“Yes, yes,” Grimshaw answered eagerly; “that’s it; that’s the motive. But it doesn’t hinder the result from being that, when Dudley’s cured, we all fly as far apart as the poles.”
“Ah,” she said slowly, and she looked at him with the straight, remorseless glance and spoke with the little, cold expressionless voice that made him think of her for the rest of his life as if she were the unpitying angel that barred for our first parents the return into Eden, “you see that at least! That is where we all are—flying as far apart as the poles.”
Grimshaw suddenly extended both his hands in a gesture of mute agony, but she drew back both her own.
“That again,” she said, “is our day and our class. And that’s the best that’s to be said for us. We haven’t learned wisdom: we’ve only learned how to behave. We cannot avoid tragedies.”
She paused and repeated with a deeper note of passion than he had ever heard her allow herself:
“Tragedies! Yes, in our day and in our class we don’t allow ourselves easy things like daggers and poison-bowls. It’s all more difficult. It’s all more difficult because it goes on and goes on. We think we’ve made it easier because we’ve slackened old ties. You’re in and out of the house all day long, and I can go around with you everywhere. But just because we’ve slackened the old ties, just because marriage is a weaker thing than it used to be—in our day and in our class”—she repeated the words with deep bitterness and looked unflinchingly into his eyes—“we’ve strengthened so immensely the other kind of ties. If you’d been married to Miss Lascarides you’d probably not have been faithful to her. As it is, just because your honour’s involved you find yourself tied to her as no monk ever was by his vow.”
She looked down at her feet and then again at his eyes, and in her glance there was a cold stream of accusation that appeared incredible, coming from a creature so small, so fragile, and so reserved. Grimshaw stood with his head hanging forward upon his chest: the scene seemed to move with an intolerable slowness, and to him her attitude of detachment was unspeakably sad. It was as if she spoke from a great distance—as if she were a ghost fading away into dimness. He could not again raise his hands towards her: he could utter no endearments: her gesture of abnegation had been too absolute and too determined. With her eyes full upon him she said:
“You do not love Katya Lascarides: you are as cold to her as a stone. You love me, and you have ruined all our lives. But it doesn’t end, it goes on. We fly as far asunder as the poles, and it goes on for good.”
She stopped as suddenly as she had begun to speak, and what she had said was so true, and the sudden revelation of what burned beneath the surface of a creature so small and apparently so cold—the touch of fierce hunger in her voice, of pained resentment in her eyes—these things so overwhelmed Robert Grimshaw that for a long time, still he remained silent. Then suddenly he said:
“Yes; by God, it’s true what you say! I told Ellida long ago that my business in life was to wait for Katya and to see that you had a good time.” He paused, and then added quickly: “I’ve lived to see you in hell, and I’ve waited for Katya till”—he moved one of his hands in a gesture of despair—“till all the fire’s burned out,” he added suddenly.