Not for the first time Kingston sighed and found himself baffled by his wife’s perpetual assumption of virginity. Beyond the reach of all allowed caresses, her soul remained untouched, immaculate. The bloodless chastity of temperament that invested this last of Queen Isabel’s offspring was for ever a barrier between man and wife. And neither Kingston nor Gundred had any doubt as to whether the barrier were natural or artificial. Both believed it an essential part of Gundred’s nature. If Gundred herself ever doubted, she stifled the doubt as ill-bred, repulsive, almost irreligious.
‘Ice-house!’ cried Kingston. ‘One may kiss your lips, but the real you is far away beyond the reach of kisses.’
Gundred knew that this was not true, longed to deny it, yet was glad that her husband thought it. She was taking a shamefaced, almost fierce delight in the dialogue. For once her correct coldness had proved a challenge. Too often she had grieved that the low temperature of her behaviour was passing unregretted, unnoticed, and was even beginning to lower the temperature of her lover. Cold she still wished to be, for pride and decorum, yet without paying any of the penalties. The personal intimacy that one aspect of marriage enforces only the more impelled her soul, for the sake of its stiff self-respect, to take refuge in all possible mental reservations and seclusions, by way of indemnifying itself and justifying itself for the other candours into which Nature had driven her, not unwilling, indeed, but always feeling that she ought to be unwilling. Gundred’s temperament was civilized very far below the surface, and the rough facts of life never ceased to strike her as monstrous and barbaric. And most barbarous of all was her own surprised acquiescence. She could only recapture her vanishing dignity by emphasizing at every possible moment the immaculate maidenhood of her mind. This was at once her revenge on Nature, and on herself for loving what Nature sent. But her husband could not understand these subtleties; no clue was given him to the labyrinth of Gundred’s hidden emotions; he took her at her face-value, and imagined her as deeply, incurably frigid as was the manner that she thought proper to assume.
He stood before her, still holding her hands, gazing hotly into the depths of her cool eyes. But now they gave him no answering light. Shallow, clear, and cold, they met his own without a tremor. No soul looked out of them.
‘The real you,’ he repeated at last, after a long pause—‘the real you. Where is it, I wonder? Or is there any such thing? I thought once I could thaw you, but one can’t thaw an icicle unless one can get near it.’
The passion of his speech pleased her no less than the success of her own decorous hypocrisy. Now evidently she was winning the demonstrations for which she secretly hungered, and without any sacrifice of her pudicity.
She drew her hands away.
‘Let me go, dear,’ she said, with mild decision. ‘You make me feel hot and rumpled. If you want to kiss me—well, I suppose I am your wife—yes?’
The tacit invitation, the unexpressed desire, were too successfully concealed by the decorous dullness of her tone. He read into it annoyance and disgust. Abruptly the flame of his mood was extinguished. He dropped her hands, so suddenly that they, not expecting any such desertion, hung limp and disappointed for a moment in the air.
‘Sorry to have bothered you,’ he said. ‘I suppose I am too rough.’