‘No, I’m perfectly sure I was right,’ he insisted. Then he said: ‘I’m going to take a big risk—I’m going to take the risk of losing your friendship.’
His voice was so genuinely regretful, that Stephen must ask him: ‘Well—what is it, Brockett?’
‘You, my dear. You’re not playing fair with that girl; the life she’s leading would depress a mother abbess. It’s enough to give anybody the hump, and it’s going to give Mary neurasthenia!’
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘Don’t get ratty and I’ll tell you. Look here, I’m not going to pretend any more. Of course we all know that you two are lovers. You’re gradually becoming a kind of legend—all’s well lost for love, and that sort of thing. . . . But Mary’s too young to become a legend; and so are you, my dear, for that matter. But you’ve got your work, whereas Mary’s got nothing—not a soul does that miserable kid know in Paris. Don’t please interrupt, I’ve not nearly finished; I positively must and will have my say out! You and she have decided to make a ménage—as far as I can see it’s as bad as marriage! But if you were a man it would be rather different; you’d have dozens of friends as a matter of course. Mary might even be going to have an infant. Oh, for God’s sake, Stephen, do stop looking shocked. Mary’s a perfectly normal young woman; she can’t live by love alone, that’s all rot—especially as I shrewdly suspect that when you’re working the diet’s pretty meagre. For heaven’s sake let her go about a bit! Why on earth don’t you take her to Valérie Seymour’s? At Valérie’s place she’d meet lots of people; and I ask you, what harm could it possibly do? You shun your own ilk as though they were the devil! Mary needs friends awfully badly, and she needs a certain amount of amusement. But be a bit careful of the so-called normal.’ And now Brockett’s voice grew aggressive and bitter. ‘I wouldn’t go trying to force them to be friends—I’m not thinking so much of you now as of Mary; she’s young and the young are easily bruised. . . .’
He was perfectly sincere. He was trying to be helpful, spurred on by his curious affection for Stephen. At the moment he felt very friendly and anxious; there was nothing of the cynic left in him—at the moment. He was honestly advising according to his lights—perhaps the only lights that the world had left him.
And Stephen could find very little to say. She was sick of denials and subterfuges, sick of tacit lies which outraged her own instincts and which seemed like insults thrust upon Mary; so she left Brockett’s bolder statements unchallenged. As for the rest, she hedged a little, still vaguely mistrustful of Valérie Seymour. Yet she knew quite well that Brockett had been right—life these days must often be lonely for Mary. Why had she never thought of this before? She cursed herself for her lack of perception.
Then Brockett tactfully changed the subject; he was far too wise not to know when to stop. So now he told her about his new play, which for him was a very unusual proceeding. And as he talked on there came over Stephen a queer sense of relief at the thought that he knew. . . . Yes, she actually felt a sense of relief because this man knew of her relations with Mary; because there was no longer any need to behave as if those relations were shameful—at all events in the presence of Brockett. The world had at last found a chink in her armour.
6
‘We must go and see Valérie Seymour one day,’ Stephen remarked quite casually that evening. ‘She’s a very well-known woman in Paris. I believe she gives rather jolly parties. I think it’s about time you had a few friends.’