The Combined Maze Part 16

"Yes."

Of course she had known it. If she hadn't, how could she have endured it now?

"When did you know?"

"Last week. When you came back."

That was not true. She had known it before last week. She had known it as long as she had known Violet. And she had known that because of it Violet would come back.

She hadn't blamed Violet for coming back. Even now, as she sat on Violet's bed and was tortured by those lights under Violet's eyelids, even now she didn't blame her. And if she turned her shoulder it was not because she minded Violet looking at her (she was past minding that), but because she was afraid to look at Violet. She didn't want to see her lying there. It was almost as if she were afraid of hating her.

Behind her Violet was stirring. She had drawn up her outstretched limbs and raised herself on the pillows. Winny felt her behind her, restless and alert.

Then she spoke again.

"You needn't mind, Winny. It's got to be."

"Mind? What makes you think I'm minding?"

"The way you sit there with your mouth shut, saying nothing."

"There's nothing to say. I'm not surprised. You've not told me anything I didn't know."

"Well, any one would think you didn't approve of it. Why can't you get up and say you hope we'll be happy, or something?"

"Of course, I hope you'll be happy. I want you to be happy."

(Of course she did.)

"Look here"--Violet was sitting up now--"_was_ there anything between you and him?"

Winny rose straight and turned and looked at her.

"You've no business to ask that," she said.

"Yes I have." She rose slowly, twisted herself, slid her foot to the floor, and stood up facing Winny. "If I'm going to marry him I've a right to know. Not that it'll make a sc.r.a.p of difference."

"Who told you there was anything between us?"

"n.o.body told me. I mean--_was_ there--before I came?"

"There was never anything--never. Any one who tells you anything different's telling you a lie. I'm not saying we weren't friends--"

Violet smiled.

"I'm not saying you were anything else. You can go on being friends. _I_ sha'n't care. Only don't you go saying I came between you--that's all."

At that Winny fired.

"As if I'd do any such a thing! I don't know what can have put it into your head."

Violet laughed.

"You should see _your face_," she said. "Why--any one could tell you were gone on him. They've only got to look at you."

There are some insults, some insolences that cannot be answered.

"You can believe that," said Winny, "if you like--if it makes you any happier. But your believing it won't make it true."

She walked slowly, in her small dignity, to the chair where she had thrown down her hat. She took up the hat and put it on, deliberately, with a high bravery, before the gla.s.s.

Then she turned to her friend and smiled at her.

"It's all right," she said, "though you mightn't think it. Good-by."

Whereupon Violet rushed at her and kissed her.

"It isn't your fault, and it isn't mine, Winky," she whispered. "It's got to be, I tell you."

She drew herself from the embrace, erect and rosy, in a sudden pa.s.sion that had in it both triumph and despair.

"Wild horses couldn't have torn him and me apart."

And Winny didn't blame her; even in the pain of the night that followed, when she lay awake in the bed she shared with Maudie Hollis, stifling her sobs lest she should waken Maudie, clutching the edge of the mattress where she had writhed out of Maudie's reach. For at the first sound of crying the proud beauty had turned to her friend and put her arms about her, and held her in a desolate and desolating embrace.

"Don't cry, Winny; don't cry, dear. It isn't worth it," had been Maudie's consolation. For, though Winny hadn't said a word to her, she knew. And she had followed it up by declaring that she hated that Violet Usher; and she hated Ransome; she hated everybody who made little Winky, little darling Winky, cry.

But Winky didn't hate them. It had to be. Nothing could be more beautiful in its simplicity than her acceptance of the event.

And she didn't blame them. She didn't blame anybody. She had brought it on herself. The thing was as good as done last summer, when she had stopped Ranny making love to her. She had stopped it on purpose. She knew he couldn't afford to marry her, not for years and years; she knew he had been trying to tell her so; and it didn't seem fair, somehow, to let him get worked up all for nothing. That was how girls drove men mad.

She considered that she was there to take care of Ranny, and she had seen, in her wisdom, that to keep Ranny well in hand would be less hard on him than to let him lose his head.

Violet hadn't seen it, that was all.

Besides, Violet was different. She had ways with her which made it no wonder if Ranny lost his head. In Winny's opinion the man didn't live who could resist Violet and her ways. She got round you somehow. She had got round Winny last year when she had come imploring her to take her to the Grand Display at the Polytechnic Gymnasium, teasing her and threatening that if she didn't take her she'd go off to the Empire by herself. She had spoken as if going to the Empire was a preposterous and unheard-of thing. Winny didn't know that Violet had gone there more than once, not by herself, but with the foreman of her department.

And she had had to take her, and that, of course, had done it. Though she had been afraid of this thing and had foreknown it from the beginning, she had taken her; though she had been afraid ever since she had seen Violet's face and watched her ways. So afraid was she that she had tried to keep Ranny from ever seeing Violet. Time and again she had hurried her away when she had seen Ranny coming, while the fear in her heart told her that those two were bound to meet. She had lived from hand to mouth on her precarious happiness, contented if she could stave off the evil day.

And it was all worse than useless. Violet had been aware that she was being hurried away when Ranny came in sight, and it had made her the more set. As for Winny's hope that Violet would forget all about Ranny when some other man appeared, it was futile as long as she took care of Violet. Taking care of Violet meant keeping her as far as possible out of the way of other men--so that there again! It seemed as if she had arranged it so that Ranny should be the only one. For Winny had divined her friend's disastrous temperament even while she maintained hotly that there was no harm in her. And she had almost quarreled with Maudie because the proud beauty had said, "Well, you'll see."

Winny knew nothing about Violet and the foreman.

And with the same innocence she never doubted that when Violet and Ransome met that night at the Polytechnic it was for the first time.