No, the news did not hurt Colin, so he told himself, in the way that Violet meant, and she was quite right about the reason of that: he was not in love with her. But it struck him that the news must undeniably hurt Violet herself; she was trying to wriggle away from it, while at the same time she tried to justify herself and that unfortunate (or should he call it fortunate?) kiss she had given him.
He glanced hastily over the rest; there were more allusions to that last evening, more scolding and exhortations about his conduct to Raymond, and, as a postscript, the request that he should send her just one line, to say he wasn’t hurt. This letter of hers was absolutely private, but she had to tell him what was about to happen. In a week’s time both she and Raymond would write to his father, who, so Raymond thought, was not unprepared.
Colin tore off the final half-sheet of Violet’s letter, and with his stylograph scribbled his answer on it. He had long ago made up his mind what he should say:
“Violet, my dear” (he wrote),
“It was delightful of you to tell me, and I send you a million congratulations. I am so pleased, for now you will be mistress of Stanier, and you seem quite to have fallen in love with Raymond. I must be very nice to him, or he’ll never let me come to Stanier in days to come, and you will take his side, as you say. But how could I be hurt at your news? It is simply charming.
“Father and I are having a splendid time out here. I shall try to persuade him to stop on after this month. Of course we shall come back before your marriage. When is it to be, do you think?
“Best love from
“Colin.”
The ink in this hot sun dried almost as quickly as he wrote, and he had scarcely signed his own name when it wore the appearance not of a tentative sketch but of a finished communication ready for the post, and, reading it over, he found that this was so: he could not better it. So slipping it back into his pocket, he went across the beach again for a longer swim, smiling to himself at the ease with which he had divined Violet’s real mind, and at the fitness of his reply. As he swam he analysed his own purpose in writing exactly like that.
He had expressed himself with all the cordial geniality of which he was capable: he had welcomed Violet’s choice. He had endorsed, as regards his own part of the situation, her proposition that he ought not to be hurt, since they were not in love with each other, and the eagerness of his endorsement (that swift enthusiastic scrawl) would quite certainly pique her. He had adopted her attitude, and knew that she would wish he had another; the same, in fact, which he had expressed when he had said that it was maddening to think that she would be kissing Raymond next. Colin knew well how fond she was of him, and his letter would be like this plunge into the clear crystal of the sea which, while it cooled you, was glowingly invigorating.
He was quite prepared to find that in a week’s time she and Raymond would write to his father saying that they were engaged, but not for a moment did he believe that they would ever be married. He had but to keep up his cordial indifference till Violet found it intolerable. To have remonstrated with her, to have allowed that her news hurt him, was to give Violet just what she wanted. A loveless marriage faced her, while all the time she was not heart-whole, and however much she wanted Stanier, she would be daily more conscious that the conditions on which she got it were a diet of starvation.