By making this statement—not especially to George, but to the world in general—she could say to herself: “You see how honest you are. You are hiding nothing.”
He meanwhile hated his position, but was driven on by a vague sense that she needed comfort, and that he ought to give it her.
“See here, Harriet,” he said, awkwardly, “perhaps it needn’t be so bad. Nothing very terrible’s happened, I mean. After all, they were going to marry anyway. They’ve only done it a bit sooner. They might have told us, it’s true—they ought to have told us—but, after all, young people will be young people, won’t they? We can’t be very angry with them. And young Mark isn’t quite an Englishman, you know. Been abroad so long.”
As he spoke he dwindled and dwindled before her until his huge, healthy body seemed like a little speck, a fly, crawling upon the distant wall.
“Nothing very terrible’s happened” ... “Nothing very terrible’s happened” ... “NOTHING VERY TERRIBLE’S HAPPENED.”
George, who, during these many years had been very little in her life, disappeared, as he made that speech, utterly and entirely out of it. He was never to figure in it again, but he did not know that.
He suddenly sat down beside her on the old sofa and put his arm round her. She did not move.
They sat there in utter silence. At last desperately, as though he were committing the crime of his life, he kissed her. She patted his hand.
“You look tired,” he said, feeling an immense relief, now that he had done his duty. “You go to bed.”
“Good night, George dear,” she said.