‘If you would marry Mariella,’ she said, still out of her dream, ‘you could bring up Peter. She’d like that. I think she loves you.’
He took no notice; and she wondered if she had not spoken aloud, after all; or whether her small voice had not penetrated his absorption.
‘Why, what would we make of each other married?’ he went on. ‘It would be one long succession of agaçements. We’re both so self-conscious, so fastidious, so civilized.... Oh, it would be appalling.’
‘Yes, it would.’
‘But, Judith, lovely delightful Judith,’ he pleaded, his voice deep and beautiful, ‘for a season, for a season! A clean leap in, and out again the minute it started to be a failure. Think what we could give each other!’
‘It would be very good for us I suppose....’ She held her head in her hands, trying to think. What could he possibly give her that she would want?
‘It would, it would. We’d live a bit instead of thinking. I’d make you forget, I swear: and what things I’d give you to remember instead!—good things that have been my secrets for years, that I’ve longed for years to share, to offer to your lovely quick intelligence. No one else has had them, Judith. They’ve been waiting for you: nobody else has ever come near you in my mind. Judith, it wouldn’t be the irritating tiresome old bore you know: that isn’t I! I’ve got secrets. Let me tell you them. So much beauty I’d enrich you with, and then I’d let you go. Isn’t that fair? Isn’t that worth having? Go and marry and breed afterwards if you must, but let me give you this first. Try me, Judith, try me. You can’t refuse to try me. I want you so much.’
She wanted to stop her ears: for she felt herself helplessly yielding to the old syren of words.
‘Julian—I couldn’t give you—what you wanted. Oh, I couldn’t! It’s such a step—you don’t realise—for a woman. She can’t ever get back—afterwards, and be safe in the world. And she might want to.’
‘I’d see you got back if you wanted to. But I don’t think you will. You won’t want to be safe. That’s not for you. Oh, Judith, I know you better than you know yourself.’