‘Will you promise never to leave me again like that?’
‘I promise.’
‘Well then,’ she said smiling directly at him, ‘I expect I have been unreasonable as you call it.’
‘You haven’t,’ he said stoutly.
‘Yes, I expect I have. But you see it’s different with women. I expect I have been being tiresome, but in some ways it was too much.’
He said: ‘Do you know what I think is the matter with us, at all events I know it is with me?’
She thought now he is going to talk about getting engaged again.
‘No,’ she said, ‘what is it?’
‘You won’t be angry with me.’
She knew then it must be what he was going to say.
‘No,’ she said, moving further away from him for safety’s sake.
‘I don’t know how to say it. I bet you know what’s coming too.’
She thought why couldn’t he get on with it and then, looking at him, saw that fatuous smile on his face he always wore on these occasions.
‘No,’ she said.
‘Well, really it’s that I think we are in an unnatural relationship to each other. You know that I’m in love for ever with you. I know that you don’t see this as I do but don’t you think that if we could do away with this sort of being at a distance from each other, if we could only tell the world that we were in love by publishing our engagement, don’t you feel that it would make things easier for us? I’m not saying this from my point of view. I can’t help believing, even if I make you angry with me again, that you do care something for me or else,’ and he hesitated here, ‘well here goes, you would not have been as put out as you were when I went off.’ He went on rather quickly, ‘I must ask you to believe that I’d never have gone off when I did if I hadn’t sincerely thought you wanted me to.’ In his embarrassment he became even more formal again, ‘I must ask you to believe that I wouldn’t for anything in the world give you a second’s unhappiness,’ and he was going to add because I love you so, but he realized in time he was in such a state he might burst into tears if he said it, so, having lost his thread he wound up by saying, ‘you must believe that.’
There was complete silence. He picked up his argument again.
‘I do feel this, I know that if only we were married I could make you feel differently about me.’
‘My dear,’ she said, ‘you’ve told me that before and I know who said it to you, it was your grandmother, wasn’t it? In her generation everybody’s marriages were arranged for them and as they were never allowed to be alone with a man for more than three minutes, of course the poor darlings fell for the first man they were left alone with.’
He said nothing at all.
‘My dear, it is perfectly sweet of you and I think you are sweet too, but you must give me time. You know what you and I both think about marriage, that it’s the most serious thing one can do. Well, it’s just simply that I can’t be sure.’
He still said nothing. He was looking at the carpet. From her having to go on talking she became palpably insincere. She was also looking at the carpet. She said:
‘You see, I might make you unhappy and you are much too sweet for anyone to risk doing that to. I believe if I saw anyone making you unhappy I would go and scratch their eyes out, yes I would. And so don’t you see I can’t, I mustn’t be in a hurry; you do see, don’t you?’
He got up and walked up and down once or twice and then he stopped and asked her did she know how Miss Fellowes was now. He still would not look at any more of her than her toes. She supposed she had been beastly to him again but why, she asked herself, must he choose this hotel room of all places to propose in, with beds slept in by hundreds of fat, middle-aged husbands and wives. And this particular time.
‘They are being frightfully mysterious about her,’ she said.
Almost paralysed by his misery he said:
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like some tea?’
‘Well, we can’t very well, can we?’ she said, ‘Max isn’t here. I got some for those two old nannies when I found them crying their eyes out outside about Miss Fellowes, but that was different Do you know I’m inclined to agree with you that she is being a thorough old nuisance. And then Alex, as I thought, very rudely sent for the drinks there were in that other room, but that’s his affair. I don’t see very well how we can order tea, do you, without Max?’
‘But I’ll pay for it on a separate bill.’
‘You don’t know what he’s like, he’d never let you and all these others trade on that, I think it’s too disgusting.’
There was another silence.
‘Darling,’ she said, ‘don’t take all this too tragically. After all I’m only going away for three weeks, and I’m hoping by that time I’ll have been able to make up my mind. You do understand?’ And as he stood still with his back turned to her she came up and, rather awkwardly, took him by one finger of his sweating hand.
Amabel’s flat had been decorated by the same people Max had his flat done by, her furniture was like his, his walls like hers, their chair coverings were alike and even their ash trays were the same. There were in London at this time more than one hundred rooms identical with these. Even what few books there were bore the same titles and these were dummies. But if one said here are two rooms alike in every way so their two owners must have similar tastes like twins, one stood no greater chance of being right than if one were to argue their two minds, their hearts even must beat as one when their books, even if they were only bindings, bore identical titles.
In this way Max and Amabel and their friends baffled that class of person who will judge people by what they read or by the colour of their walls. One had to see that other gross of rooms and know who lived in them to realize how fashionable this style of decoration was, how right for those who were so fashionable, and rich of course, themselves.
If people then who see much of each other come to do their rooms up the same, all one can say is they are like household servants in a prince’s service, all in Ms livery. But in the same way that some footmen will prefer to wear livery because there can then be no question of their having to provide clothes so, by going to the same decorator, these people avoided any sort of trouble over what might bother them, such as doing up their rooms themselves, and by so doing they proclaimed their service to the kind of way they lived or rather to the kind of way they passed their time.
They avoided all discussions on taste and were not encumbered by possessions; what they had was theirs in law but was never personal to them. If their houses were burned down they had only to go to the same man they all thought best to get another built, if they lost anything or even if it was mislaid the few shops they went to would be glad to lend whatever it might be, up to elephants or rhinos, until what had been missed could be replaced.
This role applied to everything they had except themselves, being so rich they could not be bought, so they laid more store than most on mutual relationships. Rich people cling together because the less well off embarrass them and there are not so many available who are rich for one rich man who drops out to be easily replaced.
Again, as between Amabel and Max, as indeed between all of them, there was more, there was her power over him as we shall see which she valued not least because both were so rich, there was also and most important that she found him altogether attractive. Also she did not see why she need let these girls who were after his money have it all their own way while he was paying for them.