The Shadow of the East

“I beg your pardon,” he said, in a strangled voice. “I was a cur—what I said was damnable.” He faced her again with sudden vehemence. “I wish to God I had left you free. I had no right to marry you, to ruin your life with my selfishness, to bar you from the love and children that should have been yours. You might have met a man who would have given you both, who would have given you the full happy life you ought to have. In my cursed egoism I have done you almost the greatest injury a man can do a woman. My God, I wonder you don’t hate me!”

She forced back the words that rushed to her lips. She knew the danger of an unconsidered answer, the danger of the whole situation. The durability of their future life seemed to depend on her reply, its continuance to hang on a slender thread that, perilously strained, threatened momentarily to snap. She was fearful of precipitating the crisis she had long realised was pending and which now seemed drawing to a head. An unconsidered word, an intonation even, might bring about the catastrophe she feared.

She sought for time, praying for inspiration to guide her. The waiting tea table supplied her immediate want.

Mechanically she filled the cups and cut cake with deliberate precision while her mind worked feverishly.

His distress weighed with her more than her own.

Positive as she now was of the true reason that had prompted him to marry her she saw in his outburst only another chivalrous attempt to hide that reason from her. He had purposely endeavoured to misrepresent himself, and, understanding, a wave of passionate gratitude filled her.

Her love was clamouring for audible expression. If she could only speak! If she could only break through the restrictions that hampered her, tell him all that was in her heart, measure the force of her living love against the phantom of that dead past that had killed in him all the joy of life. But she could not speak. Pride kept her silent, and the knowledge that she could not add to the burden he already bore the embarrassment of an unsought love.

But something she must say, and that before he noticed the hesitation that might rob her words of any worth. Only by refusing to attach an undue value to the significance of what he had said could she arrest the dangerous trend of the conversation and bring it to a safer level.

She sat down slowly, re-arranging the simple tray with ostentatious care.

“You didn’t force me to marry you, Barry,” she said quietly. “I knew what I was doing, I realised the difficulties that might arise. But you have nothing to reproach yourself with. You have been kind and considerate in everything. I am enormously grateful to you—and I am very content with my life. Please believe that. There is only one thing that I could wish changed; you said that we were to be friends—and you have let me be only a fair weather friend. Won’t you let me sometimes share and help in the difficulties, as well as in the pleasures? Your interests, your obligations are so great—” she went on hurriedly, lest he should think she was aiming at deeper, more personal concerns—“I can’t help knowing that there must be difficulties. If you would only let me take my part—” She looked up, meeting his gloomy stare at last, and a faint appeal crept into her eyes. “I’m not a child, Barry, to be shown only the sunny side of life.”

An indescribable expression flitted across his face, changing it marvellously.

“I would never have you know the dark side,” he said briefly, as he took the cup she held out to him.

She was conscious that the tension, though lessened had not altogether disappeared. There was in his manner a constraint that set her heart throbbing painfully. She glanced furtively from time to time at his stern worn face, and the weariness in his eyes brought a lump into her throat.

He talked spasmodically, of friends whom he had seen in London, of a hundred and one trivial matters, but of the business that had kept him in town he said nothing and she wondered what had been in his mind when he had departed from an established rule and deliberately sought her in a room that he never entered. Had he come with any express intention, any confidence that had been thwarted by Mouston’s stupid behaviour? She stifled a sigh of disappointment. He might never again be moved by the same impulse.

With growing anxiety she noticed that his restlessness was greater even than usual. Refusing a second cup of tea he lit a cigarette, pacing up and down as he talked, his hands plunged deep in his pockets.