The Greater Inclination Part 18

_Oberville_. But you have changed, all the same.

_Isabel_. You must indeed have reached a dizzy eminence, since you can indulge yourself by speaking the truth!

_Oberville_. It's your voice. I knew it at once, and yet it's different.

_Isabel_. I hope it can still convey the pleasure I feel in seeing an old friend. (_She holds out her hand. He takes it_.) You know, I suppose, that Mrs. Raynor is not here to receive you? She was called away this morning very suddenly by her aunt's illness.

_Oberville_. Yes. She left a note for me. (_Absently_.) I'm sorry to hear of Mrs. Griscom's illness.

_Isabel_. Oh, Mrs. Griscom's illnesses are less alarming than her recoveries. But I am forgetting to offer you any tea. (_She hands him a cup_.) I remember you liked it very strong.

_Oberville_. What else do you remember?

_Isabel_. A number of equally useless things. My mind is a store-room of obsolete information.

_Oberville_. Why obsolete, since I am providing you with a use for it?

_Isabel_. At any rate, it's open to question whether it was worth storing for that length of time. Especially as there must have been others more fitted--by opportunity--to undertake the duty.

_Oberville_. The duty?

_Isabel_. Of remembering how you like your tea.

_Oberville (with a change of tone)_. Since you call it a duty--I may remind you that it's one I have never asked any one else to perform.

_Isabel_. As a duty! But as a pleasure?

_Oberville_. Do you really want to know?

_Isabel_. Oh, I don't require and charge you.

_Oberville_. You dislike as much as ever having the _i_'s dotted?

_Isabel_. With a handwriting I know as well as yours!

_Oberville (recovering his lightness of manner)_. Accomplished woman!

(_He examines her approvingly_.) I'd no idea that you were here. I never was more surprised.

_Isabel_. I hope you like being surprised. To my mind it's an overrated pleasure.

_Oberville_. Is it? I'm sorry to hear that.

_Isabel_. Why? Have you a surprise to dispose of?

_Oberville_. I'm not sure that I haven't.

_Isabel_. Don't part with it too hastily. It may improve by being kept.

_Oberville (tentatively)_. Does that mean that you don't want it?

_Isabel_. Heaven forbid! I want everything I can get.

_Oberville_. And you get everything you want. At least you used to.

_Isabel_. Let us talk of your surprise.

_Oberville_. It's to be yours, you know. (_A pause. He speaks gravely_.) I find that I've never got over having lost you.

_Isabel (also gravely)_. And is that a surprise--to you too?

_Oberville_. Honestly--yes. I thought I'd crammed my life full. I didn't know there was a cranny left anywhere. At first, you know, I stuffed in everything I could lay my hands on--there was such a big void to fill.

And after all I haven't filled it. I felt that the moment I saw you. (_A pause_.) I'm talking stupidly.

_Isabel_. It would be odious if you were eloquent.

_Oberville_. What do you mean?

_Isabel_. That's a question you never used to ask me.

_Oberville_. Be merciful. Remember how little practise I've had lately.

_Isabel_. In what?

_Oberville_. Never mind! (_He rises and walks away; then comes back and stands in front of her_.) What a fool I was to give you up!

_Isabel_. Oh, don't say that! I've lived on it!

_Oberville_. On my letting you go?

_Isabel_. On your letting everything go--but the right.

_Oberville_. Oh, hang the right! What is truth? We had the right to be happy!

_Isabel (with rising emotion)_. I used to think so sometimes.

_Oberville_. Did you? Triple fool that I was!

_Isabel_. But you showed me--

_Oberville_. Why, good G.o.d, we belonged to each other--and I let you go!

It's fabulous. I've fought for things since that weren't worth a crooked sixpence; fought as well as other men. And you--you--I lost you because I couldn't face a scene! Hang it, suppose there'd been a dozen scenes--I might have survived them. Men have been known to. They're not necessarily fatal.

_Isabel_. A scene?

_Oberville_. It's a form of fear that women don't understand. How you must have despised me!

_Isabel_. You were--afraid--of a scene?