, unembarrassed, each thinking his own thoughts. Ethel might almost swoon in Stacey’s embrace; a moment after, her dark eyes, that had been moist and dilated, would become as unfathomable as ever. And, as for him, he might, and did, serve passion recklessly until pleasure turned to pain; nothing would come of it all, nothing be left over, no emotion, not even a grateful memory of delight, not even disgust,—only emptiness. Never in soft moments of assuagement did tenderness start up in him or show in her.
They talked, of course. And they did not say sharp things or get on one another’s nerves. They were not enemies. They talked only of general subjects, dispassionately, objectively. Or, rather, all subjects, even ideas, became external when Stacey and Ethel spoke of them. Yet the girl talked well and intelligently. It was simply that she revealed no emotional interest in anything they discussed. She seemed as detached and indifferent as he. But this, though it made their association comfortable, was not a bond between them.
Only once did their two personalities become conscious of each other and touch and draw a spark. When this happened it was immediately apparent that, though Ethel and Stacey were not enemies, they were antagonists, facing one another warily.
It was on the last morning of their stay. The girl was lying motionless on the bed, in the pose of Manet’s “Olympe” and with much the same exotic appearance. Stacey was sprawling in a chintz-covered rocker. He was suffering from a kind of bleak despair; for he was reflecting that everything he had done was impotent to destroy his desire for Marian. This was unfair, he thought sullenly, since his desire for Marian, too, was purely physical. Why, then, should not this liaison suffice? So, when Ethel spoke to him he answered her curtly.
“Isn’t it time,” she observed, without moving, “that you asked me about my past life, how I reached this regrettable condition, and so forth?”
He looked up slowly and considered her. “No,” he said, “I’m not interested.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Dear me! Not at all? How disrespectful of conventions! Why? Because you despise me?”
“You know I don’t despise you,” he replied indifferently. “Moreover, you don’t care whether I do or not.”
She smiled a little at this. “I don’t think that in all these five days I’ve expressed any appreciation of you,” she went on coolly. “You’re really very satisfactory. Now that’s what marriage ought to be like. Two healthy animals taking all the sharp pleasure they can from one another and letting each other’s immortal souls alone. Silly that they should be immortal, isn’t it? Perhaps they’re not. I think they must be, though; they’re so completely solitary. Nobody can ever have made them, they’re so solitary. They must always have been,—like stars in the empty sky; and so they must always go on.”
He felt interest now at last. She was strange.