Part 29 (1/2)
But he did not stir.
After a few moments she said very gently: ”Are you displeased with me for anything I have said or done? I can't imagine--”
”You can't expect me to feel very much flattered by the knowledge that you are constantly seen with other men where you and I were once so well known.”
”Clive! Is there anything wrong in my going?”
”Wrong? No:--if your own sense of--of--” but the right word--if there were such--eluded him.
”I know how you feel,” she said in a low voice. ”I wrote you that it seemed strange, almost sad, to be with other men where you and I had been together so often and so--so happily.
”Somehow it seemed to be an invasion of our privacy, of our intimacy--for me to dine with other men at the same tables, be served by the same waiters, hear the same music. But I didn't know how to avoid it when I was taken there by other men. Could you tell me what I should have done?”
He made no reply; his boyish face grew almost sulky, now.
Presently he rose as though to get his coat: she rose also, unhappy, confused.
”Don't mind me. I'm a fool,” he said shortly, looking away from her--”and a very--unhappy one--”
”Clive!”
He said savagely: ”I tell you I don't know what's the matter with me--” He pa.s.sed one hand brusquely across his eyes and stood so, scowling at the hearth where Hafiz sat, staring gravely back at him.
”Clive, are you ill?”
He shrugged away the suggestion, and his arm brushed against hers. The contact seemed to paralyse him; but when, slipping back unconsciously into the old informalities, she laid her hands on his shoulders and turned him toward the light, instantly and too late she was aware that the old and innocent intimacy was ended, done for,--a thing of the past.
Incredulous still in the very menace of new and perilous relations--of a new intimacy, imminent, threatening, she withdrew her hands from the shoulders of this man who had been a boy but an instant ago. And the next moment he caught her in his arms.
”Clive! You _can't_ do this!” she whispered, deathly white.
”What am I to do?” he retorted fiercely.
”Not this, Clive!--For my sake--please--_please_--”
There was colour enough in her face, now. Breathless, still a little frightened, she looked away from him, plucking nervously, instinctively, at his hands clasping her waist.
”Can't you c-care for me, Athalie?” he stammered.
”Yes ... you know it. But don't touch me, Clive--”
”When I'm--in love--with you--”
She caught her breath sharply.
”--What am I to do?” he repeated between his teeth.
”Nothing! There is nothing to do about it! You know it!... What is there to do?”
He held her closer and she strained away from him, her head still averted.