Amory smiled cynically. “Oh, I’ve not had any scandalous relation with anybody except you!”
“Er—er—ha—have some more tea,” said Cosimo quaveringly, putting out his hand to the cold teapot.
There was a moment’s silence.
“Perhaps you don’t believe me either?” said Amory presently, her head suddenly thrown back. “Perhaps you thought I’d found another friend while you were away?”
“Oh, Amory!” Cosimo reproached her; but he fidgeted uneasily. Perhaps he had suddenly remembered Pattie Wynn-Jenkins.
“Because—because——” Amory’s voice quavered now, “because if you did, Cosimo, it wasn’t true—it wasn’t—I trusted you as I thought you trusted me——”
She showed signs of breaking down. That was infinitely pathetic. Is it not pathetic, when one who is prepared to defy the whole world provided she is allowed her single beautiful friendship, finds that friendship too yielding under the strain? Cosimo thought so, and put out his hand rather aimlessly.
But Amory drew her own hand back. The pathetic weakness passed. Wearily she laughed now.
“Oh no, better not, Cosimo. There are perfectly innocent things that we can’t allow ourselves. It’s hard, isn’t it? but you see what the world is. It’s probably damned us already; we’re probably damned at this moment for being together here; but as long as we give it no reason it only recoils on its own head. I’m perfectly willing to accept the situation. I accepted it in a sense when I did that foolish thing with the Antinöus. I thought then that I was just vowing myself to my art, but I see now that it was a far greater thing. It really meant that I chose all the large and beautiful and abstract things—a sort of life of toil—and put off these other things once for all. I didn’t know; I might not have had the courage if I’d known; but there’s no going back. Once I said our friendship must end, Cosimo, but that’s over too. They’d talk just the same if we ended it now. So let them talk. It’s bitter, but if I can bear it you ought to be able to. After all, there is that petty sense in which I lose more than you do.”
Cosimo had been staring hard at her. Again he had a merely conventional look. This time it was that of a man who, occupied with important and practical things, indulgently allows a woman to talk while he arrives at his conclusion. Presently he seemed to have come to the conclusion. His face was set.