“We’d better be going inside, anyhow,”
said Argyle. “Some of you will be taking
cold.”
“Aaron,” said Lilly. “Is it
true for you?”
“Nearly,” said Aaron, looking into the
quiet, half-amused, yet frightening eyes of the other
man. “Or it has been.”
“A miss is as good as a mile,” laughed
Lilly, rising and picking up his chair to take it
indoors. And the laughter of his voice was so
like a simple, deliberate amiability, that Aaron’s
heart really stood still for a second. He knew
that Lilly was alone—as far as he, Aaron,
was concerned. Lilly was alone—and
out of his isolation came his words, indifferent as
to whether they came or not. And he left his
friends utterly to their own choice. Utterly
to their own choice. Aaron felt that Lilly was
there, existing in life, yet neither asking
for connection nor preventing any connection.
He was present, he was the real centre of the group.
And yet he asked nothing of them, and he imposed
nothing. He left each to himself, and he himself
remained just himself: neither more nor less.
And there was a finality about it, which was at once
maddening and fascinating. Aaron felt angry,
as if he were half insulted by the other man’s
placing the gift of friendship or connection so quietly
back in the giver’s hands. Lilly would
receive no gift of friendship in equality. Neither
would he violently refuse it. He let it lie
unmarked. And yet at the same time Aaron knew
that he could depend on the other man for help, nay,
almost for life itself—so long as it entailed
no breaking of the intrinsic isolation of Lilly’s
soul. But this condition was also hateful.
And there was also a great fascination in it.
THE MARCHESA
So Aaron dined with the Marchesa and Manfredi.
He was quite startled when his hostess came in:
she seemed like somebody else. She seemed like
a demon, her hair on her brows, her terrible modern
elegance. She wore a wonderful gown of thin blue
velvet, of a lovely colour, with some kind of gauzy
gold-threaded filament down the sides. It was
terribly modern, short, and showed her legs and her
shoulders and breast and all her beautiful white arms.
Round her throat was a collar of dark-blue sapphires.
Her hair was done low, almost to the brows, and heavy,
like an Aubrey Beardsley drawing. She was most
carefully made up—yet with that touch of
exaggeration, lips slightly too red, which was quite
intentional, and which frightened Aaron. He thought
her wonderful, and sinister. She affected him
with a touch of horror. She sat down opposite
him, and her beautifully shapen legs, in frail, goldish
stockings, seemed to glisten metallic naked, thrust
from out of the wonderful, wonderful skin, like periwinkle-blue
velvet. She had tapestry shoes, blue and gold:
and almost one could see her toes: metallic naked.
The gold-threaded gauze slipped at her side.
Aaron could not help watching the naked-seeming arch
of her foot. It was as if she were dusted with
dark gold-dust upon her marvellous nudity.
