The Three Sisters Part 47

"Not now. Not next year. Not for ten years, perhaps, or twenty. But you don't know what you may be."

She raised her head.

"I shall never be like that. Never."

Rowcliffe laughed.

It struck her then that that was what she ought never to have said if she wanted to carry out her purpose.

"When I say I'm not like Ally I mean that I'm not so dependent on people. I'm not gentle like Ally. I'm not as loving and I'm not as womanly. In fact, I'm not womanly at all."

"My dear child, do you suppose it matters to me what you're not, as long as I love you as you are?"

"No," she said, "you don't love me really. You only think you do."

She clung to that.

"Why do you say that, Gwenda?"

"Because, if you did, I should have known it before now."

"Well, considering that you _do_ know it now--"

"I mean, you'd have said so before."

"I say! I like that. I'd have said so about five times if you'd ever given me a chance."

"Oh, no. You had your chance."

"When did I have it? When?"

"The other day. Up at Bar Hill."

"You thought so then?"

"I didn't say I thought so then. I think so now."

"That's rather clever of you. Because, you see, if you thought so then that shows--"

"What does it show?"

"Why, that you knew all the time--and that you were thinking of me.

You _did_ know. You _did_ think--"

"No. No. It's only that I've got to--that you're _making_ me think of you now. But I'm not thinking of you the way you want."

"If you're not--if you haven't thought of me--_the way I want_--then I can't make you out. You're beyond me."

They sat down, tired out with the struggle, as if they had reached the same point of exhaustion at the same instant.

"Why not leave it at that?" she said.

He rallied.

"Because I can't leave it at that. You knew I cared. You must have seen. I could have sworn you saw. I could have sworn--"

She knew what he was going to swear and she stopped him.

"I _did_ see that you thought you cared for me. If you'd been quite sure you'd have told me. You wouldn't have waited. You're not quite sure now. You're only telling me now because I'm going away. If I hadn't said I was going away you'd never have told me. You'd just have gone on waiting till you were quite sure."

She had irritated him now beyond endurance.

"Gwenda," he said savagely, "you're enough to drive a man mad."

"You've told me _that_ before, anyhow. Don't you see that I should go on driving you mad? Don't you see how unhappy you'd be with me, how impossible it all is?"

She laughed. It was marvelous to her how she achieved that laugh. It was as if she had just thought of it and it came.

"I can see," he said, "that _you_ don't care for me."

He had given himself into her hands--hands that seemed to him diabolic in their play.

"Did I ever _say_ I cared?"

"Well--of all the women--you _are_----! No, you didn't _say_ it."

"Did I ever show it?"

"Good G.o.d, how do _I_ know what you showed? If it had been any other woman--yes, I could have sworn."

"You can't swear to any woman--I'm afraid--till you've married her.

Perhaps--not then."

"You shouldn't say things like that; they sound----"

"How do they sound?"

"As if you knew too much."

She smiled.

"Well, then--there's another reason."

He softened suddenly.

"I didn't mean that, Gwenda. You don't know what you're saying. You don't know anything. It's only that you're so beastly clever."

"That's a better reason still. You don't want to marry a beastly clever woman. You really don't."