"Twelve years!Do you suppose I can believe that?""I don't suppose you will believe anything I say;but it's the truth."Soames looked at her hard.He had said that she had not changed;now he perceived that she had.Not in face,except that it was more beautiful;not in form,except that it was a little fuller--no!She had changed spiritually.There was more of her,as it were,something of activity and daring,where there had been sheer passive resistance.'Ah!'he thought,'that's her independent income!Confound Uncle Jolyon!'
"I suppose you're comfortably off now?"he said.
"Thank you,yes."
"Why didn't you let me provide for you?I would have,in spite of everything."A faint smile came on her lips;but she did not answer.
"You are still my wife,"said Soames.Why he said that,what he meant by it,he knew neither when he spoke nor after.It was a truism almost preposterous,but its effect was startling.She rose from the window-seat,and stood for a moment perfectly still,looking at him.He could see her bosom heaving.Then she turned to the window and threw it open.
"Why do that?"he said sharply."You'll catch cold in that dress.
I'm not dangerous."And he uttered a little sad laugh.
She echoed it--faintly,bitterly.
"It was--habit."
"Rather odd habit,"said Soames as bitterly."Shut the window!"She shut it and sat down again.She had developed power,this woman--this--wife of his!He felt it issuing from her as she sat there,in a sort of armour.And almost unconsciously he rose and moved nearer;he wanted to see the expression on her face.Her eyes met his unflinching.Heavens!how clear they were,and what a dark brown against that white skin,and that burnt-amber hair!
And how white her shoulders.
Funny sensation this!He ought to hate her.
"You had better tell me,"he said;"it's to your advantage to be free as well as to mine.That old matter is too old.""I have told you."
"Do you mean to tell me there has been nothing--nobody?""Nobody.You must go to your own life."
Stung by that retort,Soames moved towards the piano and back to the hearth,to and fro,as he had been wont in the old days in their drawing-room when his feelings were too much for him.
"That won't do,"he said."You deserted me.In common justice it's for you."He saw her shrug those white shoulders,heard her murmur:
"Yes.Why didn't you divorce me then?Should I have cared?"He stopped,and looked at her intently with a sort of curiosity.
What on earth did she do with herself,if she really lived quite alone?And why had he not divorced her?The old feeling that she had never understood him,never done him justice,bit him while he stared at her.
"Why couldn't you have made me a good wife?"he said.
"Yes;it was a crime to marry you.I have paid for it.You will find some way perhaps.You needn't mind my name,I have none to lose.Now I think you had better go."A sense of defeat--of being defrauded of his self-justification,and of something else beyond power of explanation to himself,beset Soames like the breath of a cold fog.Mechanically he reached up,took from the mantel-shelf a little china bowl,reversed it,and said:
"Lowestoft.Where did you get this?I bought its fellow at Jobson's."And,visited by the sudden memory of how,those many years ago,he and she had bought china together,he remained staring at the little bowl,as if it contained all the past.Her voice roused him.
"Take it.I don't want it."
Soames put it back on the shelf.
"Will you shake hands?"he said.
A faint smile curved her lips.She held out her hand.It was cold to his rather feverish touch.'She's made of ice,'he thought--'she was always made of ice!'But even as that thought darted through him,his senses were assailed by the perfume of her dress and body,as though the warmth within her,which had never been for him,were struggling to show its presence.And he turned on his heel.He walked out and away,as if someone with a whip were after him,not even looking for a cab,glad of the empty Embankment and the cold river,and the thick-strewn shadows of the plane-tree leaves-confused,flurried,sore at heart,and vaguely disturbed,as though he had made some deep mistake whose consequences he could not foresee.And the fantastic thought suddenly assailed him if instead of,'I think you had better go,'she had said,'I think you had better stay!'What should he have felt,what would he have done?That cursed attraction of her was there for him even now,after all these years of estrangement and bitter thoughts.It was there,ready to mount to his head at a sign,a touch.'I was a fool to go!'he muttered.'I've advanced nothing.Who could imagine?I never thought!'Memory,flown back to the first years of his marriage,played him torturing tricks.She had not deserved to keep her beauty--the beauty he had owned and known so well.And a kind of bitterness at the tenacity of his own admiration welled up in him.Most men would have hated the sight of her,as she had deserved.She had spoiled his life,wounded his pride to death,defrauded him of a son.And yet the mere sight of her,cold and resisting as ever,had this power to upset him utterly!It was some damned magnetism she had!And no wonder if,as she asserted;she had lived untouched these last twelve years.So Bosinney--cursed be his memory!--had lived on all this time with her!Soames could not tell whether he was glad of that knowledge or no.
Nearing his Club at last he stopped to buy a paper.A headline ran:'Boers reported to repudiate suzerainty!'Suzerainty!'Just like her!'he thought:'she always did.Suzerainty!I still have it by rights.She must be awfully lonely in that wretched little flat!'