“He doesn’t count. But she—she’s the pluckiest little soul in England. One can’t interfere, that’s the worst of it.”
“Why can’t one? Because one might compromise oneself?”
He smiled a little at her passionate scorn, accepting the implication calmly. “Yes. Partly that.”
“Mostly that.”
“You admire rash impulse, and headlong defiance, and all those virtues that make a muddle in the world, don’t you?”—From teasing Deb, he awoke to awful realization that he was alone with her. “I say—I must be off!”
“Yes, hurry!—a whole half-minute.” Daringly she challenged his unspoken thought.
“Ridiculous child. Remember to put the haddock in the basin.” He just touched her shoulder ... all his warmer marks of affection were reserved for the times when the Chorus was present in full membership ... and went out.
IV
Deb crossed straight to the long mirror, and made the discovery that she had not been looking beautiful enough to say what she had said. She began to dress for the evening with a sort of revengeful deliberation. The deliberation was necessary to ensure good result. No wise woman can fly, with spirit aflame, into her clothes, and then hope to prove seductive. The dash was in her spirit, nevertheless. She was angry with the big thing for not proving the mellow, englamoured sanctuary she had every right to expect. This evolution of a dream into fact was futile; worse than that—destructive—to herself. A stupid, lop-sided business! Deb was not glad of love now it had come. Only a troublesome but intelligent honesty kept her from repudiating it altogether as the big thing; returning to her former state of silver-misty anticipation.... “One can pretend, I suppose?”—pretend that the soldier was a mere wayside incident. Only she knew too much about wayside incidents, to commit that error.
—Well then, since she was so sure, were not the issues worth a forced initiative on her part? Could she compete with Jenny’s boldness—if she chose? For with Deb, as with Jenny, the soldier’s steady, profiting self-control had become a nightmare which had to be exchanged at all costs, even for his scorn, even for self-destruction, even for evil....