With instinctive foreknowledge of the purpose of my errand, her face became tragic. “His father’s in India,” I explained. “From what I hear of him he’s very proud. If the Bantam made a marriage that could in any way be regarded as imprudent, he’d cut him off. He’d be ruined. You know how it would be; the world would turn its back on him.”
“What do we care about the world?” she said. “The world’s a coward.”
It was wonderful how coldly practical I could become in dealing with another man’s heart affairs—I, who spent my time dreaming of the most extraordinarily unconventional marriages.
“The world may be a coward, Kitty, but you have to live in it. Besides, are you sure that the Bantam really cares for you? Have you told him everything?”
She stared into my eyes across the counter with frightened fascination. I knew that I was acting like a brute and I despised myself. I had hardly meant to ask her the last question—it had slipped out. While we gazed at one another there drifted through my memory all the scenes of that day at Richmond—the gaiety of it, and the hunger with which she had clutched me to her as we punted back in the dark. I understood what this little bit of love must mean to her after her experience of disillusion.
“No, I have not told him. I daren’t. I’m afraid to lose him. Oh, Dante, don’t tell him; it’s my one last chance to be good.”
“But you’ve got to tell him, Kitty. If his love’s worth anything, he’ll forgive you. He’d be sure to find out after marriage.”
“I don’t care about marriage,” she whispered desperately.
“Even then, you ought to tell him.”
A customer came into the shop. We tumbled from our height of emotion. It was another example of how reality makes all things prosaic. She had to compose herself, and go and serve him. He had come to admire her and showed a tendency to dawdle. His purchase was the excuse for his presence. I had an opportunity to watch her—how charmingly fresh she looked and how girlish. And yet she was three years older than myself—that seemed incredible. At last the customer went.