“You shouldn’t ask that, of course,” she reproved. “Everyone who has just been married is very, very happy.… No, I don’t like it a darn bit.”
“It’s not what you expected, then.”
“I don’t know what I expected, but from the way people talk about it and write about it you would certainly think it was something wonderful—love and passion and bliss and all that, I mean. I feel that I’ve either been lied to or cheated … of course[,]” she added with a little side glance at him, “I didn’t exactly love my husband.…” She blushed and looked down again; then laughed softly and rather joyfully for a lady with a broken heart.
“If mother could only hear me now!” she observed.… “She’d faint. I don’t care.… That’s just the way I feel.… I don’t care! All my life I’ve been trained and groomed and prepared for the grand and glorious event of marriage. I’ve been taught it’s the most wonderful [pg 240] thing that can happen to anyone. That’s what all the books say, and all the people I know. And here it turns out to be a most uncomfortable bore.…”
He looked gravely sympathetic.
“Do you think it would have been different with—someone you did love?” he enquired cautiously.
She gave him another quick thrilling glance.
“I don’t know,” she said.… “Maybe … I felt so different about you.”
Their hands met on the settee and they both moved instinctively a little closer together.
Suddenly she jerked away from him, looking him in the eyes with her head thrown back and a smile of irony on her lips.