They ate Turkish-delight at intervals during that long day, when for not a single moment did the rain cease to fall. Sylvia told Michael about the Earl's Court Exhibition and Mabel Bannerman.
"I remember a girl called Mabel who used to sell Turkish-delight there, but she had a stall of her own."
"So did my Mabel the year afterward," she said.
Soon they decided it must be the same Mabel. Sylvia thought what a good opening this was to tell Michael some of her more intimate experiences, but she dreaded that he would, in spite of himself, show his distaste for that early life of hers, and she could not bear the idea of creating such an atmosphere now—or in the future, she thought, with a sigh. Nevertheless, she did begin an apostrophe against the past, but he cut her short.
"The past? What does the past matter? Without a past, my dear Sylvia, you would have no present."
"And, after all," she thought, "he knows already I have a past."
Once their hands met by accident, and Michael withdrew his with a quickness that mortified her, so that she simulated a deep preoccupation in order to hide her chagrin, for she had outgrown her capacity to sting back with bitter words, and could only await the slow return of her composure before she could talk naturally again.
"But never mind, the adventure is drawing to a close," she told herself, "and he'll soon be rid of me."
Then he began to talk again about their damned relationship and to speculate upon the extent of Stella's surprise when she should hear about it.
"I think, you know, when I was young," Michael said, presently, "that I must have been rather like your husband. I'm sure I should have fallen in love with you and married you."