How we laughed! He laughed because I laughed, and I laughed because he was laughing. I had some delicious moments of femininity too (such as no woman can resist), until it struck me suddenly that in all this make-believe we were making love to each other again. That frightened me for a time, but I told myself that everything was safe as long as we could carry on the game.
It was not always easy to do so, though, for some of our laughter had tears behind it, and some of our memories had an unexpected sting, because things had a meaning for us now which they never had before, and we were compelled to realise what life had done for us.
Thus I found my throat throbbing when I recalled the loss of our boat, leaving us alone together on that cruel rock with the rising tide threatening to submerge us, and I nearly choked when I repeated my last despairing cry: "I'm not a stunner! . . . and you'll have to give me up . . . and leave me here, and save yourself."
It was like walking over a solfataro with the thin hot earth ready to break up under our feet.
To escape from it I sat down at the piano and began to sing. I dared not sing the music I loved best—the solemn music of the convent—so I sang some of the nonsense songs I had heard in the streets. At one moment I twisted round on the piano stool and said:
"I'll bet you anything"—(I always caught Martin's tone in Martin's company), "you can't remember the song I sang sitting in the boat with William Rufus on my lap."
"I'll bet you anything I can," said Martin.
"Oh, no, you can't," I said.
"Have it as you like, bogh, but sing it for all," said Martin, and then I sang—
"Oh, Sally's the gel for me,
Our Sally's the gel for me,
I'll marry the gel that I love best,
When I come back from sea."