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Fanny and Mrs. Howard went out. While Arthur and Mr. Howard stood before the fire talking in rather loud grown-up voices, Aurea and Valentine were able to go on with breakfast.

  “Do you think we have to drink that orange juice?” asked Aurea anxiously.

  Valentine looked at it with intense disgust and, picking up the tray, put it on the sideboard. Aurea thought she liked people to be tall as that and to have long hands. Certainly one wouldn’t say he was good-looking, with that long upper lip, and such a high — or perhaps it would be less romantic to say slightly bald — forehead. But to look clean and tidy did count for something, and Mr. Ensor looked as if he washed a good deal, and went to a good tailor. If one of his shirt cuffs was a little frayed, that just came of living alone and having no one to look after one. And Aurea felt that foolish small gust of emotion which her sex feel at the sight of a dangling button, or a loose thread, in any fairly personable male for whom they have no direct responsibility. Not that she had shirked sewing on buttons in her own family, for a husband and two children can run through a gross or so of buttons in a year, not to speak of perpetual patching of school suits, refooting of everyone’s socks, and a heap of darning which renewed its youth weekly. But any woman, old or young, can find emotion in a missing button when the owner is not her property.

  Valentine, as he sat down again, was agreeably conscious that Aurea was attractive. Outside the bank, where he worked hard and intelligently and would be a partner by the time money wasn’t much good to him, his chief interest was in attractive women. An unlucky beginning had not at all soured his feelings towards females. On the contrary, he felt a good deal of devotion for them, and was more than ready to meet them halfway. A detached man, even if not particularly eligible, is always welcome to hostesses. Valentine danced well and had, as Fanny put it, excellent technique. To watch the two of them playing at lovemaking was to see a display by highly skilled artists, though, to do Fanny justice, she never let her virtuosity carry her away. To endanger Arthur’s feelings towards herself, or Valentine, would have made her wretchedly unhappy, so, partly selfishly, partly unselfishly, she kept Valentine well in his place. In return he told her about all his affairs, listened to her good advice, and sometimes took it. Several years of living in rooms, after having had a wife and house of one’s own, however uneasy, had inspired Valentine with a wish for matrimony. Very ingenuously he would expound to Fanny his views about marrying again, and how delightful it would be to settle down and have a home.

  Fanny always pricked his bubbles at sight. All this talk about settling down made her quite sick, she said. If he married again, heaven help the woman. He might talk of settling, but he was a confirmed, professional gadabout. He wouldn’t in the least like to have one woman always with him. No one would ask him to dinners and dances any longer at his age, when once he was married. He would pine for these delights and lead his wife a wretched life. In fact, Fanny, who had had the advantage of hearing both sides of his matrimonial troubles in the past, was ready to declare that he had been quite as difficult to live with as Sylvia, his wife, only a trifle more restrained. He was, she asserted, of a roving disposition, and would be far more trouble in the house than he was worth. He didn’t know his own luck in being free to live as he really wished, or would wish if he knew what was good for him. Besides, added Fanny, what had he to keep a wife on? No private means and a salary of which Sylvia had a good share. Therefore if he married, he would have to marry money, and to marry money was mercenary. He must marry for love, but a woman who had an income of her own. But if he would listen to her, Fanny’s, advice, he wouldn’t try marriage, as it would only make two people wretched. And having delivered her soul of this wisdom, she would select likely heiresses and ask them down for weekends when Valentine was coming.

  Valentine, to do him justice, was not mercenary. His ideal picture of domestic bliss certainly included great comfort and a good deal of traveling, but this was all part of the dream. He didn’t feel capable of making any particular effort to look for money. His rather easily-conquered heart was always at the feet of some charmer, but the charmers appeared to require a position more solid than any he could offer. And then the worst of it was that they were all so delightful, and as soon as he was quite sure he was in love with one, he found himself halfway in love with another. Philanderer, he told himself a little bitterly in his rare fits of introspection, was what he was. Luckily for himself, he seldom let his mind dwell on its own workings. He had once been hurt more than he would admit, and to protect himself he had covered the grave where first love lay; not with willow, but with a dancing floor where, without too much effort, he could walk smoothly and set to each new partner.

  At the moment he was in the reaction of a violent affair with a clever woman, who had temporarily lost her head. No serious damage was done on either side, but Valentine, who had of late neglected his charmers, found himself in his turn a little neglected by them and was, as Fanny elegantly put it, spoiling for a new affair. To amuse him, and to amuse herself, she had invited Aurea; and she hoped Arthur would be amused too. This was not kind of Fanny. But she had little capacity for abstract kindness. Unhappiness, if it made a direct appeal to her, she could understand and help with capable devotion, and she would have been deeply outraged at the suggestion that she could be unkind. But, very secure herself in the affection which Arthur and she felt for each other, her imagination did not enable her to feel the sensitiveness of natures deprived of deep-rooted affections. It was all sport for her, and what was amusing was all right. Valentine would have agreed with her entirely, taking, as he did, his emotional life easily. No charmer disturbed his sound sleep, or his excellent appetite, however fast his heart might beat in the daytime, between meals. And no charmer had died, or shown the slightest symptom of dying of love for him, however furious the flirtation. So we may conclude that both Fanny and Valentine belong to the people who are described as being able to take care of themselves: and these people are apt to be selfish towards abstract needs. If Aurea, whose happiness Mrs. Howard would not discuss with Fanny, who would not hear Fanny’s question about her happiness, fell into such company, there might be very little pity for her. Arthur, indeed, would feel pity, but he might also make demands. Altogether Fanny had prepared a very pretty kettle of fish for a wet weekend, but whoever may suffer, we may be sure it will not be Fanny.

  Arthur and Mr. Howard had finished justifying their existence as grown-ups, and were talking in more natural voices about taking a walk before lunch.

  “Have we all to go that walk?” said Valentine to Aurea.

  “I don’t know,” said she. “One has to do what Fanny tells one, I imagine.”

  “Not if you are firm,” said Valentine.

  “But I’m not. I’m rather a coward, and if people make plans for me, I do as I am told.”

  “May I suggest a plan then,” said Valentine. “That you should have a large chair opposite the fire, and spend the morning indoors.”

  “Alone?”

  “Oh, no. It is quite understood that I should be there too.”

  “Aurea,” said Mr. Howard, “Arthur and I are going for a walk. Are you coming?”

  Valentine spoke first. “I hoped she was going to spend the morning indoors, sir,” he said.

  “Do you want to, dear, or will you come with us?” said Mr. Howard.

  “Well, papa, I think I’ll stay in just now,” said Aurea, “and perhaps this afternoon you and Arthur will take me out.”

  “Just as you like,” said Mr. Howard.

  “She will be quite all right, sir. I will take care of her,” added Valentine, quite unnecessarily.

  “She — she —” said Aurea, looking at Valentine. “In the nursery we were told that ‘she’ was the cat’s grandmother. Arthur, I believe Mr. Ensor doesn’t even know my name.”

  “I thought Fanny had done the introducing,” said Arthur. “This is Mrs. Palgrave.”

  “I had hoped I might be allowed to call you Aurea
, considering the length of our acquaintance,” said Valentine, quite unabashed.

  “Why, certainly, if you like,” said Aurea. “But it isn’t quite fair, because I don’t know your Christian name.”

  “It’s rather a silly one,” said Valentine, suddenly self-conscious.

  “Never mind, out with it. We are all married people here.”

  There was a barely perceptible pause before Valentine said, “It’s Valentine, if you don’t mind.”

  “Valentine? Valentine?” said Aurea, slowly, as if she were tasting a wine. “No, I don’t mind it.”

  “Well then, we’ll see you again later,” said Arthur. “Do you feel like starting now, sir? The weather has cleared a bit, and we might get out before it pours again.”

  The plans for a walk were nearly wrecked because Mr. Howard remembered that he had forgotten his stick, but on being offered a choice of Arthur’s, he cheered up and began to get under way.

  “Good-bye, papa,” said Aurea. “If it’s a nice walk you can take me the same way this afternoon. And now, Valentine, if you’ll help me, we’ll clear the breakfast things on to the sideboard and get the sofa around to the fire.”

  As she spoke she began piling up cups and plates on the table by the door. With Valentine’s help the breakfast table was soon cleared, and they pulled the big sofa around at right angles to the fire. Aurea established herself in a corner with some knitting while Valentine put himself into a large chair with his feet on the fender, and lit a pipe.

  “Are you enjoying yourself?” he asked.

  “Like anything,” said Aurea. “Fanny is such fun. Not a bit like what I thought.”

  “But didn’t you know her?”

  “Oh, no. I hadn’t seen Arthur for years and years, and only knew he was married. But Fanny was so nice to me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, you know one’s husband’s old friends are apt to be a horrid bore. But Fanny didn’t treat me a bit like a husband’s old friend. She opened her arms to me at once.”

  “Is that such a rare experience?” said Valentine. “I should have thought you might find the whole world rather open-armed.”

  “Oh, no,” said Aurea, and her voice sounded flat.

  “No impertinence intended,” said Valentine reassuringly. “Only an honest expression of opinion.”

  “I suppose ‘granted’ is the right answer,” she said. “But Fanny really is remarkable in the way she makes one feel absolutely at home at once.”

  “Yes,” said Valentine thoughtfully, “she is a remarkable woman.”

  Aurea was counting stitches and made no further comment. Valentine was able to look at her. He thought he liked people to be that kind of tallness, and to have lovely hands and voices. It was rather a delicious face, he thought. Certainly not as pretty as the young charmers, but if people’s eyes looked tired and had a little darkness under them; if the little hollow below the cheekbone lay in shadow; surely that was more interesting than the smooth untired faces that looked on him as a useful dancing man. If Fanny had been there, she would have taken one look at Valentine and said that he had found the affair for which he was spoiling. To Valentine it wasn’t in the least as clear as that. He was conscious of the faint excitement which always preludes the chase, but he wasn’t in the least sure of any response. Aurea didn’t appear to be one of the coming-on females. Ready enough to meet him in talk certainly, and he looked forward to exploring the quality of her conversation. But would there be anything more? Arthur, he knew, had cared for her a good deal at one time, and Arthur cared so seldom, that Valentine respected his fastidiousness of taste. One would like a woman of her distinction to like one. It would be worth taking trouble about. Valentine’s experience of charmers was that they did rather like him, without taking much trouble. They all knew about his black past and found it an attraction. Was one, he wondered, too ready to make capital out of a misfortune which, though it was safely buried, did not stop coloring one’s life. It was so easy to get a woman to be sorry for one if she knew, or thought, that another woman had treated one badly.

  Suddenly his mind went back to the moment when Aurea had asked his name. What she had said had taken him unawares. “All married people here.” Yes, of course, they were all married people; Mr. Howard, Arthur, Aurea, and himself. At least they all were married now, and he had once been. But why had Aurea said it? She would hardly have called him married if she knew that he had been divorced. Some of his charmers might have said a thing like that, and either thought it funny, or not thought about it at all. But Aurea quite obviously wasn’t a charmer of that sort. She would be kind. She would probably be so kind that it would not be fair to try to make her sorry for one. It was rather a cheap business getting sympathy from people. He wouldn’t like to do anything cheap where Aurea was concerned. He would immediately like her to know him, and care for him as he really was. A hopeless business though, he admitted, because the more you try to explain to people what you really are, the denser grows the mist of words around you, and in any case they will always think of you as they have made up their minds to find you, so it is all waste of time. Women, he had found, were mostly ready to explain themselves at great length, partly in conversations, partly in very long letters. Their idea of love letters was a very detailed description of their own feelings. Perhaps that was inevitable when you came to think of it. They couldn’t, according to modern convention, express their temporary love by physical images of beauty. If they said “your eyes…,” “your hair…,” one would either laugh, or feel very uncomfortable. So it all went back into themselves, and they classified their feelings about themselves because they couldn’t quite describe their feelings about you. As for men’s letters — well, he had written some good ones himself, but on the whole it was too much bother. And after all, it was only saying the same thing to them all, from Amanda to Zacintha.

  Now, as he looked at Aurea, she appeared to have got over the counting part and was knitting placidly again. Valentine felt he must get the position clear before Fanny — whose fault it really was for asking Aurea down and not explaining her fellow-guests to her — came in and destroyed all peace.

  “When you said just now that we were all married people,” he began, finding an unaccountable difficulty in speaking, “did you mean anything?”

  Aurea looked up and wrinkled her forehead, mildly surprised.

  “Mean anything?” she asked. “No, not specially. It’s just a family expression — it means nothing particular.”

  “I thought perhaps you knew I was married,” said Valentine.

  It is a sad fact, and mortifying to the sterner sex, that while any bachelor has the possibility of romance about him till he takes the trouble to prove his dullness, a woman no sooner hears that a man is married than the charm of romance evaporates. She may subsequently find romantic charm in him — probably of her own inventing — but, for the moment, all his merits are hopelessly obscured by matrimony. Aurea had always felt quite a little romantic about Valentine, for no earthly reason except that he was an unattached man, but at his words romance crashed to earth and lay dead at her feet. In that fleeting moment his agreeable tallness, his long hands, his pleasant deep voice, his plain intriguing face, had all become the dull attributes of someone else’s husband. So she very properly said:

  “No, I didn’t know, but I’m delighted. Fanny never mentioned your wife.”

  “I didn’t say I am married,” said Valentine. “I was married.”

  “I don’t quite understand,” said Aurea. “Am I being tactless?”

  “No — not a bit. But I thought perhaps Fanny would have told you.”

  “She didn’t tell me anything. Please couldn’t you just explain, so that I won’t go on apparently putting my foot in it.”

  Quite suddenly Valentine’s heart hit him so hard that he was surprised. He got up and stood facing the fire, and spoke straight into the mantelpiece.

  “You see I was married for some years. My
wife and I didn’t get on frightfully well. She was — rather promiscuous. We hadn’t any children, so it didn’t matter so much. Then things got worse and worse. So I let her divorce me. That’s all.”

  There was silence. It was less embarrassing to go on looking at the mantelpiece than to look at Aurea. It was very unusual to feel embarrassed. Everyone talked and laughed about these things. Why should one suddenly feel as if one had dropped a frightful brick? Aurea was a grown-up woman. She had been living in America where people divorced each other like anything — or anyway Canada — the same thing. Why couldn’t one realize it, instead of feeling that she was still a girl at home who oughtn’t to hear about ugly things? Not that girls now minded ugly things; everything was alike to them. Perhaps it was because he had first met Aurea when she was so very young, and in those days most of the girls one met were ignorant of almost everything. Then meeting her again with her father and mother gave one rather a schoolroom feeling about her. Was it silly and ill-bred to have plunged into one’s own history like that? He looked down at Aurea. She was still knitting, but to his horror and admiration, wave after wave of color was flooding her neck and face. Did women actually blush now? One thought that only happened in novels, and bad ones at that. But here was a grown-up woman, with a husband and children, flying the flag of a female in distress. What was one to do? One way, of course, would be to sit on the sofa by her, put one’s arms around her, and squash the breath out of her body. But obviously that wasn’t practical.

  Aurea, hopelessly conscious of her mounting color, was enraged with herself. Would nothing ever cure her, she asked crossly, of being a ridiculous fool? It was uncomfortable for herself and annoying for Ned, who would have liked her to be more grown-up. It was not that she was shocked by theories; she read all the new books, she saw all the new plays, and was ready to discuss anything as an abstract idea. But the moment actual personalities intruded, she reverted to Victorian type and fatally blushed. Quick confused thoughts flew through her mind about what people did when they let their wives divorce them. Having to find someone who would respectably spend the night in a hotel with one. A man called Rochester whom she had known, who madly took his hireling help to Rochester for the night because he couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. A vision — very distasteful — of Valentine somewhere in an hotel bedroom, pretending. And finally, an uncomfortable feeling that Valentine was waiting for her to say something, and the longer she waited the more difficult it would be. Forcing a very small voice out of herself, she said, “That must have been very horrid for you,” and immediately felt a fool for having said it.