“MY God!” exclaimed Bylant. He was in Elsie’s study, whither she had summoned him after his return to the house; she frequently sought his advice, and a deep and understanding friendship existed between them. He knew the situation could not have escaped her, and had felt that if he did not disburden himself he should become hysterical and make some fatal mistake. “Was ever a man in such a damnable situation before?”
“But it gives you your great chance,” said Elsie practically. “She just naturally got herself engaged to you and she will just as naturally drift into being your wife.”
“She looks upon me as a male clothes-horse with a conveniently human head. More likely she’ll get too well used to me, see me more and more as an intellectual automaton——My God, how can any woman be so obtuse!”
“Remember that Gita has had a unique and devastating experience. She’s erected a sort of rampart about herself with charged wires on top, and communicates with a few favored mortals through the peep-holes. To be more scientific, I never knew a mind that had itself so thoroughly censored.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of . . . it is a well-known fact that when women deliberately repress their natural impulses, frigidity is the inevitable result.”
“But not at Gita’s age. And frigidity is generally the refuge of unwilling wives. Gita is hardly in their class! When she should have been enjoying a commonplace innocent childhood and adolescence she accumulated a rotten knowledge of depraved men of her own class; but at least, being Gita, she saved herself from the worst. Now, after these months in your constant society, she has learned what a thoroughly decent man is like. I think it quite possible she is more in love with you than she knows. She simply can’t make the connection, that’s all. She’s still inside the fort.”
“Of course if I didn’t believe that I’d never go in for this grotesque marriage. The situation is bad enough as it is, but if I hadn’t that hope—it’ll be hell, all the same.”
“Not nearly such hell as if you’d proposed to her and seen her shudder with disgust if you’d let yourself go. Now you know just where you stand. She really loves you in her own queer way, and I don’t believe another man lives she’d marry. All the cards are in your hands. You’ll have a thousand chances to make her fall in love with you, make her feel she needs you more and more. Did she give you a peck?”
“That is the word for it!”
“You’ve taken a longer stride than you know. It means a lot with her. She’s pecked me several times and held my hand once. Polly has never been honored.”
“You encourage me! But——” He stood up and shook himself, as if in disgust at his moment of panic. “I have no intention of failing. It’s a matter of destiny, anyhow. All we realists are romantics fundamentally, and as she’s the woman I’ve been on the blind hunt for all my life and I recognized her the moment we met, there can be only one ending, however disheartening the prelude. If it were not for her cursed inhibitions she’d have known it too, long before this. But I can wait!”
And Elsie, who had resolutely forgotten her day-dreams, reassured him warmly. “It’s as inevitable as the fructification of the soil when the sun shines on it long enough. We know how we’d work it out in a novel, or rather how, with two such characters, it would work itself out.”
“A novel that doesn’t belie its name and isn’t merely a story, must conform strictly to life, and life has many unexpected cross-currents.” Bylant was gloomy once more.
“True enough. But there comes a moment in every novel when the author for the first time is able to foresee the inevitable end. All signs point one way. That is where predestination comes in. Now, if you’ve calmed down, perhaps you’ll give me a bit of advice on a knot I’ve tied myself into. There are a few things about the novel I haven’t yet mastered, and one is technique.”
“Good!” Bylant smiled wanly. “Just the let-down I need before lunch.”