To be “messed about” by Virginia! by, of all the people in the world, Virginia! “Let’s go on as we have done,” she had written. “But how the devil can we?” he tried in his mind to answer reasonably. “We can’t go on, we grown-up people, playing a game of loving in corners, beastly corners—oh, you want to make this thing a liaison, Virginia! and that I won’t have. I’d rather——” What would he rather? he pulled himself up to wonder. And because he couldn’t face the words that might come after that “rather” he suddenly became furious with himself, with Virginia, with everything. He was being bullied, somehow....
2
He went out, at last, in the afternoon. He hadn’t, in his flat, noticed the closeness of the day, but as soon as he was out it met him very uncomfortably. “Damn!” he said. September had ceased to rain, but soon would again, it was so close and gray. He walked into Park Lane and down Hamilton Place. There weren’t many people about, somehow.... The Bachelor’s, at the corner, was closed for cleaning, and it looked frightfully closed. And then, at Hyde Park Corner, he had a vision. The vision held him up as he was about to cross to St. George’s and thus to Belgrave Square, it held him on the curb staring at the navvies tearing up the road. The vision was of another young man on another gray afternoon, but wintry gray. That other afternoon, that other walk, that other young man! Was it like that again? There the buses were by the Park Gates, and the people crowding into them; then there had been a young girl with a very white and serious face, and maybe there was one now; and it had been raining then, and it had been raining now.... Was the only difference between that young man and himself that the young man had had two arms whereas he had only one? Oh, ass.... Whereat he smiled, and crossed Hyde Park Corner. He felt suddenly quite gay. Oh, it was so different! He had admired Magdalen, he had admired her with his heart, as he still did. But he loved Virginia. And he would talk to her now—dear Virginia!—and make her take it all less, well, dramatically. That’s just what was wrong, they were both taking it too dramatically. Lovers are idiots, he thought. He would point out that it was fearful rot about his ever growing to hate her because she made him slack—“Why, my dear,” he’d say, “it’s only with you I can conceive doing anything at all!” And he would tell her again how impossible it was for them to go on as they had been doing, that they had so far only been on holiday, and that holidays must end. And then they would easily arrange something.... And then, to-night, they would dine at the Mont Agel, in the upstairs room. And how surprised M. Stutz would be to see them together again, for he hadn’t seen them together since 1912, and then only in crowds....
3
“The Smith is rather odd,” Ivor thought. He saw her on the stairs of “the mausoleum,” as he climbed to the upstairs drawing-room where Virginia would be. The Smith was on her way out, it seemed. “To the cleaners, I’ll bet,” thought Ivor, seeing the parcel under her arm.
“Good-afternoon, Smith,” he smiled in passing.
“Milady vous attend, monsieur,” she told him seriously; and left him almost gaping at her as she toddled quickly down the wide stone stairway.
4
Milady was playing the piano. She played very seldom, and not at all well. As she sat at the piano, at the far corner of the room, her back was to him; she was in a loose, low-cut, crimson gown, not the appalling crimson of velvet but the soft, enchanting crimson of georgette, and on its loose folds were strewn large golden squares of cabbalistic import; and the whiteness of her slender neck above the crimson gown was a more than human whiteness, it was the legendary whiteness of those Greek boys who lead Greece astray; and her hair, which had been waved that morning, was more golden than gold, even on such a dull September day. And his feet lingered with his eyes, while she played absent-mindedly, as one who knew she did not play well....
“Oh, Virginia!” he cried from behind her, softly, gaily. Everything suddenly seemed so easy.... Her fingers hung absently on the notes, they loitered, they fell; and she turned on the stool, not quickly. She looked up at him, standing happily there.