“What a fine hearty creature he is!” said Philip.
“Isn't he?” said Kate.
“Education and intellect don't always go together.”
“Any wife might love such a husband,” said Kate.
“So simple, so natural, so unsuspicious——-”
But that was coming to quarters too close, so they fell back on silence. The silence was awful; the power of it was pitiless. If they could have spoken the poorest commonplaces, the spell might have dissolved. Philip thought he would rise, but he could not do so. Kate tried to turn away, but felt herself rooted to the spot. With faces aside, they remained some moments where they were, as if a spirit had passed between them.
Mrs. Gorry came in to lay the supper, and then Kate recovered herself. She got back her power of laughter, and laughed at everything. He was not deceived. “She loves me still,” said the voice of his heart. He hated himself for the thought, but it haunted him with a merciless persistence. He remembered the evening of the wedding-day, and the imploring look she gave him on going away with Pete; and he returned to the idea that she had been married under the compulsion of her father, Cæsar, the avaricious hypocrite. He told himself it would be easy to kindle a new fire on the warm hearth. As she laughed and he looked into her beautiful eyes and caught the nervous twitch of her mouth, he felt something of the old thrill, the old passion, the old unconditioned love of her who loved him in spite of all, and merely because she must. But no! Had he spent six months abroad for nothing? He would be strong; he would be loyal. If need be he would save this woman from herself.
At last Kate lit a candle and said, “I must show you to your room.”
She talked cheerily going upstairs. On the landing she opened the door of the room above the hall, and went into it, and drew down the blind. She was still full of good spirits, said perhaps he had no night-shirt, so she had left out one of Pete's, hoped he would find it big enough, and laughed again. He took the candle from her at the threshold, and kissed the hand that had held it. She stood a moment quivering like a colt, then she bounded away; there was the clash of a door somewhere beyond, and Kate was in her own room, kneeling before the bed with her face buried in the counterpane to stifle the sobs that might break through the walls.
Under all her lightness, in spite of all her laughter, the old tormenting thought had been with her still. Should she tell him? Could he understand? Would he believe? If he realised the gravity of the awful position in which she was soon to be placed, would he make an effort to extricate her? And if he did not, would not, could not, should not she hate him for ever after? Then the old simple love, the pure passion, came hack upon her at the sight of his face, at the touch of his hand, at the sound of his voice? Oh, for what might have been—what might have been!