"No—please. Love him? I suppose so: in a way. I despise him, I think he is loathsome, but there are times when I have a—wistful feeling. It may be sheer ungovernable—you know. Yet—I would make no sacrifice for Ronnie. I feel that. I have made no sacrifice. Women are hypocrites when they talk of 'giving': they make a martyrdom of their indulgence. Some women. And it pleases them to accept the masculine view of their irresponsibility. They love sympathy. For Ambrose I would sacrifice—everything. It is cheap to say that I would give my life. I have given more than my life. So have you."
Christina was silent.
"I have faced—everything," Beryl went on. She was sitting on a cushion between Christina and the fire, her tea cup in her hands. "You have also—haven't you, Christina?"
"About Ambrose? Yes. He has passed. The law will kill him. He expects that. I think he would be uncomfortable if he was spared. He told me once, that all the way out to New Caledonia, he grieved about the people who had been guillotined for the same offense as he had committed. The unfairness of it! He never posed. Can you imagine him posing? I've seen him blush when I joked about that funny little trick of his; have you noticed it? Rubbing his chin with the back of his hand?"
Beryl nodded.
"He said he had tried to get out of the habit," Christina continued. "No, Ambrose couldn't pretend, or do a mean thing; or lie. I'm getting sentimental, my dear. Ambrose was distressed by sentimentality. Mother kissed his hand the day I stood for the first time. He was so bewildered!"
They laughed together.
"Are you marrying Steppe?" asked Christina. She felt no call to excuse the intimacy of the question.
"I suppose so. There are reasons. At present he is rather impersonal. As impersonal as a marriage certificate or a church. I have no imagination perhaps. I shall not tell him. You don't think I should—about Ronnie, I mean?"
Christina shook her red head. "No. As I see it, no. If you must marry him, you are doing enough without handing him another kind of whip to flog you with."