“Hello, Isabel! There you are.”
“Have you had a miserable drive? I’m so sorry we couldn’t send a closed carriage. I can’t see you at all, you know.”
“I’m coming. No, I liked the drive—it was like Perthshire. Well, how are you? You’re looking fit as ever, as far as I can see.”
“Oh, yes,” said Isabel. “I’m wonderfully well. How are you? Rather thin, I think—”
“Worked to death—everybody’s old cry. But I’m all right, Ciss. How’s Pervin?—isn’t he here?”
“Oh, yes, he’s upstairs changing. Yes, he’s awfully well. Take off your wet things; I’ll send them to be dried.”
“And how are you both, in spirits? He doesn’t fret?”
“No—no, not at all. No, on the contrary, really. We’ve been wonderfully happy, incredibly. It’s more than I can understand—so wonderful: the nearness, and the peace—”
“Ah! Well, that’s awfully good news—”
They moved away. Pervin heard no more. But a childish sense of desolation had come over him, as he heard their brisk voices. He seemed shut out—like a child that is left out. He was aimless and excluded, he did not know what to do with himself. The helpless desolation came over him. He fumbled nervously as he dressed himself, in a state almost of childishness. He disliked the Scotch accent in Bertie’s speech, and the slight response it found on Isabel’s tongue. He disliked the slight purr of complacency in the Scottish speech. He disliked intensely the glib way in which Isabel spoke of their happiness and nearness. It made him recoil. He was fretful and beside himself like a child, he had almost a childish nostalgia to be included in the life circle. And at the same time he was a man, dark and powerful and infuriated by his own weakness. By some fatal flaw, he could not be by himself, he had to depend on the support of another. And this very dependence enraged him. He hated Bertie Reid, and at the same time he knew the hatred was nonsense, he knew it was the outcome of his own weakness.