Leaving the Park, she came to South Kensington station and bought another paper. It had a full account under the headlines: ‘Modern Morality Attacked.’ ‘Miss Marjorie Ferrar in the Box.’ It seemed funny to stand there reading those words among people who were reading the same without knowing her from Eve, except, perhaps, by her clothes. Continuing her progress towards Wren Street, she turned her latch-key in the door, and saw a hat. Waiting for her already! She took her time; and, pale from powder, as though she had gone through much, entered the studio.
MacGown was sitting with his head in his hands. She felt real pity for him – too strong, too square, too vital for that attitude! He raised his face.
‘Well, Alec!’
‘Tell me the truth, Marjorie. I’m in torment.’
She almost envied him the depth of his feeling, however unreasonable after her warnings. But she said ironically:
‘Who was it knew me better than I knew myself?’
In the same dull voice he repeated:
‘The truth, Marjorie, the truth!’
But why should she go into the confessional? Was he entitled to her past? His rights stopped at her future. It was the old business – men expecting more from women than they could give them. Inequality of the sexes. Something in that, perhaps, in the old days when women bore children, and men didn’t; but now that women knew all about sex and only bore children when they wanted to, and not always even then, why should men be freer?
And she said slowly: ‘In exchange for your adventures I’ll tell you mine.’
‘For God’s sake don’t mock me; I’ve had hell these last hours.’
His face showed it, and she said with feeling:
‘I said you’d be taking a toss over me, Alec. Why on earth did you insist on my bringing this case? You’ve had your way, and now you don’t like it.’
‘It’s true, then?’
‘Yes. Why not?’
He uttered a groan, recoiling till his back was against the wall, as if afraid of being loose in the room.
‘Who was he?’
‘Oh! no! That I can’t possibly tell you. And how many affairs have you had?’
He paid no attention. He wouldn’t! He knew she didn’t love him; and such things only mattered if you loved! Ah! well! His agony was a tribute to her, after all!
‘You’re well out of me,’ she said sullenly; and, sitting down, she lighted a cigarette. A scene! How hateful! Why didn’t he go? She’d rather he’d be violent than deaf and. dumb and blind like this.
‘Not that American fellow?’
She could not help a laugh.
‘Oh! no, poor boy!’
‘How long did it last?’
‘Nearly a year.’
‘My God!’
He had rushed to the door. If only he would open it and go! That he could feel so violently! That figure by the door was just not mad! His stuffy passions!
And then he did pull the door open and was gone.
She threw herself at full length on the divan; not from lassitude, exactly, nor despair – from a feeling rather as if nothing mattered. How stupid and pre-war! Why couldn’t he, like her, be free, be supple, take life as it came? Passions, prejudices, principles, pity – old-fashioned as the stuffy clothes worn when she was a tot. Well! Good riddance! Fancy living in the same house, sharing the same bed, with a man so full of the primitive that he could ‘go off his chump’ with jealousy about her! Fancy living with a man who took life so seriously, that he couldn’t even see himself doing it! Life was a cigarette to be inhaled and thrown away, a dance to be danced out. On with that dance!… Yes, but she couldn’t let him pay her debts, now, even if he wanted to. Married, she would have repaid him with her body; as it was – no! Oh! why didn’t someone die and leave her something? What a bore it all was! And she lay still, listening to the tea-time sounds of a quiet street – taxis rounding the corner from the river; the dog next door barking at the postman; that one-legged man – ex-Service – who came most afternoons and played on a poor fiddle. He expected her shilling – unhappy fellow! she’d have to get up and give it him. She went to the little side window that looked on to the street, and suddenly recoiled. Francis Wilmot in the doorway with his hand up to the bell! Another scene! No, really! This was too much! There went the bell! No time to say ‘Not at home!’ Well, let them all come – round her past, like bees round a honeypot!
‘Mr Francis Wilmot.’
He stood there, large as the life he had nearly resigned – a little thinner, that was all.
‘Well, Francis,’ she said, ‘I thought you were “through with that fool business”?’