“So that’s what you’ve been doing all this time. That’s your secret!” She was just as pleased as she could be. “That’s what’s changed you. Of course! One might have guessed!”
But behind her excitement and pleasure he detected also, he thought, a note of disappointment that puzzled him. What had she thought that he had been doing?
“I have just been telling them—the Gales. Sir Richard was considerably annoyed.”
“Of course—hateful old man—of course he’d mind; hurt his pride.” Mrs. Maradick had clasped her hands round her knees and was swinging a little foot. “But you stood up to them. I wish I’d seen you.”
But he hurried on. That was, after all, quite unimportant compared with the main thing that he had to say to her. He wondered how she would take it. The new idea that he had of her, the new way that he saw her, was beginning to be so precious to him, that he couldn’t bear to think that he might, after all, suddenly lose it. He could see her, after his telling her, return to the old, sharp, biting satire. There would be the old wrangles, the old furious quarrels; for a moment at the thought of it he hesitated. Perhaps, after all, it were better not to tell her. The episode was ended. There would never be a recrudescence of it, and there was no reason why she should know. But something hurried him on; he must tell her, it was the decent thing to do.
“But there’s another thing that I must tell you, that I ought to tell you. I don’t know even that I’m ashamed of it. I believe that I would go through it all again if I could learn as much. But it’s all over, absolutely over. I’ve fancied for the last fortnight that I was in love with Mrs. Lester. I’ve kissed her and she’s kissed me. You needn’t be afraid. That’s all that happened, and I’ll never kiss her again. But there it is!”
He flung it at her for her to take it or leave it. He hadn’t the remotest idea what she would say or do. Judging by his past knowledge of her, he expected her to storm. But it was a test of the new Mrs. Maradick as to whether, indeed, it had been all his imagination about there being any new Mrs. Maradick at all.
There was silence. He didn’t look at her; and then, suddenly, to his utter amazement she broke into peals of laughter. He couldn’t believe his ears. Laughing! Well, women were simply incomprehensible! He stared at her.
“Why, my dear!” she said at last, “of course I’ve seen it all the time. Of course I have, or nearly all the time. You don’t suppose that I go about with my eyes shut, do you? Because I don’t, I can tell you. Of course I hated it at the time. I was jealous, jealous as anything. First time I’ve been jealous of you since we were married; I hated that Mrs. Lester anyhow. Cat! But it was an eye-opener, I can tell you. But there’ve been lots of things happening since we’ve been here, and that’s only one of them. And I’m jolly glad. I like women to like you. I’ve liked the people down here making up to you, and then you’ve been different too.”
Then she crossed over to his chair and suddenly put her arm around his neck. Her voice lowered. “I’ve fallen in love with you while we’ve been down here, for the first time since we’ve been married. I don’t know why, quite. It started with your being so beastly and keeping it up. You always used to give way before whenever I said anything to you, but you’ve kept your end up like anything since you’ve been here. And then it was the people liking you better than they liked me. And then it was Mrs. Lester, my being jealous of her. And it was even more than those things—something in the air. I don’t know, but I’m seeing things differently. I’ve been a poor sort of wife most of the time, I expect; I didn’t see it before, but I’m going to be different. I could kiss your Mrs. Lester, although I do hate her.”