“Stay it out. I want you to see the fun. I remember—the other time.” - novel fiction
“It's Margaret's show,” she said abruptly. “If I see her smiling there like a queen by your side—! She did—last time. I remember.” She caught at a sob and dashed her hand across her face impatiently. “Jealous fool, mean and petty, jealous fool!... Good luck, old man, to you! You're going to win. But I don't want to see the end of it all the same....
And when we were at this stage of realisation, began the intimations that we were found out, and that scandal was afoot against us.... I think there can be nothing else in life quite like the unnerving realisation that rumour and scandal are afoot about one. Abruptly one's confidence in the solidity of the universe disappears. One walks silenced through a world that one feels to be full of inaudible accusations. One cannot challenge the assault, get it out into the open, separate truth and falsehood. It slinks from you, turns aside its face.
“Then part,” she cried, “part. If you don't want a smashing up,—part! You two have got to be parted. You've got never to see each other ever, never to speak.” There was a zest in her voice. “We're not circulating stories,” she denied. “No! And Curmain never told us anything—Curmain is an EXCELLENT young man; oh! a quite excellent young man. You misjudged him altogether.”...
She winced. Then abruptly she was on her knees before me, with her hands upon my shoulder and her eyes meeting mine. Presently, I remember, she sat back on her heels and looked up into my face. “We've done wrong—and parting's paying. It's time to pay. We needn't have paid, if we'd kept to the track.... You and I, Master, we've got to be men.”I was driven to tell Margaret about our situation by my intolerable dread that otherwise the thing might come to her through some stupid and clumsy informant. She might even meet Altiora, and have it from her.
Something in the quality of my voice gave her an intimation of unusual gravity. She looked at me steadily for a moment and sat down slowly in my armchair.I went on awkwardly. “I've got to tell you—something extraordinarily distressing,” I said.“There seems to be a good deal of scandal abroad—I've only recently heard of it—about myself—and Isabel.”“They say she's my mistress.”“We've been great friends,” I said.
I stopped. I had that distressful feeling I have always had with Margaret, of not being altogether sure she heard, of being doubtful if she understood. I perceived that once again I had struck at her and shattered a thousand unsubstantial pinnacles. And I couldn't get at her, to help her, or touch her mind! I stood up, and at my movement she moved. She produced a dainty little handkerchief, and made an effort to wipe her face with it, and held it to her eyes. “Oh, my Husband!” she sobbed.
Some subconscious barrier gave way in me. I found myself crying uncontrollably—as I have never cried since I was a little child. I was amazed and horrified at myself. And wonderfully, Margaret was on her knees beside me, with her arms about me, mingling her weeping with mine. “Oh, my Husband!” she cried, “my poor Husband! Does it hurt you so? I would do anything! Oh, the fool I am! Dear, I love you.
I remember we talked for a long time of divorce. It seemed to us then, and it seems to us still, that it ought to have been possible for Margaret to divorce me, and for me to marry without the scandalous and ugly publicity, the taint and ostracism that follow such a readjustment. We went on to the whole perplexing riddle of marriage.
I remember that for a time we watched two of that larger sort of gull, whose wings are brownish-white, circle and hover against the blue. And then we lay and looked at a band of water mirror clear far out to sea, and wondered why the breeze that rippled all the rest should leave it so serene.“Eh!” said Isabel, rolling over into a sitting posture and looking out at the horizon. “Let's talk no more of things we can never see.
At first, I told her, I had been altogether at a loss how I could do anything to battle against the aimless muddle of our world; I had wanted a clue—until she had come into my life questioning, suggesting, unconsciously illuminating. “But I have done nothing,” she protested.
“Well, by accident it happens. Not too many accidents, Isabel. Never any more adventures for us, dear, now. No!... They play the game, you know. They've begun late, but now they've got to. You see it's not so very hard for them since you and I, my dear, are here always, always faithfully here on this warm cliff of love accomplished, watching and helping them under high heaven. It isn't so VERY hard. Rather good in some ways. Some people HAVE to be broken a little.
“I shall go on thinking of things to say to you—things to put in your letters. For years to come. How can I ever stop thinking in that way now? We've got into each other's brains.”
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