Polly had said she felt thrills, turned hot and cold, lost her breath. Well, so far, she had felt none of that. But there was a piercing sweetness, moments of intolerable aspiration, of a desire to wing upward with him to unimaginable heights, dwelling in spiritual contact with him forever. Another trick of elemental sex, no doubt, preliminary to the desire for surrender. . . .
Hacking her way through what was left of the fog she arrived at the conclusion that if she were still insensible to passion it was because, after her long lethargy, mortared with violent repulsion, she was dependent for that upon his physical contact.
But here she would have kicked another stool across the room had there been one within reach.
This piercing sweetness was all right, this divine consciousness that uplifted and exalted her—but did she want anything more? She doubted it. One indelible lesson life had taught her: that realities were disillusionizing and commonplace. Often hard and ugly. Moreover——Yes, moreover! One inhibition appeared to be still firmly planted.
She knew she could marry Geoffrey if she chose. Eustace would never stand in her way. He would be bitterly disappointed, wretched, mortified, angry, but he was not the man to hold a woman to a hollow alliance. When he realized that she was inexorable he would wrap himself up in a mantle of philosophy and retire from the field.
And if she did not marry Geoffrey Pelham, Polly would. She’d make herself as intimate and necessary as his coat and button herself round him in some moment of hopeless depression. After that, of course, he would love her. No man could help it.
She emitted a low growl. Then beat her hands on the arms of her chair. What did it matter? Why deprive the poor man of what consolation he could get? He had given her something Polly could never take from her (what Polly would be forced to content herself with was what she herself rejected) and she could continue to love him and fulfill her soul more completely than if she entered into prosaic—and hateful—matrimony with him. No pleasures, when all was said and done, could equal those of the imagination. She had always despised stories with happy endings. And shrunk from ultimates. After flowers weeds. No soil left for imagination or the psyche. Happy marriages? Oh, yes, plenty of them. She had even seen several in advanced sophisticate circles, although they were always informing you they gave each other complete liberty, and would not shed a tear over a passing infatuation. Or else worrying if it could last, and exactly how they would act if it didn’t. Commit suicide or look round for someone else? But with all their febrile self-consciousness they were happy enough. And outside of that limited circle, where people did not bother about being modern and took life as it came, no doubt there were thousands of happy marriages.
But life had not educated her for happiness of that sort, however she may have scrambled to the top of her old pit. She could love, but not in duality. She had found something very wonderful and precious and inspiring, but there was only one way to keep it.
To be jealous of Polly was monstrous, unworthy of her. She was, of course, but she’d dig it out by the roots.
And what was she to do with her life? She must make something of it. She wanted no more of society of any sort. She took no interest—beyond that of any intelligent person—in politics, and she certainly would associate herself with nothing that led to being constantly surrounded by masses of women. She had no artistic gift; active work in the cause of charity would merely bore her. . . . It might be amusing to adopt a dozen children. . . . Well, that decision could wait. She had enough on her hands for the present——