“It will help me if you can tell me exactly how he took it, Christopher. Was he angry, or sorry, or horrified or what?”
He had to consider a moment what, out of fairness to Geoffry, he must withhold, and choose what he considered the most pardonable aspect.
“I think he was frightened, Patricia, not at you, so much as at some silly ideas he’s got hold of about heredity. Not his own: just half-digested ideas, and he probably finds it pretty difficult to listen to them at all. He just thinks he ought to, I suppose.”
Again the faint little smile in her face.
“You are a dear, Christopher, when you try to whitewash things. Listen to me. Whatever Geoffry said or does or writes, I’ve decided I will not marry him. I’ve written to say so and posted it before you came in, so he should know that nothing he had said or done influenced me in the slightest.”
Christopher gave a sigh of relief and she went on in the same deliberate way.
“And I shall never marry at all. I can’t face it again. I’ll tell Renata about Geoffry, and may I also tell her you will explain to the others if she can’t satisfy them?”
“I will do anything you wish.” Then he suddenly 286 claimed for himself a little latitude and spoke from his heart.
“Patricia, dear, I’m glad you’ve done it. It’s the best and right thing, however hard, and if I could manage to take all the bother of it for you I would. Honestly, Geoffry wouldn’t have been able to help you, I fear. But as to never marrying, you must not say that or make rash vows, and you must never, never let yourself think it isn’t safe to marry, or that sort of nonsense. It’s in your own hands. We are always strong enough for our own job, so Cæsar says. Shall I find Renata and ask her to come to you?”
They stood facing each other, an arm’s length separating them, and she looked at him across the little space with so great gratitude and affection in her eyes that he felt humbled at the little he offered from so great a store at his heart.