Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/347

 'I was with Marthe, twice, yesterday,' Jill went on. 'We were both too tired. I couldn't persuade her. We had to leave it. But to-day you must see her and make her understand that you and she must go away together.'

Dick loomed up there between her and the window, tall, dark, still, with his folded arms. 'Leaving you?' was what he said at last.

'I'll be going, too,' said Jill, pausing for a moment to think. 'In another direction. It's all really simple, isn't it?—when people understand each other, and love each other.'

'Simple, do you call it? Bringing our marriage to an end?'

It was not a case for retort. He did not mean it like that. Jill understood. 'We couldn't, of course; if it had been anything small, or usual. I mean—if you'd been unfaithful, in the usual way, with the usual sort of person—I'd have forgiven you, of course. I shouldn't have dreamed of our parting. But it's not a case for forgiveness, now. It has nothing to do with forgiveness. Only for understanding. And I do understand.'

'I don't quite make out how you do,' Dick muttered, taking a tighter grasp of his arms and turning his head to look down at the fire.

'How I understand as I do, you mean?—Because of Marthe, of course,' said Jill. 'After all'—and she could not repress a curious little smile, half sweetness, half bitterness—'I loved her before you did.'