The Combined Maze Part 53

"Would you marry me if I was free?"

"Don't talk about it, dear. You mustn't."

"And why mustn't I?"

"It's no good. You're not free. You married Vi, dear, and whatever she's done you can't un-marry her."

"Can't I? That's precisely what I can do; and it's what I'm going to do."

"You're not. You couldn't."

It seemed to him that she shrank from him in horror.

"You don't understand. You're talking as if she and I cared for each other. That's at an end. It's done for. She's asked me to divorce her."

"Asked you? When?"

"More than two years ago, and I promised. She wants to marry Mercier, and she'd better. I'd have been free two years ago if I'd had the money.

But I've got it now. I've been saving for it. I've been doing nothing else, thinking of nothing else from morning till night for more than two years, because I meant to ask you to marry me."

"All that time?"

"All that time."

"But Ranny, you know you _needn't_. I'm quite happy."

"Are you?"

"Yes. You mustn't think I'm not and that you've got to make anything up to me, because that would make me feel as if I'd--there's a word for it, I know, but I can't think of it. It's what horrid girls do to men when they're trying to get hold of them--as if I'd comp--comprised--"

"D'you mean compromised?"

"Yes."

"I make you feel as if you'd compromised me?"

"That's right."

"Well, I _am_ jiggered! If that doesn't about take the biscuit! Winky, you're a blessing, you're a treasure, you're a treat; I could live for a fortnight on the things you find to say."

He would have drawn her to him, but she held herself rigid.

"Well, but--I haven't--have I?"

"If you mean, have you made me want to marry you, you _have_. Haven't I told you I've thought of nothing else for more than two years?"

"D'you want it so badly, Ranny?"

"I want _you_ so badly. Didn't you know I did? Of course you knew."

"No, Ranny, I didn't. I thought all the time perhaps some day poor Virelet would come back."

"She'll never come back."

"But, if she did? If she changed her mind? Perhaps she's changed it now and wants to come back and be good."

"If she did I wouldn't take her."

He felt her eyes turn on him through the dark in wonder.

"But you'd have to. You couldn't not."

"I could, and I would."

"No, Ranny, you wouldn't. You'd never be cruel to poor Vi."

"Don't talk about her. Don't think about her."

"But we must. There she is. There she's always been--"

"And here we are. And here we've always been. Have you ever thought for a minute of _yourself_? Have you ever thought of _me_? I'm sick of hearing you say 'poor Vi.' Poor Vi! D'you know why I won't take her back? Why I can't forgive her? It's not for what you know she's done.

It's for something you never knew about. I've a good mind to tell you."

"No--don't. I'd rather not know. Whatever it was, she couldn't help it."

"You ought to know. It was something she did to you."

"She never did anything to me, Ranny."

"Didn't she? She did something to me that came to the same thing. I suppose you think I cared for her before I cared for you?"

"Well--yes."

"I didn't then. It was the other way about. And she knew it. And she lied to me about you. She told me you didn't care for me."

"She told you--?"

"She told me."

"I didn't think that Virelet would have done that."

"Nor I."

She paused, considering it.

"How did you find out it was a lie, Ranny? Oh--oh--I suppose I showed you--"

"Not you. She owned up herself."