‘I really think I had better go,’ he said.
‘No!’ She put out a hand and clutched his arm in desperate protest. ‘Not yet, Roddy. Not for a moment. Can’t we—O God! I wish I’d never written that letter. Then there’d have been no need for all this.... You’d have gone away and said nothing—and gradually I’d have understood. I should have seen it all in its proper light. Things would have somehow come right again, perhaps. And now I suppose they never can.... Can they, Roddy, can they? Oh, if they could!’
How he was hating this scene! It was a shame to prolong it. He swallowed hard and said, rather nervously:
‘Do you suppose you really meant—all you said in your letter?’
It was her chance. She must say it was all nonsense, that letter, that it was written in a moment of madness; that she did not mean it now. Then they might somehow manage to laugh together and part friends. He was such a good laugher! She could go away and bury her disappointment; and next time they met, be to him what he wanted: a light flame of passion, blown out, relit again. He had given her the taste for his kisses. She would miss them, and desire them painfully. If she could act her part skilfully now, she need not be for ever without them.
But it was no good: the thing would not be lied about.
She nodded, gazing at him in utter despair. She went on nodding and nodding, asserting the truth in silence and with all her force, compelling him to believe it. She saw him flush faintly beneath his sallow skin.
‘I’m very sorry then,’ he said, in his frozen voice.
She cried out:
‘Oh, Roddy! Did you never like me? Didn’t you even like me? All these years! It seemed as if you did.... I couldn’t have grown to—like you so much if you hadn’t given me a little—a little return....’