At that moment the thought assailed her, “If Seymour were suddenly to die!” There would be a terrible gap in her life. Her loneliness then would be horrible indeed unless--she pulled herself up with a sort of fierce mental violence. “I won’t! I won’t!” she cried out to herself.
“You are very strong and healthy, Seymour,” she said, “I think you will live to be very old.”
“Probably. Palaces usually contain a few dodderers. But is anything the matter, Adela? The old dog is very persistent, you know.”
“It isn’t that. I was out at the theatre with a party only last night. We went to _The Great Lover_. But he wasn’t like you. You are a really great lover.”
And again she leaned forward towards him, trying to feel physically what surely she was feeling in another way.
“I don’t know,” he said, very simply. “But certainly I have the gift of faithfulness, if it is a gift.”
“We had great discussions on love and jealousy last night.”
“I went with Beryl Van Tuyn and Francis Braybrooke.”
Lady Sellingworth felt an almost fierce flash of irritation as she heard him say “boy.”
“He’s hardly a boy,” she said. “He must be at least thirty, and I think he seems even older than he is.”
“Does he? He struck me as very young. When he went away with that pretty girl it was like young April going out of the room with all the daffodils. They matched.”
The intense irritation grew in Lady Sellingworth. She felt as if she were being pricked by a multitude of pins.
“Beryl is years and years younger than he is!” she said. “I don’t think you are very clever about ages, Seymour. There must be nearly ten years difference between them.”
Scarcely had she said this than her mind added, “And about thirty years’ difference between him and me!” And then something in her--she thought of it as the soul--crumpled up, almost as if trying to die and know nothing more.
“What is it, Adela?” again he said, gently. “Can’t I help you?”
“No, no, you can’t!” she answered, almost with desperation, no longer able to control herself thoroughly.
Suddenly she felt as if she were losing her head, as if she might break down before him, let him into her miserable secret.
“The fact is,” she continued, fixing her eyes upon him, as a criminal might fix his eyes on his judge while denying everything. “The fact is that none of us really can help anyone else. We may think we can sometimes, but we can’t. We all work out our own destinies in absolute loneliness. You and I are very old friends, and yet we are far away from each other, always have been and always shall be. No, you haven’t the power to help me, Seymour.”