“You’re not!”
“No—because if I told them before it happened they’d try to stop it; and though they couldn’t stop it, it would be a nuisance having them try.”
“Does your brother agree with this?”
“It was he that suggested it.”
“Well, I’ve a great respect for that brother of yours. But, sweetheart, it seems so dreadful, us marrying on the quiet, when I’m so proud of you and ud like to hold you before all the world.”
“You shall hold me before all the world—after our marriage. But there’s no good having a row with the parents, especially as they’re old. It’ll be bad enough for them anyhow, but I think they’ll take it easier if they know it’s too late to do anything.”
He acquiesced, as he usually did, for he respected her judgment, and his natural dignity taught him to ignore this contempt of Alard for Godfrey. The rest of their short time together must not be spoiled by discussion. Once more he drew her close, and his kisses moved slowly from her forehead to her eyes, from her eyes to her cheeks, then at last to her mouth. His love-making gave her the thrill of a new experience, for she knew what a discovery and a wonder it was to him. It was not stale with repetition, distressed with comparison, as it was to so many men—as it was to herself. She felt a stab of remorse, a regret that she too was not making this adventure for the first time. She was younger than he, and yet beside him she felt shabby, soiled.... She strained him to her heart in an agony of tender possession. Oh, she would make his adventure worth while—he should not be disappointed in experience. They would explore the inmost heart of love together.
§ 24
Jenny was glad that the numbers in the drawing-room made it unnecessary for her to sit down to cards. She and Rose Alard had both cut out, and as Rose liked to sit and watch the play, Jenny felt she had an excuse to mutter something about “having one or two things to see to,” and escape from the room. She wanted to be alone if only for half an hour, just to savour again in memory the comfort of her lover’s arms, his tender breathing, the warmth of his kisses and the darkness of his embrace. She shut her eyes and heard him say “My lovely ... oh, my lovely!”
A full moon was spilling her light over the garden, and instinctively Jenny turned out of doors. She had put on her fur coat, and the still, moon-dazzled night was many degrees from frost. In the garden she would be sure of solitude, and at the same time would not be without the response of nature, so necessary to her mood. “One deep calleth another,” and her heart in its new depth of rapture called to the moon and trees and grass, and received from them an answer which those self-absorbed human beings, crowded over cards, could never give.