I don't know,' he said.
I knelt up on the window-seat and put my arms round his shoulders.
'Why do you say these things to me?'
I said; 'you know I love you more than anything in the world.
There has never been anyone but you.
You are my father and my brother and my son.
All those things.'
'It was my fault,' he said, not listening.
'I rushed you into it. I never gave you a chance to think it over.'
'I did not want to think it over,' I said, 'there was no other choice.
You don't understand, Maxim.
When one loves a person
'Are you happy here?' he said, looking away from me, out of the window,
'I wonder sometimes.
You've got thinner.
Lost your colour.'
'Of course I'm happy,' I said,
'I love Manderley. I love the garden, I love everything.
I don't mind calling on people. I just said that to be tiresome.
I'll call on people every day, if you want me to.
I don't mind what I do.
I've never for one moment regretted marrying you, surely you must know that?'
He patted my cheek in his terrible absent way, and bent down, and kissed the top of my head.
'Poor lamb, you don't have much fun, do you?
I'm afraid I'm very difficult to live with.'
'You're not difficult,' I said eagerly, 'you are easy, very easy.
Much easier than I thought you would be.
I used to think it would be dreadful to be married, that one's husband would drink, or use awful language, or grumble if the toast was soft at breakfast, and be rather unattractive altogether, smell possibly.
You don't do any of those things.'
'Good God, I hope not,' said Maxim, and he smiled.
I seized advantage of his smile, I smiled too, and took his hands and kissed them.
'How absurd to say we are not companions,' I said; 'why look how we sit here every evening, you with a book or a paper, and me with my knitting.
Just like cups of tea.
Just like old people, married for years and years.
Of course we are companions.
Of course we are happy.
You talk as though you thought we had made a mistake?
You don't mean it like that, do you, Maxim?
You know our marriage is a success, a wonderful success?'
'If you say so, then it's all right,' he said.
'No, but you think it too, don't you, darling?
It's not just me?
We are happy, aren't we?
Terribly happy?'
He did not answer.
He went on staring out of the window while I held his hands.
My throat felt dry and tight, and my eyes were burning.
Oh, God, I thought, this is like two people in a play, in a moment the curtain will come down, we shall bow to the audience, and go off to our dressing-rooms.
This can't be a real moment in the lives of Maxim and myself.
I sat down on the window-seat, and let go of his hands.