The Restless Sex

He began to laugh:

"All that is covered by one word – 'intelligent,'" he said. "You're just human, with a healthy intellect and normal inclinations."

"Oh, dear, you're so dreadfully wrong. I'm a fraud – nice to look at and to stroll with – "

She turned and stepped across to the pebbled shore. He followed. She bent her head and, not looking at him, drew his arm around her waist and held it there with one hand across his.

"I'm desperately in love," she said, "but I'm a sham – agreeable to caress, pliant, an apt pupil – pretty material for a sweetheart, Jim – but for nothing more important." … They walked slowly along the shore path down stream under the silver willows, his arm enlacing her supple figure, her slow, deliberate steps in rhythm with his.

After a while he said in a low voice:

"Dear, you and I have already come a long way on the blossoming path together. I believe it is written that we travel it together to the end. Don't you want me always, Steve?"

"Yes," she sighed, pressing her hand over his at her waist. "I do want you, always… But, Jim – I'm not what you think me. I ran rather wild while you were away. Liberty went to my empty head. I didn't seem to care what I did. The very devils seemed to be in my heels and they carried me everywhere at random – "

"Nonsense!"

"Oh, they did! They landed me in a dreadful pickle. You know they did. And now here I am, married, and falling more desperately in love every minute with the other man. You can't really love such a fool of a girl!"

"It makes no difference," he said, "I can't go on alone, now."

She pressed her cheek against his shoulder:

"You need not. You can always have me when you wish."

"You mean – just this way?"

"Yes… How else – " She looked up at him; he suddenly stopped in the path, her next step brought her around facing him, where she halted, encircled by his arm. After a moment's silence, she rested her clasped hands on his shoulder, looking very seriously into his eyes.

"How else?" she repeated in a half-whisper.

"Divorce."

"No, dear."

"Either that or – we can go away somewhere – together – "

The dryness of his throat checked him, and her clear eyes looked him through and through.

"Either you or I," he said, "have got to tell Oswald how matters – "

"We can't, Jim."

"Tell him," he continued, "that we are in love with each other and need to marry – "

"Oh, Jim – my dear – dearest, I can't do that!"

"It's true, isn't it?" he demanded.

She did not answer for a while. Then she unclasped his hands, which had been resting on his shoulder, and slipped one arm around his neck:

"Yes, it is true; I want to marry you. But I can't… So – so won't this way do?" she said. "You can always have me this way."

He kissed her lifted lips.

"No, it won't do, Steve. I want all that you are, all that you have to give the man you love and marry, all that the future holds of beauty and of mystery for us both… I want a home with you, Steve; I want every minute of life with you, waking and sleeping… I love you, Steve… And because I do love you I dare tell you that I am falling in love with our future, too – in love with the very thought of – your children, Steve… Dear, I think that I am like my father. I love only once. And once in love, there is nothing else for me; no other woman, no recompense if you fail me, no cure for me."

They both were deadly serious now; his face was quiet but set in firm and sober lines; she had lost much of her colour, so that the grey eyes with their dark lashes seemed unusually large.

"I can't marry you," she said, drawing his head nearer. "Do you think for one moment that I would deny you anything you asked of me if it were in my power to give?"

"Will you not tell me why?"

"I'm not free to tell you… Oh, Jim! I adore you – I do love you so – so deeply. I'm married. I'm sorry I'm married. But I can't help it – I can't get out of it – it scares me even to think of trying – "

"What hold has that man – "

"No hold. There's something else – something sad, terrible – "

"I'll take you, anyway," he said in a low, tense voice. "He will have his remedy."

"How, Jim? Do you mean that you wish me to defy opinion with you? You wouldn't let me do that, would you, dear? I'd do it if you asked, but you wouldn't let me, would you?"

"No." He had lost his head for a moment; that was all; and the ugly threat had been wrenched out of him in the confusion of a tortured mind struggling against it knew not what.

"Jim," she asked under her breath, "would you really let me?"

"No," he said savagely.

"I knew you wouldn't."

Her arm slipped from his neck and again she clasped both slender hands, rested them on his shoulder, and laid her cheek against them.

"It wouldn't help me out of this pickle if we misbehaved," she said thoughtfully. "It wouldn't solve the problem… I suppose you've taken me seriously as an apostle of that new liberty which ignores irregularities – doesn't admit them to be irregular. That's why you said what you did say, I fancy. I've talked enough modern foolishness to have you think me quite emancipated – quite indifferent to the old social order, the old code of morals, the old dogmas, the ancient and orthodox laws of community and individual conduct… Haven't you supposed me quite capable of sauntering away unconventionally with the man I love, after the ironical and casual spectacle of marriage which I have afforded you?"

"I don't know," he said bitterly. "I don't know what I have thought… There will never be anybody except you. If I lose you I lose the world. But between you and me there is a deeper tie than anything less than marriage could sanction. We couldn't ever do that, Steve – let the world go hang while we gave it an extra kick for each other's sakes."

"Because," she whispered, "dad's roof was ours. For his honour, if not for our own, we could not affront the world, dear… Not that I don't love you enough!" she added almost fiercely. "I do love you enough! I don't care whether you know it. Nothing would matter – if there were no other way – and if I were free to take the only way that offered. Do you suppose I'd hesitate if it lay between taking that way and losing you?"

She turned and began to pace the path excitedly, cheeks flushed and hands clenching and unclenching.

"What do I care about myself!" she said. She snapped her fingers: "I don't care that, Jim, when your happiness is at stake! I'd go to you, go with you, love you, face the world undaunted. I care nothing about myself. I know myself! What am I? You know!"

She came up close to him, her face afire, her grey eyes brilliant.

"You know what I am," she repeated. "You and dad did everything to make me like yourselves. You took me out of the gutter – "

"Steve!"