"I don't understand."
"Oh, you've come out of it all right! You've behaved yourself, vindicated yourself, done nothing you didn't expect to, nothing you have reason to be ashamed of afterward. I have! I haven't been able to open my mouth without making a fool of myself in one way or another...."
"Only because you're overtired, James...."
"I've said things I never thought myself capable of saying, and I've found I thought things that no decent man should think. It was an interesting experience."
"James, my dear, don't be so bitter! I'm not blaming you. I can forget all that!"
She laid her hand on his knee and the action, together with the quality of her voice, had a visible effect on him. He paused a moment and looked at her curiously. When he spoke again it was without bitterness.
"That's awfully decent of you, Beatrice, but the trouble is I can't forget. Those things stay in the memory, and they're not desirable companions. And as talking, the kind of frank talking you suggest, seems to bring them out in spite of me, I think perhaps we'd better not have much of that kind of talk. It seems to me that the less we talk the better we shall get on."
Beatrice was silent a moment in her turn. She had not brought him quite to where she wanted him, but she had brought him nearer than he had been before. She resolved to let things stay as they were.
"Very well, James," she said, leaning back by his side; "we won't talk if you don't want to. About those things, that is. There are plenty of other things we can talk about. And let's go to places more together and do things more together. I see no reason why we shouldn't get on very well together. After all, I do enjoy being with you, when you're in a good mood, more than with any one else I know—that I could be with—"
"Then why—Oh, Lord!" He stopped himself and sank forward in despair with his head on his hands.