第84章

"But, Martin, you promised last time that it would depend on me...You said that if I didn't mind your being married and was willing to take risks that we would go on together.Well, I've thought all about it and I know that I'd rather be miserable with you than happy with any one else.But then I shouldn't be miserable.

You seem to think you could make me miserable just as soon as you like.But that depends on myself.If I don't want to be miserable nobody can make me be." She paused.He moved a little closer and suddenly took her hand.

She drew it away and went on:

"Don't think I'm inexperienced about this, Martin.You say I know nothing about men.Perhaps I don't.But I know myself.I know what Iwant, and I can look after myself.However badly you treated me, it would be you that I was with all the time.""No, no, Maggie," he answered, speaking rapidly and as though he were fiercely protesting against some one."It isn't that at all.

You say you know yourself--but then I know myself.It isn't only that I'm a rotten fellow.It is that I seem to bring a curse on every one I'm fond of.I love my father, and I've come back and made him miserable.It's always like that.And if I made you miserable it would be the worst thing I ever did...I don't even know whether I love you.If I do it's different from any love I've ever had.

Other women I'd be mad about.I'd go for them whatever happened and got them somehow, and I wouldn't care a bit whether they were happy or no.But I feel about you almost as though you were a man--not sensually at all, but that safe steady security that you feel for a man sometimes...You're so restful to be with.I feel now as though you were the one person in the world who could turn me into a decent human being.I feel as though we were just meant to move along together; but then some other woman would come like a fire and off I'd go...Then I'd hate myself worse than ever and be really finished."Maggie looked at him.

"You don't love me then, Martin?" she asked.

"Yes I do," he answered suddenly, "I keep telling myself that Idon't, but I know that I do.Only it's different.It's as though Iwere loving myself, the better part of myself.Not something new and wildly exciting, but something old that I had known always and that had always been with me.If I went away now.Maggie, I know I'd come back one day--perhaps years afterwards--but I know I'd come back.

It's like that religious part of me, like my legs and my arms.Oh!

it's not of my own comfort I'm doubting, but it's you!...I don't want to hurt you, Maggie darling, just as I've hurt every one Iloved--"

"I'll come with you, Martin," said Maggie, "as long as you want me, and if you don't want me, later you will again and I'll be waiting for you."He put his arm round her.She crept up close to him, nestled into his coat and put her hand up to his cheek.He bent down his head and they kissed.

After that there could be no more argument.What had he not intended to press upon her? With what force arid power had he not planned to persuade her? How he would tell her that he did not love her, that he would not be faithful to her, that he would treat her cruelly.

Now it was all gone.With a gesture of almost ironic abandonment he flung away his scruples.It was always so; life was stronger than he.He had tried, in this at least, to behave like a decent man.But life did not want him to be decent...

And how he needed that rest that she gave him! As he felt her close up against him, folded into him with that utterly naif and childish trust that had allured and charmed him on the very first occasion, he felt nothing but a sweet and blessed rest.He would not think of the future.He would not...HE WOULD NOT.And perhaps all would be well.As he pressed her closer to him, as he felt her lips suddenly strike through the dark, find his check and then his mouth, as he felt her soft confident hand find his and then close and fold inside it like a flower, he wondered whether this once he might not force things to be right.It was time he took things in hand.He could.He must...

He began to whisper to her:

"Maggie darling...It mayn't be bad.I'll find out where this other woman is and she shall divorce me.I'll arrange it all.And we'll go away somewhere where I can work, and we won't allow anybody to interfere.After all, I'm older now.The mess I've been in before is because I always make wrong shots..."His words ceased.Their hearts were beating too tumultuously together for words to be possible.Maggie did not wish to speak, she could not.She was mingled with him, her heart his, her lips his, her check his...She did not believe that words would come even though she wished for them.She was utterly happy--so utterly that she was, as it were, numb with happiness.They murmured one another's names.

"Martin."

"Maggie!..."

At last, dreaming, scarcely knowing what they did, like two children in a dark wood, they wandered towards home.