“I don’t see that you can help us by staying,” Brenda said.
“I mean for good,” he explained tragically.
I heard afterwards that he had been in love with Brenda since she was nine years old, but I might have inferred the fact from his present attitude. He simply could not believe, as yet, that she would let him go—for good, as he said. No doubt she had tricked and plagued him so often in the past that the present situation seemed to him nothing more than the repetition of a familiar experience.
Brenda must have realised that, too; but, no doubt, she shrank from wounding him mortally in public. The ten years of familiar intercourse between her and Ronnie were not to be obliterated in a day, not even by the fury of her passion for Arthur Banks.
“I know,” she said. “But you are interrupting, Ronnie. Do go!”
“And leave you here?” He was suddenly encouraged again by her tone. He looked down at her, now; pleading like a great puppy, beseeching her to put a stop to this very painful game.
“Surely, Ronnie, you must realise that I—mean it, this time,” she said.
“Not that you’re going to … going to Canada,” he begged.
“Yes. Yes. Definitely and absolutely finally yes,” she said.
“With—him?”