“I know a little about that,” said Peter; “so does Lorie. Women aren’t very kind to the men who love them.”
“Oh, aren’t they!” She flicked at the leaders so that they leapt like stags. “You’re young; you need civilizing. You don’t know nothin’, as that sailorman would say. How many marriages are made for love? They’re made because women are kind. Many a woman marries because she can listen to a man talking all about himself without letting him see that she is bored by it. Happiness is the only reality; and love—love’s almost, almost a delusion.”
Peter looked at her quietly. She could say jaded things like that when she was made so beautifully—when everyone turned to look after her—when the finest man in the world would give his life to save her from pain! What had God done with the years of her life? She never looked any older. And she wasn’t grateful. Perhaps, after all, Harry was right—all her goodness had been put into the perfection of her body, and her soul had suffered.
She was aware that his eyes rested on her in judgment. She tried to refrain from the impulse. Turning, she flashed on him a sudden smile. “Too bad to say things like that to you—you who hope for so much from life! What’s the trouble?”
“I was thinking.”
“Thinking?”
He spoke slowly, “That love only seems a delusion to people who refuse to be loving.”
A common-land sprang up; geese wandered across it. Evening was falling early, washing colors from the landscape, blurring everything with its watery light. The sky stooped near to earth, threatening to tumble, monstrous with bulging clouds.
They drew up at the inn at Gerrard’s Cross. Peter climbed down to stretch his legs while the horses were being changed. He found his friends gathered about a timetable, peering over the shoulders of the man who held it.
“We’re not going to manage it,” one was saying. “There’s another storm brewing. Besides, we’re not making haste—going as leisurely as if we had all the day before us. Nothing for it, we’ll have to drop off and go back by train.”