She picked up her paper. It was useless to argue with them; they must talk themselves out. And again the thought of madness overwhelmed Patricia. The whole scene—the two lounging men, the cosy lamp-lit room—became unreal. She was in a lunatic asylum. Peter and Francis were both dead: their minds, the minds she had once known so well, existed no longer: two ghosts, two utter strangers, occupied these bodies. Two mad ghosts of minds she had known!
The hallucination passed. She felt mentality strengthen in her, felt resolution rise triumphant over weakness. These were not lunatics, but two sufferers, two sick men. And she, Patricia, would cure them both. To cure, to heal—these were the blessed functions of her womanhood. . . .
At last, Francis said good-night; lit his final cigarette; limped towards the door. Patricia helped him on with his coat; found him his torch; watched it dancing over the gravel towards the gate. “Take care of yourself,” she called after him: and thought of Prout, waiting-up in that lonely cottage. She could trust Prout—but for how long? And the girl in America? What would “that girl” do? If I were her, thought Patricia, nothing on earth would keep me from him. . . . Thought expired: she turned back to her husband.
Peter had not moved from the sofa. He sat hunched-up, peering into the fire. His face showed thin and drawn in the flame-light. A great throb of pity for him suffused her: she wanted to fling herself at his feet, to ask his pardon. Mad? Her Peter mad? How had she dared so much as think it of him? He was only ill, ill and sad and broken. His life, his dreams, his health—everything he valued in the world—had gone to smash. He had flung them down, a free gift, in the temple of honour. And now, now he had no more to give! He was spent in honour, exhausted of giving. But she—she to whom he had given, all his life, ungrudgingly—she the acceptor of his gifts—she was not spent; her giving had not yet begun, the fountain of it gushed in her veins, ungrudging, inexhaustible, a great bright fountain of giving. . . .
“Peter!” Her voice woke him from reverie. He felt her warm arms round his neck; her warm lips on his cheek. Instinctively, he recoiled from them: they seemed to invade the privacy of his thought. The warmth of womanhood had no place among those cold devils of fear with whom he walked o’ nights. . . . But she would not let him go. Her arms clung to him; her lips explored his face; her body snuggled against him on the sofa. . . . “Peter,” she was whispering at his ear—“make love to me. Make love to me tonight. I can’t bear you to be away from me any more. . . . You’re being cruel to me, Peter. . . . I can’t go on doing without you, I just can’t. . . . Despise me if you like: but don’t reject me. I want you so . . . I’m shameless. I haven’t got any shame left in me. But I want you, Peter: I want you as you used to want me. You used to want me once, Peter.” . . . He lay in her arms, passive, a man struck dumb. . . . “Peter, you must love me tonight. I can’t be alone any more. Oh, boy, boy”—the old love-word quivered at her lips—“I want you so much. I can’t be alone any more, boy. Are you afraid to love me? . . .”
He sprang from the sofa with a great shrill cry: “Afraid! Yes. I am afraid. God forgive me for being a coward. I am afraid.”
She dragged him down to her. “You mustn’t be afraid of me, boy. I love you. Do you understand. I’m your wife, your slave, your mistress. . . .”
He wrenched himself free; stood up to his full height. She saw him through a sheen of tears, towering above her. His voice carried down to her through immense distances:—
“You mustn’t touch me, Pat. You mustn’t degrade yourself by touching me. I am unclean, a leper in the sight of God and man. The soul inside me has putrefied. Putrefied! You don’t know what that means. I don’t want you to know what that means. It stinks. My soul inside me stinks. My brain is full of filthy pictures. They haunt me. And I am afraid. . . .”
She, too, was afraid; but love in her cast out fear. Brown eyes kindling, she rose to him; twined her arms about him; locked hands behind his neck; clung to him with all her body. She would have kissed him on the lips; but his lips evaded her. The breath whistled through his lips. His heart pounded against her breasts as she forced him back to the sofa. . . . Her hands unlocked from his neck. Her hands fondled him. Lower and lower she sank against him, closer and closer. She could feel all his body quiver to her. He shook under her hands as a ship shakes when she heaves propeller free. . . .