She tried again.
“I suppose she’ll be getting married one of these days.”
“Well,” he said thoughtfully, “it is a fate that frequently overtakes charming women. The lady with the four seats has been obliged to relinquish one of her seats to another elderly female with a bird-cage. It takes an elderly lady to outwit another elderly lady.”
“Pat don’t believe in marriage.”
“We none of us believe in marriage. It’s a question of faith and hope, like religion. It isn’t an Athanasian Creed, with vehement damnatory clauses, which have no application to yourself.”
“You can’t talk, you haven’t tried it,” retorted Claudia. “Then you think—someone—will convert Pat to the usual fate? You already see her in white satin and orange-blossom, and a noisy voice from Eden breathing hard over her?” The wind was causing her hair to wave wildly, and whipping her cheeks to a brilliant pink. Some of the sparkle had come back in her eyes at the contest, and the man at her side was more than aware of her good looks. “Two of us have already made disastrous marriages. Heigh ho! for a third! I’m sure there’s no luck of the children of Circe!”
She had never said plainly before to him that her marriage was a failure. Always they had played about the borderland of truth, each knowing that the other knew. To-day for some reason, she had spoken plainly.
He was silent, leaning against the gunwale, looking down at the hurrying, foaming waters below.
“Are you shocked at me for my lack of reticence?” she said rather bitterly. “Yes, you can’t joke about that. I wanted to make you serious. Oh, yes! you can make a joke now. Look, your old lady is not feeling well, and is hurriedly relinquishing the three seats. Why don’t you look? It’s quite funny, and you always take life with a smile.”
But he never lifted his eyes from the foaming, greenish water. Only his hand, which gripped the gunwale tightly, showed any sign of emotion.