Then she sat down and read her letters.
“He won’t ask Sir Ralph,” she thought. “Shall I go? I am tired of Sir Ralph, and Jack never bores me.”
She ordered her husband’s favourite pudding for lunch, and arranged the flowers, but he did not come. He was afraid of wearying her, and sat in his rooms, wanting to go to what he called the Haven, but not daring. A drawn sword hovered over his Paradise. After lunch Lily wrote to him.
“My Dearest,—You thought me a cold brute this morning, I know. Can’t you understand how it is? I am so terribly afraid of your ceasing to care that I seem so indifferent? Marriage we all know does not increase love. And I feel that if I were once to show you how much I love you you would change. Your love would grow less; we cannot stand still; and I am trying to control fate, to hold you and to keep you forever. I know that my power over you would vanish if you were sure of me, and if we were to settle down in a house with stairs, you would soon regard me as an article of furniture—necessary perhaps to your comfort, but to be easily replaced if broken. You are such a husband now; that is what I resent, and you are too fond of coming to breakfast; why are you not my lover still? If I were your mistress you would come and dine with me, and we should be perfectly happy. You would not dream of inquiring what men or man had called, and the duration of each visit; you must make love to me as you used to do and trust me absolutely. I am yours—I think of you always, not sometimes but always, and I hunger for your presence, for your touch. But I could not bear your toleration, and I loathe the husband attitude you sometimes assume. Do you do it because you fear to weary me with your caresses? I think so, but you are wrong. I love you, love you. What a fool I am!—
“Yours,
“L.”
After writing this she went to call on her husband’s aunts. They as usual reduced her to a state of irritability, and she walked home full of reflections upon boredom. This was rapidly dispersed by Sir Ralph, who was waiting for her with a new book. Tea restored her mind to its normal balance, and conversation, with a cigarette, brought back her belief in herself. That morning she had been singularly near leaning on Jack. Sir Ralph amused her, he was so easily hurt, and in such open bondage to her. While talking with him, the impossibility of a grande passion in these days manifested itself to her. She got up and went to her writing-table—in a drawer was her letter to Jack. She had intended to send it to him after dinner; it would have brought him to her at once. For one night anyway she would have experienced exquisite happiness. She shut her eyes, remembering the perfect joy; it was almost pain to think of her love for him. Then she hurriedly tore up the letter, and burned it.
“It is strange how many phases one’s mind goes through in a day,” she said.
Her letter burned quickly and curled up, as if the flames hurt it, and it was in pain. She moved uneasily, for it almost hurt her.