“Pat, Pat, my precious, you know I’ve been covering up. You know I’m mad about you and always have been. And you know that whatever happens there’ll never be anyone else as long as I live.”
He breathed the words rather than spoke them. His tone, touch, frame were vibrant as any wire.
The girl slid her arms round his neck and held him close.
“I know,” she whispered.
Caress and word seemed to relieve the strain. The man relaxed sensibly. After a moment’s silence he turned and kissed her mouth.
“I blame myself,” he said quietly enough. “I’m older than you, and I shouldn’t have let it go on. I know we’d an understanding—a blessed, faithful agreement, faithfully kept. There never was, I believe, such natural sympathy. But these things bank up, Pat: and, if we weren’t to marry, we should never have been engaged. . . . It was defying Nature. In a way it was our affair, but it was out of joint. It’s been—perfect. . . . But it was out of joint. Well, now that dislocation has got to be reduced. Very good. We knew it must come. Our eyes were open. That was the basis of our understanding—that sooner or later it must end. But I think we forgot—the adhesions . . . the seals that Nature sets upon things that are out of joint. They take some breaking—adhesions. . . . And—they’ve—got to be broken—to-night.” With a sharp sob Patricia drew in her breath; then she let it go pelting and drooped her head. “We’ve played about so far. You know we have. Feinting, ducking, side-stepping, covering up. Well, now we’ve got to mix it and knock Things out.”
The girl clung to him desperately.
“Oh, Simon, I can’t, I can’t. Not all at once like this. I know they’ve got to be broken, but they needn’t be torn. Just once or twice we can be alone again. I shan’t be married at once. Let’s break them gradually, darling. Then I’ll have something to look for—to buoy me up to-night. Life looks so terribly dark, Simon. Let me have just a ray of light. Just once or twice—that’s all. You know. Just a word and a kiss. Don’t smash my world to-night. Even the torturers, Simon, never did things like that. They worked by degrees—gradually, so that the torture could be borne.”
The man smiled into her eyes.
As a moment ago her touch had soothed him, so now her weakness seemed to have made him strong.