“And the taste of the skin is already bitter in the mouth.” He considered her steadfastly: “I wonder if you are up to it,” he mused; “it would be rather a magnificent stunt, really and truly to cheat the gods of their aftermath. Could you, Peter? You devil, I believe you could ... I’m not sure that I want you defiant enough for that.”
Thus Stuart to the conception of Peter which he had built from his own desire and from the cavalier tilt of her head. And seeing clearly his Portrait-of-a-Lady; battle-eager and brain-clear and courageous; glorying in freedom from all bondage; a lady with mockery on her lips, and sudden moods of tenderness in her soul, as of mist veiling softly a shining sword; swift in recovery after defeat; tempered at all times to fine adjustment of the spirit to circumstance and adventure; and withal a lady mysterious and unexpected, but of bodily hardihood like to a man’s; and, above everything, able to stand alone and without him;—seeing all this, and finding the portrait attractive, she had played up to it; at first for fun; then because it came as natural to do so as not; then for his sake; finally, because she could no more extricate herself.
One effort indeed she had made in the latter direction: “Stuart, has it ever struck you that you have mixed the oranges in your basket? and when you think to be employed with mine, it is your own you are busily sucking all the while.”
He laughed, not grasping the significance of what she said. “What of it?”
“Well—no wonder you approve of the flavour!”
“You’re a dentist, Peter!” he cried then, exasperated; “you bring forth the hidden molars of my mind, molars of which I myself am not even aware, and dangle them on your nasty little pincers, saying: ‘Look, this is yours!’ It’s a horrid, a most reprehensible trick.”
She abandoned the attempt at revelation; continued to respond to his conception of her: never to tell him when she was tired; never to own that she had need of him; never to let him see her afraid; never to ask his help in trouble. Herein lay the primary rules to be observed. And she had learnt from him actually to enjoy the utmost limits of strain; found exhilaration in the knowledge that after all, she was top-dog in the silent battle, since she had so successfully restrained her real nature from proclaiming to him its hidden wants and weaknesses. Top-dog—a pity that this superiority must be for ever kept secret, when one considered how he would be annoyed at the information.
Nevertheless, she doubted if her powers were capable of this final test, complete severance at the topmost summit of happiness, in avoidance of descent on the further side. This was super-girl he demanded now. Perversely, she experienced a hatred of his talk of evanescence and the separation to come; wished to hear the old foolish “for-ever-an’-ever” on his lips, the old mad belief in immortality of love, which her reason rejected so scornfully. Were they a pair of fools too clever for love? Peter questioned silently of the luggage-trucks. Beyond the fading rails, beyond the last red-eyed signal-box, a train-whistle hooted derisively.
“Stuart, if we went on without use of the shears, what do you see in store for us?”