As they walked back to the car, Charles, holding Julia's hand, pressed it apologetically. "I want to take you to a place I have, Julia—a cabin I go to sometimes for fishing trips. We could motor there and picnic for a day. Could you be with me as long as that without becoming more disillusioned?" He tried to joke. His thin face jested, but his pale eyes were anxious.
Julia said, in a smothered voice, "You mustn't love me too much. You are the one who will be disillusioned."
He wanted to talk to her about Laurence, but as yet did not dare; so he pressed her hand again. "Darling!" She returned the pressure and was piqued by his abstracted glance. I'm alone, she said to herself.
On the following Saturday Julia went with Charles to the cabin he had spoken of. It was on the shore of a small lake, only a few feet removed from the water's edge. It was a still cloudy day, and the lake, choked with sedges, had a heavy look, like a mirror coated with grease. There were pine woods all around that, without undergrowth, seemed empty. The still trees were like things walking in a dream. Julia felt them, not moving, going on relentlessly and spurning the earth. It seemed as if everything in the landscape had been forgotten. It was a memory held intact that no one ever recalled. A little group of scrub oaks were turning scarlet. They were like colored shadows.
Charles drew up his motor car in the half-obliterated roadway, and helped Julia to alight. He felt sinful, as he always did when he was about to enjoy anything. He wished that he might beg Julia to condescend to him as to an inferior being. He would be grateful for her contempt which, if it were tempered by affection, would allow him to be himself.
She went ahead of him, and waited in the dusty portico of the small house while he covered some cushions that might be wet if it rained. When he came toward her his eyes were uncertain. "Here we are. Damn it, Julia, I'm so happy I'm afraid! You aren't going to mind being here?" He carried a picnic basket.
"Of course not. Why should I have come?"
He set the basket down. "Hands all grimy. Why should you! God, I don't know. I'm going to love you." He swung her hands in his delightedly, but there was something stealthy and embarrassed in his manner. He could not bring himself to kiss her. "At least you're not going to try to make a new man of me!"
"I know my limitations."