Eric thanked the nurse and continued dressing. The night of unresisting, helpless exhaustion had been tranquil as death; he wondered whether Ivy had slept... Or had she been rehearsing the speech in which she would tell him that she could not marry him? Or would she say nothing, waiting for him to tell her that he had been in the passage outside her room while she threw him aside for Gaymer?... It was significant that she asked to see him. An easy conscience must have told her that he would have come as soon as he was dressed....
He went in to find her tired and nervously excited, but she achieved an unembarrassed smile of welcome and asked how he was.
“I’ll return the c-compliment,” he said, wondering why he stammered. “How are you, Ivy? You’re the invalid.”
“Oh, I’m much better. I shall be able to come down to Lashmar at the end of next week.”
Eric turned away and looked for a chair. At times of great mental exhaustion it was hard to tell whether a thing had happened or whether he had dreamed it. Ivy was talking as though she had never perjured herself for Gaymer, as though she had never seen him again—an absurd, intoxicating child with short black curls and thin white arms, the immature bud of a woman... Yet there was a table by the bed within reach of her hand; on the table stood a black Wedgwood bowl; in the bowl a nodding mass of lilies. Once or twice before, when she was living with Lady Maitland and dining alone with Gaymer, she had confessed to inventing fellow-guests to keep her in countenance and to placate her aunt; she had regarded the lie as amusing and clever, certainly venial; Eric hoped that she was not going to lie now. Perhaps he had imagined that nightmare moment in the passage, perhaps the sight of her frank grey eyes kept his habit of love unbroken; undoubtedly he loved her still, loved her so desperately that he could not bear to see her made vile with a lie... But the lilies at least were not imaginary... Her easy reference to Lashmar shewed that she intended to confess nothing; she would leave him to find out. One day he would receive a letter to say that she had run off with Gaymer; in the meantime she played her double part with outward unconcern, as though she were already married and had a secret lover....
“At the end of next week,” he repeated.
It was easier to echo her words than to break new ground.
“Are you going back at once? I hope you’re going to stay here,” she said, beckoning him to a chair.
“I promised my mother to go back to-day.”
“Can’t you telephone? I do so want you to stay... Eric, does your mother know? I’ve been so afraid she might disapprove of me. Have you told her?”