Kind Are Her Answers by Mary Renault Page B

was.
    “Yes. We’ll do that. That will be lovely.” Her voice was absent.
    “What’s the matter?”
    “Nothing. We’ll fix it like that.”
    “Don’t worry. I’ll see everything’s all right.”
    “Of course, I know. I was only thinking—I’d like to meet you in the day somewhere, and—and talk to you.”
    “What about?”
    “Just talk to you.”
    He stroked her hair, not answering because he was both touched and taken by surprise. She went on, “I could be out for about an hour.”
    The concreteness of this brought him down to the ground. It was impossible; the town was a small one, he and his car were known everywhere.
    “You don’t want to,” she said.
    “You know I do. But in a job like mine every one knows me by sight. You’d be surprised how many people will know you too by now. People in a place like this have nothing to do but talk. I doubt if we could get far enough away in the time we’d have. You see, I could hardly drive you out from here.”
    “No. Of course. It was a mad idea anyway. Don’t bother about it.”
    “We’ll have to leave that part for a bit, I think. Which night will you ring for me?”
    “I’ll think about it.”
    “It’ll be better if we fix it up now.”
    “I’d rather wait a bit.”
    “Why?”
    “Oh, because … Darling, don’t be angry with me, or anything, will you?”
    “Of course I won’t.”
    “I’m not going to see you again.”
    “Don’t be silly,” he said affectionately, and rumpled her hair. She remained oddly unresponsive. Suddenly it was borne in upon him that she meant what she said.
    “But why?” he asked. “What have I done?”
    “I’ll have to leave this week. I’ll have to get back to my job.”
    “How can you? What about your aunt; she’ll be terribly upset.” Amidst his own confusion, this really meant something to him.
    “She’ll have a nurse. Pedlow won’t mind, now, if it means getting rid of me.”
    “You don’t ask if I mind.”
    “You’ll be all right if I go now. Just kiss me.”
    He kissed her, and she yielded with her usual completeness, as innocent of wantonness as she was of reserve. It gave to her responses a kind of inevitability. With her, he seemed to take in some long-needed element, as simple as water or oxygen, and the weariness of years relaxed in him.
    “Why do you want to leave me?” he said. A thought went through him like a bitter taste. “Have you got some one else?”
    “Oh, don’t be such an ass.” She drew in her breath with a little hiss of exasperation. Her hands pushed at him, jerkily, as if she were trying to push in her words. “Can’t you see? I won’t have you creeping about and lying. You’re different; do you think I don’t take anything in? It would make me sick to see you. And I might put up with that if I didn’t know it would make you sick too. You’d hate me for it. You have hated me for it, already. Haven’t you?”
    Kit lacked practice in the routine evasion. He said, “Only when you weren’t there.”
    “That’s what’s important.”
    He was made ashamed by the truth of this, and sought escape from it in rebellion. His mind went back over the last years, and the effort with which he had carried himself through them, seemed barren and sterile. He thought of a procession of future years like the last, in which he would grow old, set and censorious.
    “Oh, God,” he said aloud. “What does it matter?”
    She stepped back. “Yes. I thought sooner or later it would come down to that.”
    “Christie, I didn’t—”
    “Oh, yes, you did. You couldn’t not be honest if you tried. It would be hell for you. Always having to pretend it was good and beautiful and we could really be something to each other, and making excuses and sneaking about in the dark. The first time just happened, that was fun, but to live like that … You’d be a lot better off with some woman where you could put the money on the mantelpiece and go bawdy and forget all about it. Why