“But why don’t you work, Ivor? Why are you so happy with me—why don’t you work?” That is what she cried; and her eyes glittered piteously with the perverse fear that comes to people in a fever.
“You are choking me with your happiness—in a lovely way, but you are choking me, I can’t explain. And you are choking yourself, too. Oh, I know! You are a striving person, Ivor, but now you are too happy, you are soaking yourself in happiness. It’s my fault.... This is unnatural for you, this life of ours, you want to work and strive and think things as well as to love—and here you are, being softened and choked! Why don’t I see you miserable, Ivor, why aren’t you wretched at all this waste? You are losing yourself in love, and as you lose yourself I will lose you. Oh, yes, it’s like that with us....” She had overtaxed her strength, and as she lay back she looked as though she might faint, if a wraith can faint.
And he laughed at her and reminded her of their pact, and of the things they had said that first evening in Paris....
“Oh, that!” she cried. And his face was so near to her that he kissed her lips, those taut, dry lips—burning dry now.
“Yes,” she whispered, “it’s been divine—it is divine. But now it’s ending, Ivor! We are flying back to London next week—you are taking me back to London! And I’ve got the feeling of the ‘dead-end’ on me again, for the first time since I met you in that lane—it’s stolen back! For you’ve become like me, you know, this love has been stronger than you, and you are going soft and rotten with it—you are drifting with me, my sweet, instead of my striving with you! That is what’s called being lovers, and it’s very bad for people. I told you, don’t you remember, that we shouldn’t be lovers, you and I. Oh, I am so wise sometimes!” ...
“When we are married,” he mocked her, “a slight difference will be perceptible in our relations. We will be busy lovers, then. There are so many stars in the sky, Virginia, that there’s no reason for us to stay on one....”
“Oh, when we are married!” she echoed his mockery very queerly; and she held up his chin with her hand and looked deep into his eyes. And she mocked his bewilderment at her mood, whispering, “Poor child!” so that he was uncomfortable. She was very wise sometimes, she had said.
“How can you say that, Ivor, when you know I may die next week? How do you know I won’t die—and I wouldn’t care but for you! I’ve got like that. But what I am thinking now is that maybe it would be better for you if I did die, much better maybe. You could strive all you wanted then!” she breathed with a sudden catch, and feverishly pushed his face from her. “How do you know anything, Ivor, to talk so glibly about our marrying? You are very arrogant, I do think.... There was a lot of destiny in Greek plays, and how do you know there isn’t some left for us—for unanchored people like you and me? Destiny for the undecided.... Perhaps it’s fated that you take me to my death as Iphigenia was taken to sacrifice. Perhaps you are taking Virginia to sacrifice to the god of your life, so that the voyage of your life will be helped with favourable winds! Oh, Ivor, don’t protest, for how can you know anything? These things are very secret from us....”
“Women have moods,” Magdalen had said. “They can’t help it, and no one can help them....”