"'Though all we fell on sleep, she would not weep,' is the end of another stanza," he said.
Nadine looked at him for a long moment, her lips parted as if to speak, but they only quivered; no words came. There was no doubt whatever as to what Hugh meant, but still, with love unawakened, and with her tremendous egotism rampant, she saw no further than he was behaving very badly to her. He had come down here to renew the freedom and intimacy of old days: till to-day he had been silent, stupid, but when he spoke like this, silence and stupidity were better. She was sorry for him, very sorry, but the quiver of her lips half at least consisted of self-pity that he made her suffer too.
"You mean me," she said, speaking at length, and speaking very rapidly. "It is odious of you. You know quite well I am sorry: I have told you so. I cried: I remember I cried when you made that visit to Winston, and the cow looked at me. I daresay you are suffering damned torments, but you are being unfair. Though I don't love you—like that, I wish I did. Do you think I make you suffer for my own amusement? Is it fun to see my best friend like that? Is it my fault? You have chosen to love this heartless person, me. If I had no liver, or no lungs, instead of no heart, you would be sorry for me. Instead you reproach me. Oh, not in words, but you meant me, when you said that. Where is the book out of which you read? There, I do that to it: I send it into the sea, and when the gulls come back they will peck it, or the sea will drown it first, and the wind which you smell will blow it to America. You don't understand: you are more stupid than the gulls."
She made one swift motion with her arm, and "Poems and Ballads" flopped in the sea as the book dived clear of the cliff into the high-water sea below.
More imminent than the storm which Hugh had prophesied was the storm in their souls. He, with his love baffled, raged at the indifference with which she had given herself to another, she, distrusting for the first time, the sense and wisdom of her gift, raged at him for his rebellion against her choice.
"Don't speak," she said, "for I will tell you more things first. You are jealous of Seymour—"
Hugh threw back his head and laughed.
"Jealous of Seymour?" he cried. "Do you really think I would marry you if you consented in the spirit in which you are taking him? Once, it is true, I wanted to. You refused to cheat me—those were your words—and I begged you to cheat me, I implored you to cheat me, so long as you gave me yourself.
"I didn't care how you took me, so long as you took me. But now I wouldn't take you like that. Now, for this last week, I have seen you and him together, and I know what it is like."
"You haven't seen us together much," said Nadine.
"I have seen you enough: I told you before that your marriage was a farce. I was wrong. It's much worse than a farce. You needn't laugh at a farce. But you can't help laughing, at least I can't, at a tragedy so ludicrous."
Nadine got up. The situation was as violent and sudden as some electric storm. What had been pent-up in him all this week, had exploded: something in her exploded also.
"I think I hate you," she said.
"I am sure I despise you," said he.
He got up also, facing her. It was like the bursting of a reservoir: the great sheet of quiet water was suddenly turned into torrents and foam.
"I despise you," he said again. "You intended me to love you; you encouraged me to let myself go. All the time you held yourself in, though there was nothing to hold in; you observed, you dissected. You cut down with your damned scalpels and lancets to my heart, and said, 'How interesting to see it beating!' Then you looked coolly over your shoulder and saw Seymour, and said, 'He will do: he doesn't love me and I don't love him!' But now he does love you, and you probably guess that. So, very soon, your lancet will come out again, and you will see his heart beating. And again you will say, 'How interesting!' But there will be blood on your lancet. You are safe, of course, from reprisals. No one can cut into you, and see your blood flow, because you haven't any blood. You are something cold and hellish. You often said you understood me too well. Now you understand me even better. Toast my heart, fry it, eat it up! I am utterly at your mercy, and you haven't got any mercy. But I can manage to despise you: I can't do much else."
Nadine stood quite still, breathing rather quickly, and that movement of the nostrils, which she had tried to copy from him, did not make her sneeze now.
"It is well we should know each other," she said with an awful cold bitterness, "even though we shall know each other for so little time more. It is always interesting to see the real person—"
"If you mean me," he said hotly, "I always showed you the real person. I have never acted to you, nor pretended. And I have not changed. I am not responsible if you cannot see!"
Nadine passed her tongue over her lips. They seemed hard and dry, not flexible enough for speech.
"It was my blindness then," she said. "But we know where we are now. I hate you, and you despise me. We know now."
Then suddenly an impulse, wholy uncontrollable, and coming from she knew not where, seized and compelled her. She held out both her hands to him.
"Hughie, shake hands with me," she said. "This has been nightmare talk, a bad thing that one dreams. Shake hands with me, and that will wake us both up. What we have been saying to each other is impossible: it isn't real or true. It is utter nonsense we have been talking."
How he longed to take her hands and clasp them and kiss them! How he longed to wipe off all he had said, all she had said. But somehow it was beyond him to do it. It was by honest impulse that the words of hate and contempt had risen to their lips; the words might be canceled, but what could not be quenched, until some mistake was shown in the workings of their souls, was the thought-fire that had made them boil up. She stood there, lovely and welcoming, the girl whom his whole soul loved, whose conduct his whole soul despised, eager for reconciliation, yearning for a mutual forgiveness. But her request was impossible. God could not cancel the bitterness that had made him speak. He threw his hands wide.
"It's no good," he said. "I am sorry I said certain things, for there was no use in saying them. But I can't help feeling that which made me say them. Cancel the speeches by all means. Let the words be unsaid with all my heart."
"But let us be prepared to say them again?" said Nadine quietly. "It comes to that."
"Yes, it comes to that. I am not jealous of Seymour. I laughed when you suggested it; and I am not jealous, because you don't love him. If you loved him, I should be jealous, and I should say, 'God bless you!' As it is—"
"As it is, you say 'Damn you,'" said Nadine.
Hugh shook his head.
"You don't understand anything about love," he said. "How can you until you know a little bit what it means? I could no more think or say 'Damn you,' than I could say 'God bless you.'"
Nadine had withdrawn from her welcome and desire for reconciliation.
"Neither would make any difference to me," she said.
"I don't suppose they would, since I make no difference to you," said he. "But there is no sense in adding hypocrisy to our quarrel."
Nadine sat down again on the sweet turf.
"I cancel my words, then, even if you do not," she said. "I don't hate you. I can't hate you, any more than you can despise me.
