He turned quickly, for Ivy had never before used his Christian name.
“Yes?”
“Eric...” She hesitated, and he saw that her cheeks were crimson. “Eric, I want to tell you about Johnnie.”
“My dear, I’ve forgotten that there is such a person.”
After screwing herself up to do her duty, Ivy did not feel entitled to be relieved of it.
“Perhaps you won’t think as badly of me afterwards,” she faltered.
“But I don’t think badly of you! I want a new life to start from to-day. If we get married—you mustn’t dream of deciding yet—, I want to obliterate everything that happened before to-day. So far as our joint life is concerned, we meet now for the first time. Let’s see all we can of each other. If we become engaged, we’ll announce it, get married as soon as possible and go straight out to America. I’ve always an excuse to go there for as long as I like; we can come back when it suits us and we can settle down to domestic life in England. It’s very probable that you’ll meet Gaymer—I’ve found that you can’t avoid meeting people in London, however much you may want to—, but you’ll meet him as a mere acquaintance. And, Ivy, the only thing I know of him is that I’ve run across him for three years in other people’s houses and have never invited him to my own, because we don’t seem to have anything in common. Isn’t that enough?”
She made a vague movement with head and shoulders, but he could see that she was hardly listening to him.
“I—can’t understand,” she faltered. “You must despise me so, and I’ve nothing to give... It’s like a dream.”
“I’m asking you to give me the whole of yourself for all my life...,” Eric answered. “Now I’m going to paddle you back.”