'Was that found in a lumber room?'
'No. No, I don't think it was.
As a matter of fact I believe it was a wedding-present.
Rebecca knew a lot about china.'
I did not look at him.
I began to polish my nails.
He had said the word quite naturally, quite calmly.
It had been no effort to him.
After a minute I glanced at him swiftly.
He was standing by the mantelpiece, his hands in his pockets.
He was staring straight in front of him.
He is thinking about Rebecca, I said to myself.
He is thinking how strange it was that a wedding present to me should have been the cause of destroying a wedding present to Rebecca.
He is thinking about the cupid.
He is remembering who gave it to Rebecca.
He is going over in his mind how the parcel came and how pleased she was.
Rebecca knew a lot about china.
Perhaps he came into the room, and she was kneeling on the floor, wrenching open the little crate in which the cupid was packed.
She must have glanced up at him, and smiled.
'Look, Max,' she would have said, 'look what we've been sent.'
And she then would have plunged her hand down into the shavings and brought out the cupid who stood on one foot, his bow in his hand.
"We'll have it in the morning-room,' she must have said, and he must have knelt down beside her, and they must have looked at the cupid together.
I went on polishing my nails.
They were scrubby, like a schoolboy's nails.
The cuticles grew up over the half moons. The thumb was bitten nearly to the quick.
I looked at Maxim again.
He was still standing in front of the fireplace.
'What are you thinking about?' I said.
My voice was steady and cool.
Not like my heart, thumping inside me.
Not like my mind, bitter and resentful.
He lit a cigarette, surely the twenty-fifth that day, and we had only just finished lunch; he threw the match into the empty grate, he picked up the paper.
'Nothing very much, why?' he said.
'Oh, I don't know,' I said, 'you looked so serious, so far away.'
He whistled a tune absently, the cigarette twisting in his fingers.
'As a matter of fact I was wondering if they had chosen the Surrey side to play Middlesex at the Oval,' he said.
He sat down in the chair again and folded the paper.
I looked out of the window.
Presently Jasper came to me and climbed on my lap.
Chapter thirteen
Maxim had to go up to London at the end of June to some public dinner.
A man's dinner.
Something to do with the county.
He was away for two days and I was left alone.
I dreaded his going.
When I saw the car disappear round the sweep in the drive I felt exactly as though it were to be a final parting and I should never see him again.
There would be an accident of course and later on in the afternoon, when I came back from my walk, I should find Frith white and frightened waiting for me with a message.
The doctor would have rung up from some cottage hospital.
'You must be very brave,' he would say, 'I'm afraid you must be prepared for a great shock.'
And Frank would come, and we would go to the hospital together.