“But pity? Why pity?” said she.
Colin stopped.
“Violet detests me,” he said. “Yes, I know you saw that, and naturally you couldn’t say it. But it’s said now. It’s sad, isn’t it? Just a little sad? It’s not her fault: any more than it’s my fault that I love her. And I suppose I shall get used to it. They say one gets used to anything. Wounds heal if you give them time. But, oh, how easily they’re torn open again! Look, here where we stand in the shadow of the yew-hedge is the very spot where Violet first kissed me: it was here she said she would marry me. Come away. I bleed.”
He saw her eyes sparkle and soften. They sparkled first: that was the genuine symptom. Then they softened: that was womanly sympathy. Her arm just pressed his encircled hand, and that perhaps was both. All this he read so easily, with that adeptness derived from the birthright of his inheritance. No saint of God could find good in people with such dexterity as he could find evil.
“My dear, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I hadn’t seen, more shame on my blindness. And really it never occurred to me that sorrow could come near you, for you always seem so robed in joy.”
“I’m glad. I mustn’t lose hold on joy,” said he quickly. “But what atrocious manners I’ve got! There’s nothing so thoroughly rude and middle-class as to tell your friends of your troubles.”
“There’s no greater compliment that you can pay, than to do just that,” she said. “But I should never have guessed, Colin, you’re a wonderful dissembler.”
He laughed.
“I’m a wonderful grouser,” he said. “Grouse too, Pamela. Be sociable: tell me the secret sorrows of your domestic life.”
“You know quite well I haven’t any. My husband and I are the greatest friends. Whenever we meet, which is about once a year, we have the most delightful talk, and always hope we shall meet again soon. In the intervals we hear of each other occasionally. I hear about his little affairs, and I suppose he would about mine if I had any. But I can’t behave as so many women seem to.”