“And, when we’re married, will it be easier to resist him?”
“He’ll leave me alone. He may go abroad... Do you understand? Or do you just despise me?”
She smiled wistfully and held out her hands to him again. Though he had not kissed her on coming into the room, she had not commented on the omission; perhaps she had not noticed it. Their relationship had been wholly passionless. When he brought her back from Maidenhead and saw her for the first time in ecstasy, the glory in her eyes was spiritual; it was gratitude, admiration, love and a great amazement; if she then begged him to kiss her, it was because a kiss was her readiest symbol of love. For Gaymer she had once felt passion; when he ordered her to kiss him, knowing the degree and source of his power, she obeyed. That would pass in a few months; the strength of sex was only equalled by its transience; and they would find nothing to put in its place. While it was there, it was all-powerful; she could only escape it by running away, by surrounding herself with a bodyguard, by reminding the flesh that she owned claims of the spirit also. In so far as Eric could analyse her mind, she yearned to be with Gaymer; and she resisted the yearning, because she owed a spiritual debt to some one else. She would be happier with Gaymer—for a time; no doubt she fancied that she would always be happier. But she was prepared to sacrifice that for honour, for gratitude....
“I’m trying to understand,” he answered. “I once thought that I was utterly helpless in one woman’s hands. There was nothing I wouldn’t do... But I found it was a thing one could overcome. If I went up in blue smoke here and now, you’d marry Gaymer? You remember there was a time when you wouldn’t look at him.”
“I didn’t know everything then.”
“And, if I don’t go up in blue smoke and if he got enough money, if we stood side by side before you, and you had a perfectly free choice?”
Ivy laughed with a dove’s coo of devotion:
“My darling, I should choose you!”
“And if Gaymer tried to entice you away?”
“But you wouldn’t let me go!”