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‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about. “Forget it?” What has it got to do with me? I
thought it was very disgusting, but it’s not my business. I can’t think why you’re questioning me like
this at all.’
He almost despaired at that. Her tone and even her words were the very ones she had used in that
earlier quarrel of theirs. It was the same move over again. Instead of hearing him out she was going to
evade him and put him off–snub him by pretending that he had no claim upon her.
‘Elizabeth! Please answer me. Please be fair to me! It’s serious this time. I don’t expect you to take
me back all at once. You couldn’t, when I’m publicly disgraced like this. But after all, you virtually
promised to marry me–’
‘What! Promised to marry you? When did I promise to marry you?’
‘Not in words, I know. But it was understood between us.’
‘Nothing of the kind was understood between us! I think you are behaving in the most horrible way.
I’m going along to the Club at once. Good evening!’
‘Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Listen. It’s not fair to condemn me unheard. You knew before what I’d done
and you knew that I’d lived a different life since I met you. What happened this evening was only an
accident. That wretched woman, who, I admit, was once my–well——’
‘I won’t listen, I won’t listen to such things! I’m going!’
He caught her by the wrists again, and this time held her. The Karens had disappeared, fortunately.
‘No, no, you shall hear me! I’d rather offend you to the heart than have this uncertainty. It’s gone on
week after week, month after month, and I’ve never once been able to speak straight out to you. You
don’t seem to know or care how much you make me suffer. But this time you’ve got to answer me.’
She struggled in his grip, and she was surprisingly strong. Her face was more bitterly angry than he
had ever seen or imagined it. She hated him so that she would have struck him if her hands were free.
‘Let me go! Oh, you beast, you beast, let me go!’
‘My God, my God, that we should fight like this! But what else can I do? I can’t let you go without
even hearing me. Elizabeth, you must listen to me!’
‘I will not! I will not discuss it! What right have you to question me? Let me go!’
‘Forgive me, forgive me! This one question. Will you not now, but later, when this vile business is
forgotten–will you marry me?’
‘No, never, never!’
‘Don’t say it like that! Don’t make it final. Say no for the present if you like–but in a month, a year,
five years——’
‘Haven’t I said no? Why must you keep on and on?’
‘Elizabeth, listen to me. I’ve tried again and again to tell you what you mean to me–oh, it’s so
useless talking about it! But do try and understand. Haven’t I told you something of the life we live
here? The sort of horrible death-in-life! The decay, the loneliness, the self-pity? Try and realise what
it means, and that you’re the sole person on earth who could save me from it.’
‘Will you let me go? Why do you have to make this dreadful scene?’
‘Does it mean nothing to you when I say that I love you? I don’t believe you’ve ever realised what
it is that I want from you. If you like, I’d marry you and promise never even to touch you with my