The High Heart Part 33

He, too, smiled, his head thrown back, his white teeth gleaming.

"You think you've caught me, don't you? But you've got the shoe on the wrong foot. I said just now that it might be their affair as to whether or not it did them any good to have you as the pretext of their meetings; but it's surely your affair when you say they sha'n't. Their meetings will be one thing so long as they have you; whereas without you--"

"Then you think they'll keep meeting in any case?"

"I've nothing to say about that. I limit myself to believing that in any situation that requires skilful handling your first name is resourcefulness."

I s.h.i.+fted my ground.

"Oh, but when it's such an odious situation!"

"No situation is odious in which you're a partic.i.p.ant, just as no view is ugly where there's a garden full of flowers."

He went on with his dinner as complacently as if he had not thrown me into a state of violent inward confusion. All I could do was to summon Hugh's image from the shades of memory into which it had withdrawn, and beg it to keep me true to him. The thought of being false to the man to whom I had actually owned my love outraged in me every sentiment akin to single-heartedness. In a kind of desperation I dragged Hugh's name into the conversation, and yet in doing so I merely laid myself open to another shock.

"You can't be in love with him!"

The words were the same as Mrs. Billing's; the emphasis was similar.

"I am," I declared, bluntly, not so much to contradict the speaker as to fortify myself.

"You may think you are--"

"Well, if I think I am, isn't it the same thing as--"

"Lord, no! not with love! Love is the most deceptive of the emotions--to people who haven't had much experience of its tricks."

"Have you?"

He met this frankly.

"No; nor you. That's why you can so easily take yourself in."

I grew cold and dignified.

"If you think I'm taking myself in when I say that I'm in love with Hugh Brokens.h.i.+re--"

"That's certainly it."

Though I knew my cheeks were flaming a dahlia red, I forced myself to look him in the eyes.

"Then I'm afraid it would be useless to try to convince you--"

He nodded.

"Quite!"

"So that we can only let the subject drop."

He looked at me with mock gravity.

"I don't see that. It's an interesting topic."

"Possibly; but as it doesn't lead us any further--"

"But it does. It leads us to where we see straighter."

"Yes, but if I don't need to see straighter than I do?"

"We all need to see as straight as we can."

"I'm seeing as straight as I can when I say--"

"Oh, but not as straight as I can! I can see that a n.o.ble character doesn't always distinguish clearly between love and kindness, or between kindness and loyalty, or between loyalty and self-sacrifice, and that the higher the heart, the more likely it is to impose on itself. No one is so easily deceived as to love and loving as the man or the woman who's truly generous."

"If I was truly generous--"

"I know what you are," he said, shortly.

"Then if you know what I am you must know, too, that I couldn't do other than care for a man who's given up so much for my sake."

"You couldn't do other than admire him. You couldn't do other than be grateful to him. You probably couldn't do other than want to stand by him through thick and thin--"

"Well, then?"

"But that's not love."

"If it isn't love it's so near to it--"

"Exactly--which is what I'm saying. It's so near it that you don't know the difference, and won't know the difference till--till the real thing affords you the contrast."

I did my best to be scornful.

"Really! You speak like an expert."

"Yes; an expert by intuition."

I was still scornful.

"Only that?"

"Only that. You see," he smiled, "the expert by experience has learnt a little; but the expert by intuition knows it all."

"Then, when I need information on the subject, I'll come to you."

"And I'll promise to give it to you frankly."

"Thanks," I said, sweetly. "But you'll wait till I come, won't you? And in the mean time, you'll not say any more about it."