“Oh, well, you can go back. We’re going to a concert together. It’s quite easy. I told you you were different from everybody else.” And then, remembering Rose’s words, he leaned across the table towards her. “The most beautiful and the best,” he said severely.
“Me?”
“Yes. Here’s the soup.”
She drank it, looking at him between the spoonfuls. This was the man who had talked to her by the Monks’ Pool. Here was the same detachment he had shown then, and though the act of taking soup was not poetical, though the band blared and the place shone with many lights, she was taken back to that night among the trees, with the water lying darkly at her feet, keeping its own secrets; with the ducks quacking sleepily and unseen, and the water rats diving with a silken splash.
She seemed to be recovering something she had lost because she had disregarded it, something she wanted, not for use but for the sake of possessing and sometimes looking at it.
Sternly she tried not to think of Francis Sales, who had deserted her. She might have known he would desert her. He had looked at Aunt Rose and she had seen him weaken, yet he had promised. He was that kind of man: he could not say no to her face, but he left her in this city, all alone.
Her lips trembled; she steadied them with difficulty. She was determined not to honour him with so much as a memory or a regret, but there came forbidden recollections of the dance, of the terrace, and of her hands in his. She closed her eyes and a tremor, delicious, horrible, ran through her body. She felt the strength of those brown, muscular hands and she was assailed by the odour of wind and tobacco that clung to him. He had never said anything worth remembering, but there had been danger and excitement in his presence. There was neither in the neighbourhood of Charles, yet she could not forget his words.
She opened her eyes. “What was it you said just now?”
“You’re the best and most beautiful woman in the world. Your fish is getting cold.”
She ate it without appetite or distaste. “But, Charles—”