‘It won’t do, you know,’ he said. ‘You’ll never be able to live with him, with Matthew.’
She felt a tremor go through her blood at the sound of Findlay’s mischievous, soft voice. There was something about him that was like magic to her, the swift, secret, unbelievable excitement that trembled in all her veins, because he was so thrilling, and she was so aware. She seemed so subtly attuned to his thrillingness. The consciousness of it vibrated through her with almost unbearable intensity. Yet her mind stayed quite aloof. Her mind was not attracted: it was even a little antagonistic. With her mind she recognized something shifty and elvishly unreliable in him, something which made it impossible to depend on him. And this she found unsympathetic.
‘Why won’t it do? Why shouldn’t Matthew and I live together?’
Once more she saw the negatory movement of his head. His face wore the curious smile, pale, disturbing, poignant, with the satyr-quality of dangerous archness.
‘It’s ridiculous. You’ll be unhappy. You’ll hate the life in the East. Why are you going there?’
Anna stood still and tipped the ash from her cigarette.
‘I must go. I must,’ she said. ‘There’s no alternative.’
‘You’ll hate it.’
She looked at him angrily.
‘Why do you say that? Why should you deliberately try to make me depressed? Do you want me to be miserable?’
‘Yes, perhaps.’ He gave a curious Mephistophelean laugh, almost soundless. ‘Perhaps that’s what I do want.’
She was resentful, staring at him accusingly.
‘Why? Why?’ she asked resentfully, challenging him.
He smiled, his wide, subtle smile, like a satyr’s, but so strangely attractive. It made a quiver like electricity pass through her. Yet her mind was antagonized, nor would it ever be otherwise.
So there was a sort of deadlock. She was tremulous before his smiling face. She thrilled at the careless, graceful poise of his long, thin body, so like an elegant, long-legged bird. She wanted him to come near. And he wanted to approach. But her mind had ultimately decided against him, rejecting him. And this held him off. He was too sensitive a plant not to wilt and shrivel in the blast of her silent criticism. He could not stand up against that. And she couldn’t help finding fault with him, in her mind. He was so irresponsible, like a child; and like a child, charming and heart-breaking. Perhaps if he were to touch her, her resistance would break down. Would he touch her? She shuddered, and hoped not. Or did she really, underneath everything, hope that he would? Anyhow, he did not.
And suddenly, as she watched him, she saw some men in uniform, with lanterns, coming along. As they caught sight of Anna and Findlay, as they drew near across the dark, empty space, there arose a certain commotion. Some of them shouted. Some were calling incomprehensibly, some were running towards them, some were gesticulating; it was like a kind of attack. Anna watched the approaching troop with apprehension.
And as she watched, in a moment the foremost men were upon them, talking loudly and excitedly. Findlay answered laboriously. It seemed that he knew a few words of Arabic. Anna looked on, rather nervous. The men were all round, standing quite near; such an odd, theatrical crew. But they didn’t do anything violent. In spite of their excitement they seemed quite deferential. So her alarms subsided, and she listened to the palaver. Findlay was standing beside her. She would have liked to stick a pin in his smoothly swelling, handsome, birdlike chest. She felt intolerant of him. He stood there, speaking slowly, his nose arched in his faintly conceited, aristocratic manner, as he talked to the men. His face had the palely-smiling gleam, his eyes in the lantern light flickered roguish and attractive. But somehow, mentally, she rather distrusted him. He was unsatisfactory: though he had that peculiar demonish distinction that thrilled her so much. She was sure he would let her down if he had the chance. If he had not already done so.
An understanding had at last been reached with the men. Findlay suddenly laughed and threw his cigarette on the ground. He stamped it out with the heel of his shoe.
‘We mustn’t smoke here,’ he told Anna. ‘It seems we’re in the government petrol depot.’ His face was all curling up in pale, faunal amusement.
But her heart had hardened against him. She put out her cigarette and moved away.
‘We must find Matthew and get back to the boat,’ she said coolly.
There was a dreariness in her on Findlay’s account. As though in rejecting him, or being let down by him, she had suffered some dragging internal wrench.
Without more ado they went back to the frequented, the Europeanized, tourist-ridden part of the town. Matthew was discovered outside the hotel, walking up and down in suppressed anxiety, and of course looking in the wrong direction. What to say to him? Anna could not bring herself to believe in his latest enormity, nor disbelieve. They called out to attract his attention.
He turned round. ‘Where have you been?’ he said, in an aggrieved fashion. ‘I’ve hunted for you everywhere. Everywhere.’ So he stared out of his blue eyes at Anna, and seemed to have forgotten the rest of the evening.
When Anna looked at him, she saw only his innocence, his extraordinary, naive unawareness, as though he had really forgotten. And the look of anxious reproach in his eyes which seemed to put her in the wrong. She did not know what to believe.
‘How could you go off like that?’ said Matthew, his eyes reproachful. ‘I’ve been dreadfully worried. Port Said is no place for a woman alone.’ He really seemed to think she was in the wrong.
Findlay wandered away. When Anna was alone with Matthew he still maintained his injured, innocent behaviour.
‘Why did you do it?’ she said, staring at him coldly. ‘Why did you take me to that horrible place?’
‘Why did you run away?’ he retorted. He avoided the issue entirely. He would not answer her. And she knew that he never would answer. Impossible to get anything out of him. Perhaps he really failed to hear her question, or failed to understand. The impossibility of communication with him made her feel hopeless. She looked at his face. It was brown and blank.
‘We must go back to the boat,’ he said. ‘We must get a gharri.’
A carriage was called and they got in. Anna made one more attempt.
‘I want to know what your idea was in taking me to that beastly place,’ she said. Her eye was stony.
Matthew sat beside her listening to her question, to her voice of cold inquiry. He did not seem to hear. He seemed to hear only what he wished, to understand only what was acceptable to him. You might question him for a year and a day and he would never hear you — unless he wanted to hear.
Anna felt this, and gave it up. She was quite bewildered. She could not reconcile the Matthew who had inflicted the nightmare upon her with the innocent Matthew who came afterwards. She did not know which to believe in. Nevertheless, she knew he was more of a nonentity to her than a nightmare. He would never become important. He was not real. She looked at him with a certain horror and apprehension, at his close, round, meaningless head bobbing in her direction. She hurried away as soon as she could. But he was not really of any importance, although she found him repugnant.
The voyage went on, the Port Said incident dropped out of sight and was more or less forgotten. Matthew stuck closer to Anna. It seemed now that he had to be always with her. His popularity among the lady passengers was on the wane for some reason. Perhaps they had tired of his somewhat insipid attractions and had begun to see through him. Or perhaps it was he himself who had changed, growing less gratifyingly obliging. He was rather touchy these days; he started to quarrel with the men, to take offence at everything. He seemed to have developed a childish fear of being ‘left out.’ And so, of course, he was left out. And so he turned back to Anna, and would not leave her. Which was distinctly trying.