Just at the moment, he took her fancy. Well, he wasn’t going to have it that way. He was going away, to forget her, before there was any more to forget. He wanted not to see that dark, mutinous face again, or to hear that nervous and exquisite voice, that seemed always to have a sob in it. Because he was constant and steadfast, and he had no wish to give so very much and to get nothing in return.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE THING IS ON THEM
§ i
THERE was a very great deal that young Stephens didn’t know about himself, some of it that was obvious to other eyes. He did not go away the next morning; Edna met him after breakfast and entreated him not to do so.
“We’re so dull and miserable here,” she said. “And you’re the only hope. Do you know what Mother calls you? The Breath of Life! Now after that you can’t go, can you?”
He smiled, a little inattentively. There she stood, so pretty and serene, one of those women who considered it their right to make outrageous demands upon men.... He saw suddenly how difficult it must be to withstand their demands. He did not want to refuse Edna; he liked her very much, because she was frank and friendly; he didn’t suspect that her frankness held a hundred times more reserve than Andrée’s silences, that she, so smiling and affable, was infinitely more aloof, more mysterious, more unknowable, than her dark sister.
“The Breath of Life!” he said. “Why?”
“Because we’re all very nearly dead, and you’re so much alive,” she said, tranquilly. “Can’t we have one more nice day together?”
“I don’t see ...” he said, doubtfully. “After—well—your father, you know....”
He had no clear conception of Gilbert’s position; he had certainly seen many husbands and fathers who were bullies, but in a more primitive society this bullying carried weight and was not defied. He knew little of the civilized expedients of women; he didn’t imagine that Claudine would stoop to deceive. Yet he didn’t think her quite capable of independence.