CHAPTER XI

TWO--AND ONE OVER

Stuart’s departure meant for Peter and Merle a period of twoness deliciously free from the tension of extreme demand which he made upon their minds and bodies alike. Mentally and physically, they allowed themselves now to flop; excluding long tramps and dangerous climbs; mooching for the most part in and about the village, or among the shallower rocks; hardly talking; secure in the friendship that took much for granted.

The morning before Carn Trewoofa was to see the last of them, they awoke to a drenching downpour, which beat sea and moor and sky to one sodden colourless pulp. All day long the rain descended sullenly; and towards evening Merle coaxed Mrs. Trenner to transfer live fire, leaping and flaming on a shovel, from her kitchen to their sitting-room grate. Then she and Peter drew up their arm-chairs, definitely abandoned all idea of making an effort, and allowed themselves to be lulled to that half-hypnotic state of coma produced by warmth within and rain without; hush unbroken save by the muffled boom of unseen breakers on the beach.

“Good thing he’s gone,” murmured Merle; “Stuart hasn’t got a fire-light mood.”

“How d’you know?”

“Instinct.”

“I believe you’re right,” Peter conceded; “he can find pleasure in the rest he earns by utter exhaustion; none in just volupping.”

“Good word.”

“Yes,” said Peter, and proceeded to volupp, eyes half-closed, arms hanging over the side of the chair; too luxuriously lazy even to rise for a cigarette.

Dusk and the rain joined hands beyond the streaming squares of window. The moving world was very far away from Carn Trewoofa in its greyness. From the kitchen, two voices rose and fell in sing-song fashion; not seeming to belong to Mrs. Trenner or Bessy or any human shape; merely voices, monotonous, ceaseless, chanting.

Merle had since several minutes been watching Peter intently. All of a sudden she cried: “Don’t!”

The other girl roused herself from reverie: “Don’t what?”

“That sleepy-tiger look of yours. I hate it.”

“Why?”

“It’s so--replete.”

Peter laughed. “Perhaps it has been fed and wants exercise.”

“On a lead? Up and down the Park for twenty minutes every day? Oh, Peter, why haven’t I too got a tiger to sit beside yours on the wall?”

“It doesn’t sit on a wall,” retorted Peter, who was inclined to take her tiger seriously.

“Darling, you know it’s only a Nestlé’s-Milk Advertisement Cat. The fat creamy one. We’ll call it a tiger, if you like. It’s a very fine cat.”

Peter picked up the pair of sand-shoes which Stuart had left a-sprawl on the fender; and musingly fingered the torn soles: “Millionaire’s footgear,” she murmured scornfully; certainly they were in a disgracefully tattered condition. She pulled the two elephants from the mantelpiece, and laid one at rest in either shoe.... “Elephant cradles....”

“Are you talking in your sleep?” queried Merle.

“I was pondering the matter of Cheap Sentiment,” lied Peter. “I’ve got whole Marshes of Cheap Sentiment in my being, which I dare not show, nor even countenance, but which are unmistakably spreading.”

Merle snuggled deeper into her arm-chair, and cooed encouragement: “Go on, Peter!”

“Just think,” gently rocking the elephant cradles, “if I admitted Stuart to my passion for curly-haired small infants; told him that carols sung on frosty nights bring a lump to my throat; or that organ music makes me want to be good. Yes, it does, Merle--honest injun! And I like stroking somebody’s hair in the firelight, and simply ache at times for the strong shoulder to lean on----”

“Try Stuart’s,” suggested Merle unkindly. And Peter shuddered.

“Shoulders! he’s got ridges; they’d cut like a knife; and what isn’t ridge is knobs. No, I meant the sort of shoulder, with that traditional Harris-tweed scent ‘that ever afterwards brought his image with such cruel distinctness before her mental vision.’ You understand, don’t you?”

“Of course I do; _Pour qui prenez-vous moi?_ But your marshes are specially bad. Tell me some more.”

“Call of Spring,” continued Peter, just letting the murmured words drop from between her lips; “and the scent of jasmine on a hot night.”

“Tiger again?”

“Um.”

Merle had an inspiration: “What about letting that tiger graze on the marshes?”

“Bad for it to graze anywhere,” said Peter grimly. “Then there’s the Marsh of ‘do-you-remember’ and ‘this-time-a-year-ago,’ deep slushy ones, both of them; particular favourites of mine. And the clash of bells on New Year’s Eve awakens feelings unutterable within me. So do soldiers marching past; and a cheering crowd. I’m attached to the house in which I was born. I keep letters. I don’t mind Tennyson half as much as I pretend. And when I read about lonely children, I cry. And then I can cry at seeing myself cry--it’s a most pathetic sight!”

“Is all that genuine?” real concern now in her friend’s voice.

“Yes.... And sometimes, Merle, I just long to take the whole bag of tricks and fling them at Stuart’s head; it would be so good for him!” A half-smile tilted her lips, as she reflected how she had continually burlesqued to Stuart these same sentimental weaknesses, without once letting a hint escape that she shared in them.

The fire yawned audibly, and plopped a coal into the stillness. The sense of isolation was thick as cotton-wool.

--Crunch of footsteps up the path and on the steps. Then a loud and penetrating double knock. A dog leapt from the kitchen, barking furiously. Mrs. Trenner was heard unbolting to the intruder. The door flew open to great gusts of wind and rain. A gruff voice spoke for a moment. Retreating steps, closed door, a subdued whine from the dog ... and Mrs. Trenner brought in two sopping blurred letters that were the cause of so much sudden tumult. Then returned again to the kitchen. Silence swallowed the cottage with a gulp, and all was as before.

“Both from Stuart,” quoth Merle, handing one envelope to Peter; “how typical of him to break in with all that clamour.”

Her communication was the longer of the two, and took her several minutes to read; once or twice she laughed aloud at some brilliant flight of nonsense. At last, according to invariable custom, she tossed the scribbled-over sheets to Peter for inspection--“Here you are,” and held out her hand for the exchange....

Peter did not stir; her fingers clenched a little tighter on the letter which lay in her lap. Into her eyes had crept again that look, brooding and replete, to which Merle had so objected.

... Merle withdrew her hand. Between the two girls lay the sensation of a moment dead.

One letter which could be shown--and one which couldn’t ... Merle understood now.

* * * * *

The journey up to London was an uncomfortable one. Peter and Merle avoided each other as much as possible. Never before had they been brought to a pass where open discussion was mutually barred. Once, Peter mentioned very casually that Stuart in his letter ... had summoned them on arrival to meet him straightway at the Billet-doux for dinner. Merle courteously acknowledged the invitation. If matters had been otherwise, she would have rejoiced exceedingly at the prospect of being hurled direct from their primitive abode in Carn Trewoofa, to the contrasting blaze and bustle of a London restaurant. But aware that the stunt had been arranged for Peter, not for herself, she wished fervently she could withdraw altogether, wondered how long she would instinctively be forced to obey the call of trio, dance to its elusive melody. How long?--Why, how long had she already been fooled to the belief that she was necessary to complete the figure of three? How long had this--thing--been growing?... The slow train drew up with a jerk at Exeter, and refused for thirty-five minutes to stir from beside the wet shining platform. Peter was restless; thudded with her foot against the ground. And Merle, knowing now the cause, resented her restlessness: “She can’t wait till she sees him again.”

After interminable jolts and stoppages, Paddington Station. Twenty to seven,--seven o’clock they were due at the Billet-doux. “What shall we do with our suit-cases?” “I’m taking mine to Euston waiting-room, ready to be picked up on my way home.” “Then I’ll leave mine at a convenient Tube station; Oxford Circus will do.”... They were both thankful for the suit-cases.

A taxi hailed, and directions given. And whereas Merle, in the whirl through the lit crowded streets, grieved for the laughter missed, Peter was reproaching herself for an inexplicable wish to be doing all this alone; alone to be meeting Stuart at seven o’clock. She had not seen him since that night on the moors; he had slipped away the next morning before his companions were out of bed.

Her excitement grew. Merle looked at her, once, by the flashing arc of a street-lamp--then glanced quickly away again.

Outward circumstances were well in favour of a successful trio party. Memory of dark green moor and sun-splashed waves and all the details that went to make Carn Trewoofa,--and at the doors of the Billet-doux behold now Stuart in evening-clothes and silk hat and a man-about-town set to his eyeglass: “So glad you could come,” in the Oxford voice,--had he ever _really_ shown them his bare grazed knees?

“We do look pirates,” exclaimed Peter, laughingly conscious of brown throat, and hair tangled to a web by the salt winds. And indeed, many heads were turned to gaze after the two girls in stained tweed skirts, jerseys and caps, threading their defiant way between the tables, in the wake of the exquisite dandy.

“The same places as at our first supper?” suggested Stuart.

They assented.

So the mirror reflected the three figures, as once before. And Merle thought hard of Da Vinci’s masterpiece. She would have liked to ask if Peter were visited by the same idea, but remembered in time that the thread of intimacy had been snapped. Easy enough, now that her eyes were opened, to see what had happened to the two grown-ups, for thus she contemptuously classified her comrades; and she imagined their secret evident in every look and word; their lightest remark tingling with electricity.

... Just this once she would still be faithful to the spirit of trio. But oh, how she longed to let them know that all this elaborate comedy of maintaining for her benefit a volley of nonsense talk, was merely insulting; her eyes were clear of dust.

* * * * *

“Do, for pity’s sake, tell me some tales of Orson Manor, for the edification of grandmaman.”

“What’s the good?” from Peter; “you know that the very first time I come to lunch, I shall put my hoof in it up to the hilt.”

Stuart repeated puzzled: “Do hoofs have hilts? do hilts have hoofs--hooves--hilts--I say, that’s not a bad pub., the ‘Hoof and Hilt.’ Shall we put it in the Room, Merle?”

“We have seven already,” she reminded him reproachfully.

* * * * *

... Grown-ups, grown-ups both of them! And what was the good of forcing the play? To allow love to happen, just like other grown-ups--Merle’s lip curled. Not a man or woman in the assembled crowd but had at some time of their lives succumbed to this most ordinary passion. But the trio had boasted of their difference!... Grown-ups.

* * * * *

Stuart began to spin a marvellous tissue of absurdities relative to their supposed stay with his sister Dorothy in Devon. The Spanish waiter came and went with dishes. In the gleaming mirror, three marionettes talked and laughed and gesticulated, faithfully mimicking the originals at their side. At the side of the gleaming mirror, three pairs of eyes watched the marionettes, and marvelled at their likeness to life. At the table and in the mirror, three ghosts were chanting a dirge for the playtime that was over. But Merle alone heard them.

* * * * *

... “It was such a grotesque nightmare,” Peter was saying; “I was one side of the moon, and a cow the other. And every time the cow jumped over the moon, as cows will, I jumped as well, so as always to be on the other side of the moon to the cow. I’m not partial to cows. But it was a fearful strain, watching its face, and trying to guess from the expression exactly when it intended to jump.”

“I should have thought the double motion would become mechanical at last, like the Flip-Flap. Did you know that Mrs. Trenner asked for my address before I left, that she might send me a lobster fresh from its native soil? And can you imagine my mother when it turns up? and the butler? I haven’t the remotest notion how to account for it; Orson Manor is miles from the sea, and Dorothy _never_ sends us lobsters.”

* * * * *

Suddenly, from being especially flushed and talkative and brilliant, Peter dropped to a queer moodiness; mouth sullen; feet swinging rebelliously against the leg of the table. She wanted to be alone with Stuart--wanted it--wanted it. Merle’s presence filled her with an intense exasperation. She tried at first to control these sensations; the knowledge that they were shared by Stuart would have gone far towards soothing them. But Stuart betrayed nothing of his point of view that night; from the mask of his features, he might have been totally unaware of aught unusual in the atmosphere. His manner to both girls was equally charming ... a skilled juggler, he tossed his ivory balls.

“I only succeeded once in drawing a salt into conversation,” said Merle gravely; “I couldn’t understand a word of what he was talking about, except that it related mainly to whales. So I prattled intelligently in reply, of harpoons and blubber--oh, quite professional. Peter told me afterwards that he was referring to his summer holiday at Llandudno.”

* * * * *

... “For God’s sake, be quiet!” prayed Peter inaudibly. All these inanities--when she and Stuart might already be embarking on the perilous seas of their double adventure. Would this ghastly meal never be over? And then what lay in store? Would he contrive somehow to snatch a moment alone with her? Surely ... somehow.

Merle was also curious to see how they would rid themselves of her superfluous company. She was disliking Stuart just a little more than Peter. Her anger against the latter was mixed with a curious sympathy; if they ever came dispassionately to talk it over, she knew that each would prove perfectly familiar with the other’s exact state of mind. But Stuart’s acting, if it were indeed acting, was a shade more perfect than either of theirs.

“Have you a train to catch, Peter?” he asked nonchalantly. Her heart drummed thickly.

“Yes. The 9.40 from Euston.”

He drew out his watch: “9.10. We’ve just time for liqueurs.”

The girls drank their pale Chartreuse in silence, too tired, after the long tense day in the train, to make any further effort. Peter felt thankfully that the time of her deliverance was at hand.

“We’ll take Peter to Euston, and then I’ll see you home, Merle,” this in the porch, while they waited for the page-boy to summon a taxi.

Sharply Peter drew in her breath. What game was he playing? Merle ... fragile little fool! Surely for once she could be trusted to look after herself.

“Do you think we can’t see through that?” shouted Merle’s pride to Stuart’s courtesy. But she choked down the longing to make a scene; her good breeding, put to the test, was proving itself no mere surface quality.

At Euston, he dashed off into the labyrinth to reclaim the suit-case and take Peter’s ticket. Nine-thirty-eight by the clock over the portals.

And now all of Peter was concentrated in the one consuming longing for a moment alone with him, before the nine-forty whirled her off to Thatch Lane. She had forgotten even what she wanted from him, what she expected the coveted moment to yield her. Only knew of a frantic desire to be quit of the third voice, the third presence....

Trio?... Peter hated the Trio.

--“Come along, quick. You’ll miss your train.” He hurried them down the stairs and through the gangway--then up again--past the barrier--on to the platform--in time to see the nine-forty steam slowly away.

Peter let escape a long quivering sigh. Reprieved for a while. There was still a chance.

“When’s the next to Thatch Lane?”

“Ten-thirteen, sir. Express. Number four platform.”

They crossed to number four. And if Peter dragged behind, Merle likewise dragged. And if Peter swung ahead--there was Merle still beside her. Or so it seemed to Peter’s overwrought fancy. And after about five minutes’ aimless waiting, she could bear it no longer, but strolled off by herself, down the dark lonely platform, till it sloped away to meet a gleaming maze of rails.

Footsteps in her wake. She mastered herself sufficiently not to turn, but triumph clamoured within her. He had understood, and followed, as she intended he should. The footsteps drew level. It was Merle.

Merle had not noticed the direction Peter had taken; but discovering the accidental proximity, she tried as naturally as possible to break an awkward silence: “This was where we broke the egg, wasn’t it?”

For beyond anger and beyond pain, lurked within her an unspoken wish that Peter would not so far give herself away; fastidious recoil of girlhood from which the bloom had--not been brushed.

She received merely a look in response to her remark. Then, without speaking, they turned and walked back to Stuart, who, absorbed in a study of the ownerless motor-cars that eccentrically bestrew Euston, had apparently not noticed their absence.

Peter said: “You and Merle had better not wait. My train won’t be in for another twenty minutes.”

“Oh, very well. You’ll be all right, won’t you? I expect Merle is fagged; she’s looking awfully white. Good night. It’s been rather a successful evening, hasn’t it?”

The two girls allowed their eyes to meet in a brief flash of understanding, sympathy even. Then Peter’s hardened again to antagonism.

“Good night, Stuart. Good night, Merle.”

“Good night.”

She was alone. And Euston was in a forbidding mood; one of those vast black moods which tend to shrink the individual to the size of a thimble.

Ten--fifteen minutes. The express thundered in. Peter stepped into a vacant compartment and sat staring dully at the framed views on the wall opposite.... So it had never really happened, their fight with the wind, and the rain-blurred letter afterwards. Never really happened, or he would have made one sign to show he remembered. She dreaded the blank journey, and dreaded the blank night to follow, wondering for what length of time her nerves would continue to throb, throb and pant like the engine of the ten-thirteen. And now a shudder in the wheels beneath her, and the train began to move ... faster and faster....

Someone ran alongside, leapt on to the footboard, tore at the handle of the door. And:

“I told the man to drive like Hell!” said Stuart.

* * * * *

“Oh, Lord!” reflected Stuart the following morning; “I believe I was dramatic.”

Not alone this, but having perpetrated the abominable crime of a “dramatic moment,” he now planned no deliberate attempt to destroy it. Which was significant.

* * * * *

“Oh Lord!” reflected Peter the following morning; “I believe I was neurotic.”

She was now perfectly normal and serenely happy. The sky streamed sunshine, and she wanted to pick daffodils. Also her recollections of the evening before were extremely hazy, beyond a disgusted impression that she had behaved rather badly.

“What on earth could have been the matter with me?” she splashed herself with cold water, and put on her best shoes and stockings, by way of signalling her change of mood. Then came to the comfortable conclusion that perhaps Merle had noticed nothing. Why, it was the child’s birthday to-day. They would have a celebration; perhaps Stuart----

Mature consideration decided that, on the whole, trios had better be suspended for a while, since their effect upon her temperament was so demoralizing. No matter! she and Merle would foot it happily in their two-world; that was still intact. She would not give up Merle, nor yet Stuart, nor yet anybody. One-world, two-world, three-world; and the Room and playtime and friendship and tigers and daffodils--she would keep them all. Why not?

Thus Peter in the train which took her that afternoon to Euston, and on the ’bus which bore her down Oxford Street.

... And she was very sorry she had been cross last night, and Merle must forgive her, and be radiantly happy as well. Why not? Who could fail to rejoice, when the earth was thrilling and teeming and bursting with the knowledge that she and Stuart were going to be in love. And they would go on going to be, till the fateful day of have-been. The actual state of love Peter determined to skip; it was too smug and settled; too lacking in divine discontent. Thus Peter on the doorstep of the house in Lancaster Gate. And she startled Madame des Essarts by singing the Pirate’s Chorus the whole way up the broad and decorous staircase:

“Come, sail with me ercross ther sea, Ercross ther dork Lergoon----”

She knocked at Merle’s door.

“Come in.”

“Hullo!” cried Peter in buoyant voice.

Merle, doing nothing in particular, was standing at the dressing-table, heaped high with dainty expensive presents, and notes, and telegrams; tokens whereby might be gathered that Mademoiselle des Essarts was twenty-two.

Mademoiselle des Essarts did not return her friend’s greeting.

“Hullo!” The repetition in a somewhat more subdued tone.

“Did Stuart catch the train?”

“How did you know?” Peter queried, astonished.

“I heard him tell the driver to hurry, the instant he had deposited me on my doorstep. ‘Drive like Hell!’ was his exact expression, I think.”

“Yes ... he just turned up in time;” a distinctly subdued voice now. There was something ominous about Merle’s lovely little face; and Peter was not quite so sure about keeping the two-world intact.

“I say--Merle--was I a beast yesterday?”

“Dear me, no; you were delightful.” It might have been the grandmother speaking in those tones of frozen hauteur. Then suddenly: “You’re in love with each other, aren’t you?”

Peter tossed off her hat and coat. “Don’t be--crude.”

“Crude!” the other blazed forth; “perhaps you think you weren’t crude--last night.”

“Last night was a mood; and I apologize. I’m quite normal again.”

“Naturally. He caught the train.”

“Merle,” Peter’s eyes were deep and troubled; “you mustn’t say that sort of thing. You. You said it as if you meant it; as if----”

“As if what?”

“As if you were jealous,” Peter blurted out.

“I am. Oh--not of Stuart; he doesn’t count in this, except that I dislike him for daring to interfere, after all we’ve been to each other.”

The speech seemed to awake an echo in the room. Peter was faintly conscious of just such another scene as this, though when and where she could not remember.

“Need he interfere?” she said at last, haltingly. Then: “I say, we’re not quarrelling, are we?”

Merle smiled: “Yes, I believe we are.” Then her look shadowed once more. “Do you think I’m going through again what I sat through at that horrible supper? The knowledge of being in the way; unwanted; seeing between you two that secret current of understanding, and all the while having to pretend I was unaware of it. The trio is dead--dead--dead. And it’s not I who have killed it. It’s you and Stuart. We found the most wonderful playtime that ever was--but you had to drag in love, like any other two people of opposite sex.”

Peter crossed to the window, her back to the room: “It might equally well have been Stuart and you.”

“For me, the point lies in the fact that it wasn’t.”

“You’d have acted the same. A man and two girls--what else could we expect, admitting him?”

In the dignified street below, a long line of lights sprang into a sudden curve of brilliance athwart the dusk. With one hand, Peter held aside the tapestried hangings ... and the touch brought with it great floods of memory. Echoes?--she had traced back the echoes now. This quarrel had been rehearsed. The Inevitable had recoiled with ironic effect on those who had dared mock it with burlesque.

She wondered at what point Merle would remember the pretence drama they had perpetrated of jealousy and farewell, when the question was first raised of admitting a third to their union. But Merle was blinded by a royal rage, would see nothing clearly till she had delivered herself of the pent-up storm of emotion:

“We were to have been so different; we three. Oh, how could you spoil it? I’ve seen thousands look at each other as you looked at one another last night--but where am I to find the games and the nursery again? Real children can’t play as we did ... and you and Stuart have fallen in love!” Her delicate features quivered with scorn for the two who could not keep it up; who had dropped from the kingdom of magic strange and new, to an old, old kingdom of magic; old as the hills and the seas and the oldest road.

Peter said never a word. She was afraid to speak, for fear of again treading on the heels of that former occasion. It was too absurd that they should thus be repeating themselves, in the very same setting, and neither able to laugh at it.

“And we knew.” Merle went on, in performance of just that which Peter dreaded; “if we hadn’t known beforehand--but we knew, and courted the danger; we did it ourselves----”

“Don’t!” from Peter ... and she walked sharply away from that--that damnable window.

Then it struck Merle. “Oh, I see. Yes, it is rather funny.” She laughed drearily. “The scene ought to go well, considering we’ve played it before. A pity the parts are reversed. You preferred the rôle of Unwanted Woman, as giving more scope to your histrionic powers.”

“Look here,” pleaded Peter; and, hands outspread against the toilet-table behind her, she faced Merle squarely; “this sort of sparring isn’t worthy of us. For Heaven’s sake, let’s try and get a sane grip of the business.”

“In exactly that position?” murmured Merle, who had not slept as well as Peter, and was inclined to be relentless.

Desperately Peter dropped her hands; and wondered if there were one place in the whole room that she had not by farce made untenable.

“Can’t we throw him out even now?” but while she spoke, she knew it impossible.

“Pleasant companion you’d be under those circumstances,” remarked the half-bitter, half-mocking accents that sounded so strange from Merle. As if weary of conflict, she seated herself on the edge of the bed; the tapestried canopy casting a deep shadow on the pale cameo of her face.

“All over, Peter.” She held out her hand, with a gesture almost friendly. “You can’t keep the two of us, my dear, so stop thinking you can. Stuart can give you all that I give you, and his manhood into the bargain. So you’re all right. But if I did consent to stay in, I’d be aware all the while of a great chunk in your life that you were keeping hidden from me. And we’d be constantly hitting on allusions, and backing away from them, and being tactful,--and it would all be very feverish and very uncomfortable. What we’ve had has been too complete to spoil by compromise. It’s over, Peter.”

“It isn’t over,” Peter retorted fiercely. “I won’t have it over!” And she pushed hard at the Inevitable.

“Can you give up Stuart?”

“No,” softly.

“Peter, that wonderful type of friendship doesn’t exist, where the one left out rejoices at the good fortune of the other. If _I_ had tumbled into Paradise with some man, could you have listened to my exuberant confidences, and been noble about them?”

And again Peter said softly, “No.”

Merle lay back among the pillows, hands clasped behind her head.... At any moment she might cry: “_Pax_, Peter, _pax_!”...

“I can’t bear to be the one who lags, for whom allowances must be made, passion suppressed. There’s nothing to be done, Peter; we’ve quarrelled, and we’re going to part for ever. Humiliating, isn’t it? I wonder just how we got here.”

“Playing at God,” muttered Peter savagely; and slung her cloak around her shoulders, rammed her hat on to her head. She felt she could not stand much more. Every bit of her was aching to throw strong arms about the slight figure lying on the elaborate brocade bedspread; hold her tight, in defiance of the ridiculous notion that anything could possibly arise between them, with which their boyish brains and sense of humour and glorious intimacy would be unable to cope.--And then arose memories of last night ... one must pay for these little primitive displays. With fatal clarity, she saw Merle’s point of view. Not for the victor to insult by generosity, to dictate terms of peace; according to their code, Peter, as top-dog, was powerless to make overtures; she must simply acquiesce.

“If--when ... the other thing is done with----?” she began.

“Not even then. It would never look the same....”

(Peter bit her lip, anticipating with sickening exactitude the end of the sentence.)

... “Even after mending,” finished Merle. And a spasm of anger shook the other girl from head to foot: Merle must be selecting these particular phrases on purpose!

But it was this same nightmare sense of stepping again in her own footprints, that took Peter draggingly to the door. And: “I shall want to come back and talk about it when I get to the foot of the stairs,” she said, obedient to phantom promptings.

Merle made reply: “Of course. So will I.”

The ghost of a sham farewell had completed its subtle revenge. There was no more to be said. So Peter went.

On the steps of the house at Lancaster Gate, the knowledge returned, like the flutter of banners in the sunshine, that for her the world still contained Stuart.

... Quite irrelevantly, it also struck her that she had omitted to wish Merle many happy returns of the day.