“Billie, you fool, don’t you know how ridiculous it is; to love anyone so much? Better far to cut your heart up into lots of little pieces and distribute them than give it away in a lump. Don’t you know that?”
No, Billie didn’t know that at all.
“Well, it is. Listen to my words of wisdom and ponder them in your doggy understanding. It hurts, Billie boy, to love very much, it hurts dreadfully, though you pretend, except to a little dog who keeps your counsel, that it doesn’t. Well, I shall never do it again, and it’s all over, Billie; it’s all over, both the dream and the awakening.... Go to your basket and sleep the sleep of the faithful.”
They drove some way in silence. Inside the motor it was cosy and warm, in pleasant contrast to the streets, for the snow that lingered still on the trees had turned into slush on the pavements. The pedestrians looked uncomfortable and nipped by the east wind which was blowing, and the mud on the roads gleamed evilly in the light of the street lamps. Here and there they passed dirty heaps of snow in sheltered corners. Like the lace petticoats of a fine lady once pure and spotless, it was revolting now in its soiled, bedraggled state. People waiting in the wind at street corners for buses looked enviously at the motor as they passed. The padded luxury in which the two were enveloped, the dim frosted light, the narcissi in the silver holder diffusing a faint perfume, were very intime and aloof from the discomfort abroad.
They had left Baker Street behind them before Claudia came out of her reverie and realized that she was not being sociable. She looked sideways at her companion, to find him steadily regarding her.
“Are you wondering when I would be polite and talk?” she said, with a smile.
“No.... I was making a mental picture of you. I think—I think I can paint you now. I want to paint you in that velvet cloak—what colour do you call it?—it is like copper in the firelight—with the sable just touching your throat at one side just as it is now and falling off the other shoulder. Will you let me? Oh! I want my brushes in my hand now.” His eyes suddenly blazed with the inspiration of the moment as they devoured her. Quickly she drew the folds of the cloak closer around her neck. She felt as though a scorching wind had swept over her, a sirocco of passion came from him to her. She shrank back a little, yet even as she instinctively did so she wondered why. Her husband flagrantly neglected her, most of her friends had consoled themselves for their husbands’ shortcomings, and had not she almost determined to seek the love which she craved outside her home? She met his eyes, and she was half attracted, half repelled by their light. She liked him, she felt his magnetism drawing her, and yet something which she could not quite understand bobbed quickly up to the surface of her mind and surveyed them both with a certain contempt. So she was a little cruel in her reply to his enthusiasm.
“You were not very successful last time. I hope you destroyed that picture.”
“Yes, I slashed it to pieces in the middle of the night,” he said sombrely.