"But there's another side," he protested. "A
woman who's been married has gained experience—the most dearly purchased form of knowledge, as you yourself have told me. She can be trusted not to expect the impossible. She's been over the course and knows the pitfalls. She's learnt the value of compromise. She ought to have learnt how to be kind. I think kindness is the thing that matters most. Few people are born with it. You have to have been wretched to acquire the knack of it."
"And yet you have it," she glanced sideways at him humorously, "and you haven't been married."
Realizing the drift of their conversation, he pulled himself up. He feared lest she suspected him of flirting. "You're very generous, Lady Dawn."
They had arrived at a lookout point, where a lichen-covered summerhouse stood, protected on the steeper side by a low stone wall. Below them lay the moat, green-scummed and starred with water-lilies; throbbing in the midday haze, the emerald sward of the parkland seemed to float. Against the wall she halted. "What makes you say that I'm generous?"
For all his thirty-six years, he blushed like a boy. "Because you take me seriously. After last night you might have been either amused or annoyed. The position in which I placed you was false. You thought that I'd come from London to urge Terry to marry me. When I told you that there was no one else in the world, you believed that I knew she was staying with you—that I was trying to persuade you to plead my cause. The anti-climax, after she'd surprised us, was the height of tragical
absurdity. It reduced all my high-flown sentiments to farce. I wonder you were able to prevent yourself from laughing. Terry could afford such a scene; she's little more than a child. I can't. With four more years to my age I could pass for her father. No, please. I want to be hard on myself. Let me finish what I'm saying. I've only met you twice; on each occasion I've suffered a loss of dignity. The other time was when I tried to turn you away from Maisie's door. You're probably aware that since then, until Pollock's return, I've seen far more of your sister than was wise. In fact I've offered myself like a job lot. And yet there was a time when I was content to wait. I believed that one had only to be faithful and he'd find what he hoped for round some future corner. You're a proud woman, Lady Dawn. You admire strength almost cruelly. You're inhumanly infallible——"
Her eyes filled. She slipped her hand through his arm and patted it comfortingly. By the contact she was comforting herself as well. "I'm not. I wasn't infallible when I married. My pride came later to cover up my fault. I don't say it to flatter you—any woman would want you."
He gazed down at her. "How gentle you are!"
"I understand."