And she said slowly, “Yes, of course I shall—as soon as I can forget what happened just now. Let’s get home, Beppo. And, if you don’t mind, do promise me never to speak to me of it again!”
“I do promise you,” he said solemnly. And then, to Lily’s secret astonishment, Beppo seemed suddenly to slip back into his old pleasant, easy way with her! It was almost as if what had happened on the edge of that great wooded gorge had been a dream—horrible, unnerving to look back on, but still only a dream.
Even so, she felt she would never forget, not even if she lived another fifty years, that awful moment of wordless, passionate struggle in the little car. She shuddered as she remembered how she had told herself that could she only free herself from Beppo’s strong arms she would leap out into the void rather than endure the further contamination of his touch.
When they were close to La Solitude Beppo suddenly turned round. “Look here!” he exclaimed, “I think I’ll go down to Monte Carlo this afternoon. A fellow I know asked me to meet him at the Club this evening. Good Madame Sansot will give me a bed at the Utrecht Hotel.” He paused. “Perhaps your thoughts will be kinder to-morrow?”
He said those words so humbly and sincerely that poor Lily felt troubled.
“Won’t your going away upset Aunt Cosy?” she asked timidly.
“No, not a bit! I shall come up in the morning. But this is our last drive in this little car. Would that it had been a happier one for you! Tell them that I have gone down with the car, Lily, and that I may or may not come back to dinner.”
They were now on the clearing below the house, and then, so strange is human nature, Lily, in spite of all that had happened, felt just a little sorry that Beppo was going to leave her to go up alone to deliver his message at La Solitude.
“Won’t you come up to the house?” she said nervously. “They’ll think it so odd—your going away like this.”
And at once he said, quickly and reassuringly: “Yes, of course I’ll come up! I thought you would prefer that I should not do so.”