‘Why?’
‘I think you know just as well as I do.’
Then Julia did a disgraceful thing.
She sat down and for a minute looked silently at the miniature.
Timing it perfectly, she raised her eyes till they met Charles’s.
She could cry almost at will, it was one of her most telling accomplishments, and now without a sound, without a sob, the tears poured down her cheeks.
With her mouth slightly open, with the look in her eyes of a child that has been deeply hurt and does not know why, the effect was unbearably pathetic.
His face was crossed by a twinge of agony.
When he spoke his voice was hoarse with emotion.
‘You’re in love with Michael, aren’t you?’
She gave a little nod.
She tightened her lips as though she were trying to control herself, but the tears rolled down her cheeks.
‘There’s no chance for me at all?’
He waited for some answer from her, but she gave none, she raised her hand to her mouth and seemed to bite a nail, and still she stared at him with those streaming eyes.
‘Don’t you know what torture it is to go on seeing you?
D’you want me to go on seeing you?’
Again she gave a little nod.
‘Clara’s making me scenes about you.
She’s found out I’m in love with you.
It’s only common sense that we shouldn’t see one another any more.’
This time Julia slightly shook her head.
She gave a sob.
She leant back in the chair and turned her head aside.
Her whole body seemed to express the hopelessness of her grief.
Flesh and blood couldn’t stand it.
Charles stepped forward and sinking to his knees took that broken woebegone body in his arms.
‘For God’s sake don’t look so unhappy.
I can’t bear it.
Oh, Julia, Julia, I love you so much, I can’t make you so miserable.
I’ll accept anything.
I’ll make no demands on you.’
She turned her tear-stained face to him (‘God, what a sight I must look now’) and gave him her lips.
He kissed her tenderly.
It was the first time he had ever kissed her.
‘I don’t want to lose you,’ she muttered huskily.
‘Darling, darling!’
‘It’ll be just as it was before?’
‘Just.’
She gave a deep sigh of contentment and for a minute or two rested in his arms.
When he went away she got up and looked in the glass.
‘You rotten bitch,’ she said to herself.
But she giggled as though she were not in the least ashamed and then went into the bathroom to wash her face and eyes.
She felt wonderfully exhilarated.
She heard Michael come in and called out to him.
‘Michael, look at that miniature Charles has just given me.
It’s on the chimney-piece.
Are those diamonds or paste?’
Julia was somewhat nervous when Lady Charles left her husband. She threatened to bring proceedings for divorce, and Julia did not at all like the idea of appearing as intervener.
For two or three weeks she was very jittery.
She decided to say nothing to Michael till it was necessary, and she was glad she had not, for in due course it appeared that the threats had been made only to extract more substantial alimony from the innocent husband.