Mary Olivier: a Life Part 103

She thought the woman in the bas.e.m.e.nt knew. She remembered the evening at Greffington: Baxter's pinched mouth and his eyes sliding sideways to look at you. She knew now what Baxter had been thinking. The woman's look was the female of Baxter's.

As if that could hurt you!

VI.

"Mary, do you know you're growing younger every minute?"

"I shall go on growing younger and younger till it's all over."

"Till what's all over?"

"This. So will you, Richard."

"Not in the same way. My hair isn't young any more. My face isn't young any more."

"I don't want it to be young. It wasn't half so nice a face when it was young.... Some other woman loved it when it was young."

"Yes. Another woman loved it when it was young."

"Is she alive and going about?"

"Oh, yes; she's alive and she goes about a lot."

"Does she love you now?"

"I suppose she does."

"I wish she didn't."

"You needn't mind her, Mary. She was never anything to me. She never will be."

"But I do mind her. I mind her awfully. I can't bear to think of her going about and loving you. She's no business to.... Why do I mind her loving you more than I'd mind your loving her?"

"Because you like loving more than being loved."

"How do you know?"

"I know every time I hold you in my arms."

There have been other women then, or he wouldn't know the difference.

There must have been a woman that he loved.

I don't care. It wasn't the same thing.

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking nothing was ever the same thing as this."

"No.... Whatever we do, Mary, we mustn't go back on it.... If we could have done anything else. But I can't see.... It's not as if it could last long. Nothing lasts long. Life doesn't last long."

He sounded as if he were sorry, as if already, in his mind, he had gone back on it. After three days.

"You're not _sorry_, Richard?"

"Only when I think of you. The awful risks I've made you take."

"Can't you see I _like_ risks? I always have liked risks. When we were children my brothers and I were always trying to see just how near we could go to breaking our necks."

"I know you've courage enough for anything. But that was rather a different sort of risk."

"No. No. There are no different sorts of risk. All intense moments of danger are the same. It's always the same feeling. I don't know whether I've courage or not, but I do know that when danger comes you don't care.

You're hoisted up above caring."

"You _do_ care, Mary."

"About my 'reputation '? You wouldn't like to think I didn't care about it.... Of course, I care frightfully. If I didn't, where's the risk?"

"I hate your having to take it all. I don't risk anything."

"I wish you did. Then you'd be happier. Poor Richard--so safe in his man's world.... You can be sorry about that, if you like. But not about me. I shall never be sorry. Nothing in this world can make me sorry.... I shouldn't like Mamma to know about it. But even Mamma couldn't make me sorry.... I've always been happy about the things that matter, the real things. I hate people who sneak and snivel about real things.... People who have doubts about G.o.d and don't like them and snivel. I had doubts about G.o.d once, and they made me so happy I could hardly bear it....

Mamma couldn't bear it making me happy. She wouldn't have minded half so much if I had been sorry and snivelled. She wouldn't mind so much if I was sorry and snivelled about this."

"You _said_ you weren't going to think about your mother."

"I'm not thinking about her. I'm thinking about how happy I have been and am and shall be."

Even thinking about Mamma couldn't hurt you now. Nothing could hurt the happiness you shared with Richard. What it was now it would always be.

Pure and remorseless.

VII.

Delicious, warm, s.h.i.+ning day. She had her coat and hat on ready to go down with him. The hansom stood waiting in the street.

They were looking up the place on the map, when the loud double knock came.

"That's for Peters. He's always getting wires--"

"If we don't go to-day we shall never go. We've only got five more now."

The long, soft rapping on the door of the room. Knuckles rapping out their warning. "You can't say I don't give you time."

Richard took the orange envelope.

"It's for you, Mary."

"Oh, Richard, '_Come at once. Mother ill.--DORSY_.'"