“Oh, in that case, Princess, he shall be here to-morrow!”
So Joe has become a sporting gentleman, thought Wilfred with curling lip. Wilfred was left standing like a clown with a witless grin daubed on his face. What he ought to have done was to leave, he knew; but he was incapable of making a good exit; and he would not slink out like a whipped dog. So he stayed. He sat down on a straight-backed chair a little to one side of the fireplace, facing the other two. The faces of Elaine and Joe were strongly revealed in the firelight. It was nothing to them if Wilfred watched them.
They rattled on. It appeared that they shared a hundred small interests. Joe had achieved the precise tone of Elaine’s world. The rattle was all a blind, Wilfred suspected. The fact that they never looked at each other, gave the game away. He imagined that he heard a rich quality in their laughter, having nothing to do with the trifles they discussed. Hidden things escaped in their laughter. Elaine’s superb nonchalance might very well be a sham. She could get away with anything. Such a woman recognized only one truth; the truth of her emotions. Color had stolen into her cheeks; it was an effort to keep her lips decorous. Secrets! secrets! between these two! Diana was only a woman of the flesh! What a handsome male Joe was, damn him! Wilfred felt as if he would die with the beating of his heart, and the pressure of blood against his temples.
Knowing himself, he strove desperately to make a stand against this madness. You are imagining it all! You cannot honestly say that Elaine has changed in the slightest degree. She treats Joe precisely the same as she treated you. . . .
Elaine sought to draw Wilfred into the talk. “Funny you two should be acquainted,” she said.
“Oh yes,” said Joe with a mocking laugh in Wilfred’s direction. “It’s ten years since we first laid eyes on each other. Remember that night, Pell?”
“I remember,” said Wilfred, seeking Joe’s eyes in wonder. Joe’s eyes skated laughingly away. Clever and daring as Satan! thought Wilfred.
Joe went on to give a humorous account of the psychical evening at the house of Wilfred’s Aunts long ago. Elaine was to infer that this was the occasion of their first meeting. In telling the story, Joe allowed his own soullessness to appear quite nakedly. He didn’t care; nor, apparently, did Elaine. It was a good joke.
Meanwhile Wilfred was working himself up to the point of going. He finally stood up with a jerk. “Well, I must trot along,” he said in a thin voice.
“So long, Wilfred,” said Elaine in her boyish way.