Mrs. Dorley nodded.
"That doesn't mean I can't be mistaken," she added thoughtfully. "And I'd be the last to claim that Lin is faultless."
"But you think there's a doubt about it somewhere?" Thea's eyes shone, and some of the color came back into her cheeks.
Mrs. Dorley looked at her with kind curiosity, and said unexpectedly, "Where does Stephen come in all this?"
"St-Stephen?"
"Yes. I gather Stephen's proposal came after your actual wedding. I don't know how that could have happened, because—"
"Oh, Geraldine didn't bother to send on my letters."
"Dear me," Mrs. Dorley said with deliberation, "Geraldine really is monstrous."
Thea gave a deprecating little laugh, but she said, "I can't help saymg' hear, hear!' to that.''
"Well, now—" Mrs. Dorley looked at her with penetration "—if Stephen's proposal had come before you married Lin, what would your answer have been? If you don't mind my asking that."
"I don t mind,"Thea said. "I should have said yes."
"Because it would have been a good way out, Thea—as with Lin?"
"Oh, no! Stephen made no secret of his feelings. Lin made no secret of his supposedly kind indifference. It was
fiermissible to accept Lin's kind of offer as a good way out. t would have been inexcusable to have taken Stephen's offer in that way."
"Thank you, Thea. I hoped you'd say that. Then—once more this isn*t really my business, of course—is it Stephen that you love?"
There was a long pause this time; then Thea said earnestly, **Mrs. Dorley, I'm terribly fond of Stephen. I think he's probably actually the nicest person I've ever known. I should have been happy married to him, and I honestly think I should have been a good wife to him and made him happy."
"But—?" suggested Mrs. Dorley with a smile, because the tone of Thea's voice showed that she had not really finished what she was thinking.
"The man I'm in love with," Thea said slowly, "is the man I thought Lin was. He doesn't exist, so there's nothing to do but get over him. I didn't know until quite lately that that was what was the matter with me. But I know now."
"I see. Then marrying Stephen is probably not the solution, even when you have got a divorce from Lin. It might be. I don't know. But we certainly aren't sufficiently sure of the fact for us to write to Stephen about it."
"Oh, no!" Thea was horrified.
Mrs. Dorley smiled slightly.
"Well, my dear—" she began, and then Emma came into the room to say good night. She looked approvingly at the affectionate attitude of Thea and Mrs. Dorley, and they both smiled at her.
"Did you get your letter. Miss Thea?" Emma asked.
"Letter? No. Was there one for me, Emma?"
"There certainly was. Came by the evening mail, when you were out in the garden. It's on the side table here somewhere." And Emma rummaged with the freedom of one who had run the house for some while.
She held out the letter and Thea took it, glancing in a puzzled way at the writing. As she did so, Mrs. Dorley said mvoluntarily, "Why, it's from Lin."
Emma said good night again and went off to bed, and Mrs. Dorley said quickly, "I'm sorry, my dear. I couldn't help recognizing the writing, and since we had been speaking of him—"
"It's quite all right," Thea said, and ripped open the envelope with rather unsteady fingers.
^^^ Meant for Each Other
The letter was short, and as Thea glanced through it, Mrs. Dorley watched her with something Hke anxiety.
"He's coming down here," Thea said at last. "He*s coming here on Thursday-why that's the day after tomorrow—unless I let him know to the contrary. He says—he says it's time we made arrangements about—our divorce."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Between the arrival of Lin's letter and Thursday afternoon, when he was due, Thea experienced an almost perpetual nervous desire to discuss and discuss the subject of her short, disastrous marriage and its impending dissolution.
But Mrs. Dorley wisely ^nd firmly refused to allow her to go over that ground again.
"My darling child, you Ve told me all there is to tell. You only make yourself nervous by examining and reexamining facts and theories,'* she assured Thea. "Try to take it calmly and quietly."
"I aw quite calm," Thea insisted rather pathetically. "It's just-"
"Yes, I know. It's iust that no other subject seems of much importance until this one is settled. Well, that's quite understandable. But you'll keep your own ideas and arguments much clearer if you don't clutter them up with my views or any expressions of opinion on my part. There can t be very much to settle. Just make up your mind to have a businesslike talk with Lin, and I think you'll find he will make it quite easy for you. He is suflficiently a man of the world for that."
"Yes. All right. I promise," Thea said.
But she was badly shaken when she found, on Thursday afternoon, that Mrs. Dorley intended to go out and leave her to the first tackling of Lin.
"But I want you to be there," Thea cried. "I was counting on you."
"No, darling. There is absolutely no need for me to be there. Third parties shouldn't be at these interviews," Mrs. Dorley retorted firmly. "I'll come along later, so that you
• needn't have too long a time with him. But there's another thing. If I am here when Lin arrives, there will first have to
be all the greetings an4 expressions of surprise at my being here at all. There'll be questions and answers about my trip, and by the time you finally get down to your own affairs, you'll be as nervous as a kitten, and his mind will be half on other matters. Now, be a good child. Keep up your courage and handle your own affairs yourself."
And having thus adjured Thea, she went off to do some village shopping that could, of course, have been done equally well at any other time.
At first, left alone, Thea experienced plain cold panic. Then the necessity of handling her own affairs herself, as Mrs. Dorley has said, steadied her and made her see that iti was absurd to make so much of what was, after all, unlikely to be anything but a semibusiness interview.
Lin would make it easy for her. She was sure of that. Not curiously, for Mrs. Dorley's reason—that he was a man of the world—but because Lin always had made things easy for her. Why, on a dozen occasions....
But this was not the moment to recall Lin's many kindnesses. She would only make herself unhappy and sentimental if she thought along those lines.
And anyway, it would be better to go into the garden and wait for him there. She felt that any more watching of the driveway up to the front door would tear her nerves to rags.
"Shall I pick the peas for you, Emma?" she asked as she passed through the kitchen, and was astonished to hear how bright and carefree she could still make her voice sound.
Emma handed over a basket, but told her, as though she were a child, not to get too hot.
"I'll be all right," Thea said. "When Mr. Varlon comes, you—you might just send him out into the garden, will you?"
"Yes, Miss Thea."
So Thea went out into the garden, and picked peas assiduously, and assured herself that this was less nerve-racking than waiting in front of the house.
But, in point of fact, she heard the arrival of his car just as well at the back of the house, and there followed a few agonizing minutes while she ticked off each second, won-
dering how long it would take Emma to admit him and show nim through the house to the garden.
She thought she would probably hear him speak to Emma as he came out by the garden door.
But she didn 't. The first thing she heard was—
*'Hello, Thea.'* And he had come almost up to her, unheard because he was walking on the grass.
''Hello.*' She turned around to meet him, and then was surprised that there was nothing frightening or disturbing about him, after all. He was smiling at her m the way she knew so well, and for a moment, she could not even remember how he had looked when he had turned into t
hat hateful, cynical stranger.
''Shall I come and help you with the peas? I say! youVe got a funny assortment here, haven't you?" He surveyed the contents of her basket. "Your motto seems to be Ruthless."
"Oh, I—I wasn't noticing much what I was doing. It doesn't matter about the peas, anyway. I'll leave the basket here. Emma will finish tnem. Let's go and sit over there under the trees." He agreed at once and strolled across the lawn beside her, tall, graceful for such a big man, and, so far as she could see, completely at ease.
Silently she indicated a chair, and when they were both sitting down, he looked around and said, "This is very pleasant. And you look as though it suits you, Thea."
"Yes. Yes, I love being here.
"I'm glad you're able to live somewhere that you really like," he sounded so much like the old Lin, that Thea stared at him solemnly and exclaimed:
"You've changed again."
"Changed again?" He gave a puzzled laugh. "How do you mean?"
"Oh—nothing. It was just stupid. You seem like the Lin I used to know."
He bit his lip slightly—perhaps with vexation. At any rate, he didn't take up the subject, but said rather abruptly, "Well, you know why I've come."
"Yes." Thea looked away from him. "To discuss our divorce. Though I don't really think," she said slowly, "that there can be much to discuss."
"Well, I chiefly want to know in what form you would like it."
"In what form, Lin?"
"Yes. In the circumstances, we could have a simple annulment, you know. There was no real marriage. But if you prefer a divorce—well, of course, I will provide you with the necessary evidence.''
"You mean, it's just as I like?"
"Just as you like," he agreed.
"That's very—generous of you, Lin."
He inclined his head, but he smiled and said, "It's the least I can do for you in the circumstances."
Her large, serious blue eyes came back to his face again.
"Do you mean that you're rather—sorry for what you did? " she asked, and he looked oddly disconcerted.
"Need we go into that now?"
"I should be glad to know that you were just a little sorry," Thea saidslowly.
"Want me to abase myself, eh?'' He looked amused.
"Oh, no! No, as a matter of fact, I'd hate to see you abase yourself It wouldn't be—you. It was just that I'd like to be able to believe that what you did was so far removed from your usual behavior, that you were shocked and sorry about It yourself."
"Oh, Thea dear, I don't think you'd better agonize over my * usual behavior.' It wouldn't meet with your approval, I'm afraid, so why bother about it?"
"But—" suddenly she was arguing desperately "—what you did was so different from anything else, so out of character."
"Not to anyone who really knew me, Thea."
"But that isn't true! Mrs. Dorley says it isn't, and she knows you better than anyone."
"Jeanette? How the deuce do you know what she thinks about it?"
"Oh, she's home—back in England, I mean. And she'll literally be home here quite soon. She's just out shopping. I told her everything. I... I didn't really mean to, Lin, because it wasn't very fair to you or kind to her. But somehow, when I had to explain part, it gradually became the whole. And she says it's quite out of character.'
Unexpectedly, this reduced him to silence for a moment, perhaps because he was so surprised at Mrs. Dorley's sudden return.
Then he said, "Well, don't worry about these fine shades of meaning, Thea. We Ml get this annulment or divorce through as soon as possible. And once you're married to Stephen, you won't feel too badly about the past. He's home, too, I suppose?"
"No," Thea said. "He's not home. And incidentally, there isn't going to be any *when I'm married to Stephen,' so please don't map out my future for me so exactly and— ana officiously."
He looked quite unnecessarily taken aback by this rebuke, Thea thought.
"What do you mean about not marrying Stephen?" he asked sharply. "Do you mean to say he's taken up with some other girl already?"
"If he had, protests wouldn't come very well fiom you,^' Thea said gravely. "So far as I know, he hasn't. But I hope and think that, as he's staying on longer in the States, he may have a chance of setting over me."
"But what is this self-sacrificing nonsense?" Lin sounded disproportionately irritated. "You are in love with him, so—
" Who said I was in love with him?''
"Well, you did yourself"
"Idid?^'
"In a sort of academic, roundabout way. At least, I asked you if you would have chosen to marry him if you hadn't already been married to me, and you finally said you would. I thought—why, good God, child! Don't you know what your own feelings are? Or can't you express them?"
To her surprise, Thea felt a flood or sheerly furious color rush into her face.
"How dare you say such things to me? What does it matter to you whether I love Stephen or not? It's not your business—/*wi not your business!
"You are my business," he said suddenly and quite coolly. "You're my wife."
Thea gasped.
"It's a funny time to start being conscious of that, isn't it?" she said.
"It's as good a time as any." She suddenly noticed the obstinate thrust of his lower lip. "If you're not going to marry Stephen—if he really means nothing to you and
you *re just wandering around in a vague, unattached staterm damned if 1*11 give you up without a^truggle."
" Wh-what are you saying, Lin?"
**I don't know. Some confounded foolery, I don't doubt Too many words have been said already."
And in one movement, he stood up and picked her out of her chair, and before Thea knew what he was doing, he had covered her face with kisses.
"You—beast! "Thea said, and hit him.
She was faintly shocked to find that it was his cheek she had hit, and that the blow made a ringing sound.
"Damn!" Lin said, but he didn't let go of her. "Why shouldn't I kiss you, anyway?"
"You know why. Oh, Lin, you might have sp-spared me this. You—you might have left me just a few silly illusions about you," Thea said, and a deep sob escaped her.
"Darling, don't cry.'' He kissed her again, but this time it was much softer and on the side of her cheek. "What's this about illusions? Come, don't sob like that. Tell me."
And he sat down in one of the garden chairs and drew her onto his knee, in spite of slight resistance.
" Listen, my darling—''
"I'm not your darlmg."
"But you are, Thea."
"Well, I don't want to be. Not now. There was a time when it would have made me so happy that I wouldn't have known what to do. It wasn't Stephen I was in love with. It was you—as you are not. I loathe and despise you as you really are, and I won't be darlinged and kissed and insulted by you. But I 'd like you to know that you could have had all my love and all my devotion. But almost before I knew myself that I loved you, I found out what the real you was like, and the silly, beautiful dream was over. In fact, I don't think I even knew how much I'd loved you until I'd lost you."
She stopped speaking, breathing quickly and sobbing a little, thougli she was almost too angry for real tears.
"Thea, please listen to me for a minute. Even the greatest criminals are eiven a hearing, you know—"
"All right,' she whispered, with the fight suddenly gone out of her." I 'm listening.''
"When I lied to you about Emma it was because I loved
you. Yes—really loved you. You said just now that you hardly knew when it was you loved me. Well, it was the same with me, darling, except that I was quite sure when you put your arm around my neck and kissed me, that time m hospital. You would have put the other arm around, too— you even moved it a little—but your poor little hand was weighted down too much. I knew that I loved you then, and you had just promised to marry me."
"Then?*'
"Yes. All that wh
ile ago. And then, almost in the same moment, you remembered Emma and this house and suggested you should come here. I had to act on the instant. Perhaps it was caddish. Of course, it was reprehensible. But I couldn 't let you go again, then."
"But afterward, you said—*'
"I know. I'm coming to that."
Unexpectedly, the slight, resisting pressure of herself against his arm relaxed, and she came close against him.
He smiled down at her and, for the first time, a slight, pale smile appeared on her face.
"Will you believe me when I say I often felt conscience-stricken about tricking you into marrying me? And it was all the more trying because my conscience is not a well-oiled organ, you know."
She really smiled then, and slightly shook her head. Then she was surprised to find she had done so.
"It was true that I regarded you as a girl who couldn't be rushed, but not quite in the way I implied to you before." Thea looked rather grave again. "I thought that even if I had to do my wooing after the wedding, I would give you time; but I felt pretty confident of winning you. At least—" he looked thoughtful "—sometimes I went hot and cold with the fear that I wouldn't be able to. But it was really with the idea of winning your love, Thea, now and for always. I wanted you for my wife, darling."
"Oh, Lin, why did you have to make me so miserable by telling me all that stuff about a legalized affair?" she cried reproachfully.
"That was your phrase," he reminded her. "And a very nasty phrase it is for such a little innocent." He smiled down at her.
"As a matter of fact, it was Geraldine's phrase," Thea said thoughtfully.
To which he replied, with unwanted violence, "Oh, blast Geraldine.'*
"All right.*' Thea smiled up at him. "But no matter who originated the phrase, you did accept it, Lin. Why did you do that?"
"Why did you tell me you would have married Stephen if you'd been free?" he countered.
"Was that what put you wrong?''
"Yes. Who told an unjustified lie there?" he asked teasingly.
"Lin, it wasn't quite that. In fact, it wasn't that at all. It was the plain truth that if Stephen had proposed to me first, I would probably have married him, because he's a perfect dear ana I 'm very fond of him and—''
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