They were sitting together in his study after dinner. The two armchairs were always facing now, one on each side of the hearth.
"I wish I knew what to do about Alice," she said.
"What to _do_ about her?"
"Yes. Am I to have her at the house or not?"
He stared.
"Of course you"re to have her at the house."
"I mean when we"ve got people here. I can"t ask her to meet them."
"You must ask her. It"s the very least you can do for her."
"People aren"t going to like it, Steven."
"People have got to stick a great many things they aren"t going to like. I"m continually meeting people I"d rather not meet. Aren"t you?"
"I"m afraid poor Alice is--"
"Is what?"
"Well, dear, a little impossible, to say the least of it. Isn"t she?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I don"t see anything impossible about "poor Alice." I never did."
"It"s nice of you to say so."
He maintained himself in silence under her long gaze.
"Steven," she said, "you are awfully good to my people."
She saw that she could hardly have said anything that would have annoyed him more.
He positively writhed with irritation.
"I"m not in the least good to your people."
The words stung her like a blow. She flushed, and he softened.
"Can"t you see, Molly, that I hate the infernal humbug and the cruelty of it all? That poor child had a dog"s life before she married. She did the only sane thing that was open to her. You"ve only got to look at her now to see that she couldn"t have done much better for herself even if she hadn"t been driven to it. What"s more, she"s done the best thing for Greatorex. There isn"t another woman in the world who could have made that chap chuck drinking. You mayn"t like the connection. I don"t suppose any of us like it."
"My dear Steven, it isn"t only the connection. I could get over that.
It"s--the other thing."
His blank stare compelled her to precision.
"I mean what happened."
"Well--if Gwenda can get over "the other thing", I should think _you_ might. She has to see more of her."
"It"s different for Gwenda."
"How is it different for Gwenda?"
She hesitated. She had meant that Gwenda hadn"t anything to lose.
What she said was, "Gwenda hasn"t anybody but herself to think of. She hasn"t let you in for Alice."
"No more have you."
He smiled. Mary did not understand either his answer or his smile.
He was saying to himself, "Oh, hasn"t she? It was Gwenda all the time who let me in."
Mary had a little rush of affection.
"My dear--I think I"ve let you in for everything. I wouldn"t mind--I wouldn"t really--if it wasn"t for you."
"You needn"t bother about me," he said. "I"d rather you bothered about your sister."
"Which sister?"
For the life of her she could not tell what had made her say that. The words seemed to leap out suddenly from her mind to her tongue.
"Alice," he said.
"Was it Alice we were talking about?"
"It was Alice I was thinking about."
"Was it?"
Again her mind took its insane possession of her tongue.
The evening dragged on. The two chairs still faced each other, pushed forward in their att.i.tude of polite attention and expectancy.
But the persons in the chairs leaned back as if each withdrew as far as possible from the other. They made themselves stiff and upright as if they braced themselves, each against the other in the unconscious tension of hostility. And they were silent, each thinking an intolerable thought.
Rowcliffe had taken up a book and was pretending to read it. Mary"s hands were busy with her knitting. Her needles went with a rapid jerk, driven by the vibration of her irritated nerves. From time to time she glanced at Rowcliffe under her bent brows. She saw the same blocks of print, a deep block at the top, a short line under it, then a narrower block. She saw them as vague, meaningless blurs of gray stippled on white. She saw that Rowcliffe"s eyes never moved from the deep top paragraph on the left-hand page. She noted the light pressure of his thumbs on the margins.
He wasn"t reading at all; he was only pretending to read. He had set up his book as a barrier between them, and he was holding on to it for dear life.
Rowcliffe moved irritably under Mary"s eyes. She lowered them and waited for the silken sound that should have told her that he had turned a page.