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‘It’s only this. Whatever I’ve done to offend you–please tell me what it is. Tell me and let me put it
right. I’d sooner cut my hand off than offend you. Just tell me, don’t let me go on not even knowing
what it is.’
‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about. “Tell you how you’ve offended me?” Why should
you have offended me?’
‘But I must have! After the way you behaved!’
‘ “After the way I behaved?” I don’t know what you mean. I don’t know why you’re talking in this
extraordinary way at all.’
‘But you won’t even speak to me! This morning you cut me absolutely dead.’
‘Surely I can do as I like without being questioned?’
‘But please, please! Don’t you see, you must see, what it’s like for me to be snubbed all of a
sudden. After all, only last night you––’
She turned pink. ‘I think it’s absolutely–absolutely caddish of you to mention such things!’
‘I know, I know. I know all that. But what else can I do? You walked past me this morning as
though I’d been a stone. I know that I’ve offended you in some way. Can you blame me if I want to
know what it is that I’ve done?’
He was, as usual, making it worse with every word he said. He perceived that whatever he had
done, to be made to speak of it seemed to her worse than the thing itself. She was not going to explain.
She was going to leave him in the dark–snub him and then pretend that nothing had happened; the
natural feminine move. Nevertheless he urged her again:
‘Please tell me. I can’t let everything end between us like this.’
‘ “End between us?” There was nothing to end,’ she said coldly.
The vulgarity of this remark wounded him, and he said quickly:
‘That wasn’t like you, Elizabeth! It’s not generous to cut a man dead after you’ve been kind to him,
and then refuse even to tell him the reason. You might be straightforward with me. Please tell me what
it is that I’ve done.’
She gave him an oblique, bitter look, bitter not because of what he had done, but because he had
made her speak of it. But perhaps she was anxious to end the scene, and she said:
‘Well then, if you absolutely force me to speak of it––’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m told that at the very same time as you were pretending to–well, when you were… with me–oh,
it’s too beastly! I can’t speak of it.’
‘Go on.’
‘I’m told that you’re keeping a Burmese woman. And now, will you please let me pass?’
With that she sailed–there was no other possible word for it–she sailed past him with a swish of
her short skirts, and vanished into the card-room. And he remained looking after her, too appalled to
speak, and looking unutterably ridiculous.
It was dreadful. He could not face her after that. He turned to hurry out of the Club, and then dared
not even pass the door of the card-room, lest she should see him. He went into the lounge, wondering
how to escape, and finally climbed over the veranda rail and dropped onto the small square of lawn