He released her hand.
"So you like me because I'm sensible! Thanks."
"That's a good reason, isn't it?"
"Good God, Natalie, I'm only sensible because I have to be. Not about
the war. I'm not talking about that. About you."
"What have I got to do with your being sensible and sane?"
"Just think about things, and you'll know."
She was greatly thrilled and quite untouched. It was a pleasant little
game, and she held all the winning cards. So she said, very softly: "We mustn't go on like this, you know. We mustn't spoil things."
And by her very "we" let him understand that the plight was not his but
theirs. They were to suffer on, she implied, in a mutual, unacknowledged
passion. He flushed deeply.
But although he was profoundly affected, his infatuation was as spurious
as her pretense of one. He was a dilettante in love, as he was in
art. His aesthetic sense, which would have died of an honest passion,
fattened on the very hopelessness of his beginning an affair with
Natalie. Confronted just then with the privilege of marrying her, he
would have drawn back in dismay.
Since no such privilege was to be his, however, he found a deep
satisfaction in considering himself hopelessly in love with her. He was
profoundly sorry for himself. He saw himself a tragic figure, hopeless
and wretched. He longed for the unattainable; he held up empty hands to
the stars, and by so mimicking the gesture of youth, he regained youth.
"You won't cut me out of your life, Natalie?" he asked wistfully.
And Natalie, who would not have sacrificed this new thrill for anything
real in the world, replied: "It would be better, wouldn't it?"
There was real earnestness in his voice when he spoke. He had dramatized
himself by that time.
"Don't take away the only thing that makes life worth living, dear!"
Which Natalie, after a proper hesitation, duly promised not to do.
There were other conversations after that. About marriage, for instance,
which Rodney broadly characterized as the failure of the world; he liked
treading on dangerous ground.
"When a man has married, and had children, he has fulfilled his duty
to the State. That's all marriage is--duty to the State. After that he
follows his normal instincts, of course."
"If you are defending unfaithfulness?"
"Not at all. I admire faithfulness. It's rare enough for admiration.
No. I'm recognizing facts. Don't you suppose even dear old Clay likes a
pretty woman? Of course he does. It's a total difference of view-point,
Natalie. What is an incident to a man is a crime to a woman."