"But not to lie about it to the girl he says he loves," she declared. "There can be only one motive for such a denial: that it covers up something which is dishonorable."
"But there never was anything dishonorable. That I swear."
"Then he believes that I would think it dishonorable," she insisted; "which means that he doesn't trust me. That's the reason I can't trust him in return. If we don't trust each other now, how can we hope that things would be better if we married?"
Her logic was unanswerable, but she was arguing on the wrong side. At what was she driving? He gave it up. Was she wanting him to tell her where and when he and her future husband had met? The eagerness of her silence seemed to demand as much.
But there are rules to every game. No pressure that she could bring to bear could make him tell her that. She recognized those rules by refraining from putting her request into words.
It was he who broke the silence. His tones were puzzled. "You come to me on the morning that I had hoped to be engaged to you myself and you confide all these secrets about this other man. You insist that neither of you trusts the other and that you could find no happiness in marriage. Then why, in heaven's name, Terry, did you pledge yourself to him last night?"
"The fear of losing him——" Her face quivered pitifully. She was on the verge of weeping. "He overheard what Daddy said about forbidding him the house. It seemed our last time together. I couldn't bear that it should be the last. It was to keep him near me for just a little longer that I——"
Tabs rose and limped to the window. He dared not let himself go, the way his instincts urged. They might carry him too far. She looked so much like the little girl in short skirts he had known, as she sat there bravely trying not to cry. He wanted to take her on his knees, as in the old days. Now that she loved another man, he was not allowed to show her comfort in that way any longer. That she should run to him for help and yet love some one else, wounded his pride. What was the matter with him that he had failed to stir her passion? Why could he appeal only to her helplessness?
Inside the communal garden, with its surround
ing railings and locked gates, nurses in uniforms were pushing prams. Toddlers were tossing a ball across the lawn and tottering after it with excited shouts. Beneath a tree in the clear sunshine a young mother sat sewing. Other men's women! Other men's babies! He would have to set out in search of his kingdom afresh; all his old quests had been mistaken. But he was older now and lame; he lacked the energy for a new journey. It seemed to him that he would be alone and unwanted always.