The Three Sisters Part 46

Her eyes quivered again.

"Won't you come into the drawing-room, then?"

"I'd rather stay here if you don't mind. I say, how much time have I?"

"Till when?"

"Well--till your father comes back?"

"He won't be back for another hour. But--"

"I hear you're going away on Friday; and that you're going for good."

"Did Mary tell you?"

"No. It was Alice. She said I was to try and stop you."

"You can't stop me if I want to go."

"I'll do my best."

They stood, as they talked, in rigid att.i.tudes that suggested that neither was going to yield an inch.

"Why didn't you tell me yourself, Gwenda?"

She closed her eyes. It was as if she had forgotten why.

"Was it because you knew I wouldn't let you? Did you want to go as much as all that?"

"It looks like it, doesn't it?"

"Yes. But you don't want to go a bit."

"Would I go if I didn't?"

"Yes. It's just the sort of thing you would do, if you thought it would annoy me. It's only what you've been doing for the last three months--getting away from me."

"Three months--?"

"Oh, I cared for you before that. It's only the last three months I've been trying to tell you."

"You never told me anything."

"Because you never gave me a chance. You kept on putting me off."

"And if I did, didn't that show that I didn't want you to tell me? I don't want you to tell me now."

He made an impatient movement.

"But you knew without telling. You knew then."

"I didn't. I didn't."

"Well, then, you know now. Will you marry me or will you not? I want it straight."

"No. No."

"And--why not?"

He was horribly cool and calm.

"Because I don't want to marry you. I don't want to marry anybody."

"Good G.o.d! What _do_ you want, then?"

"I want to go away and earn my own living as other women do."

The absurdity of it melted him. He could have gone down on his knees at her feet and kissed her cold hands. He wondered afterward why on earth he hadn't. Then he remembered that all the time she had kept her hands locked behind her.

"You poor child, you don't want to earn your own living. I'll tell you what you _do_ want. You want to get away from home."

"And what if I do? You've seen what it's like. Would _you_ stay in it a day longer than you could help if you were me?"

"Of course I wouldn't. Of course I've seen what it's like. I saw it the first time I saw you here in this detestable house. I want to take you away out of it. I think I wanted to take you away then."

"Oh, no. Not then. Not so long ago as that."

It was as if she had said, "Not that. That makes it too hard. Any cruelty you like but that, or I can't go through with it."

"Yes," he said, "as long ago as that."

"You can't take me away."

"Can't I? I can take you anywhere. And I will. Anywhere you like.

You've only got to say. I _know_ I can make you happy."

"How do you know?"

"Because I know you."

"That's what you're always saying. And you know nothing about me.

Nothing. Nothing."

She said to herself: "He doesn't. He doesn't even know why I'm going."

"I know a lot more than you think. And a lot more than you know yourself. I know that you're not happy as you are, and I know that you can't _live_ without happiness. If you're not happy you'll be ill; more horribly ill, perhaps, than Alice. Look at Alice."

"I'm not like Alice."