Chapter XI

Anne made no more mistakes, but the irreparable had happened. She had put Nina in the wrong. She was guilty of no such intention, but she had turned upon Nina the devastating force of contrast. In the full torrent of his honeymoon ardour, no other woman, no other standard had existed for Norman. Nina overshadowed the world and blotted out her entire sex. But from this universal flood Anne’s figure slowly emerged. There was another standard after all, and by this other standard Norman began to judge Nina. While Nina had been alone with Anne, she had seen for herself points to remedy in her own immature code. She had readily believed that Anne’s ways were better than hers and, with a humility which did credit to them both, Nina had tried to behave more like Anne. But after her marriage the need for care and effort abruptly faded. Norman prized her most for her differences from Anne. He found her short swift ways perfection. Little by little she slipped out of the small considerations, the muffled approaches and evasions she had learned instinctively from Anne. Small swear words once more decorated her vocabulary, and audacity, innocent but a little roughshod, reassumed command of her manners. King Cophetua may have made the same mistake with his beggar maid, until he became aware of what the Court thought of her. Norman had become aware. Sensitive men are apt to take small breaches of conventionality with undue seriousness. Toby would have laughed at some of the mistakes which tortured Norman; unfortunately, Norman was not used to being tortured. What he could not take lightly he took very hardly, and without patience.

From the moment he saw that a change in Nina was desirable, he set to work to effect it without stopping to think of the painfulness of the process involved. It seemed bad enough to Norman to have to find fault with her, without having Nina make any objection to his faultfinding. Nina could perhaps have changed herself to please Norman if she had been given more time, and if she had not been obliged to see how much he thought it was necessary. As it was she was cut to the heart by her fall from perfection. If Norman had ceased to think her perfect, surely it must be because he no longer loved her? This is the logic of love, and all young lovers are at the mercy of their own logic.

When people are on the lookout to improve each other, opportunities occur with fatal ease and frequency. The very day that Norman had decided that Nina must speak in a lower voice, refrain from laughing out loud in public places, and that she must make her requests to servants with rather more politeness than to her equals, she did something so flagrant that it caused a catastrophe.

Among the visitors in the hotel was a small party of Germans. They were not aggressive Germans, and they were sensitive as to what the attitude of the only English people in the hotel would be towards them. Nina believed that Germans were gargoyles—monsters once dangerous and now merely laughable. None of the people with whom she was accustomed to associate had any other idea. She did not know that to her companions Germans were human beings precisely like themselves, to whom English people in particular owed all the more courtesy because they had been obliged to put them (after a struggle so terrible as to have nearly worn out antagonism) at a disadvantage. Nina thought there was something smart in being rude to what you disliked, and something vaguely meritorious in disliking Germans. It was some time before she took in that the party at the table next to them suffered from this defect. Austrians, she knew, were different. No English people needed to dislike Austrians, though unfortunately they spoke the same language, so that one might by mistake have been polite to a German without knowing it. A chance word undeceived Nina and showed her plainly where her duty lay.

Encouraged by the friendly curiosity to which the English party had accustomed them, Herr Schmidt presented to the younger of the two English ladies, whose complexion was an international asset, a basket of wild strawberries. Nina gave him a long and hostile stare, and then said slowly in a language which she had taken the trouble to acquire, “I don’t take presents from Germans.” She glanced at her three stunned companions for applause, tossed her flaming head and marched out of the room. Anne instantly begged that she might be allowed to accept the strawberries, thanked Herr Schmidt with effusion, and apologising with “Our friend is so young she does not know the war is over,” helped to muffle the sharpness of the encounter. Norman, crimson to the roots of his hair, made a formal apology for his wife and hurried after Nina. He found her on their balcony smoking a cigarette and triumphantly awaiting his approval. “I turned them down that time all right, didn’t I?” she said as he approached. “Damn cheek of theirs to speak to us at all, isn’t it?”

“Nina,” said Norman in a low tense voice, “you have done a dreadful thing, and I doubt if we can stay in this hotel after it. How could you insult that perfectly harmless family anxious to do you a little kindness? I have never in my life been so ashamed.”

“Ashamed? Ashamed of me?” gasped Nina. For a moment her consternation checked her anger. It is confusing to an idol to be accused of a peccadillo by a worshipper. The laws of the universe appear to have slipped out of place. “Why on earth—” Her cigarette dropped from her nervous fingers. “Why on earth should you be ashamed?”

“Surely you must see for yourself,” said Norman with that controlled exasperation which is so much harder to bear than an outbreak of temper, “how appallingly vulgar such behaviour is? People are not to blame for their nationality. If you expose Germans to insult, why should you be surprised if in return they insult you? These people did the exact opposite; they offered you a courtesy and you not only reject it, but you make it quite plain that you reject it in order to insult them. Of course the result of your behaviour is that Anne and Toby will probably have to spend the rest of the evening with them to try to make up for your conduct. I couldn’t face that. I simply apologised for you and came away.”

“Apologised? Apologised for me?” cried Nina, “to a German?”

“My dear, don’t be ridiculous,” said Norman. “To a gentleman, because I was responsible for my wife’s having behaved not at all like a lady.” Nina leaned forward and struck him in the face.

Never in her life had she felt such a horrible sensation. It was like a rebellion of her own flesh and blood. For Norman to think her in the wrong was bad enough but that he should actually admit it to a fallen enemy, and on such a plea—that she hadn’t behaved like a lady—was beyond the limits of self-control. Norman had used an irreparable phrase. He could have used it to Anne, and beyond the pain of its being the mark of his displeasure, he would have roused no overwhelming sensation in Anne’s heart. But the point had escaped his imagination. Anne knew that she was a lady, and Nina was not always sure.

Norman drew back after her blow in utter silence. It was far worse for Nina than if he had struck her in return. His silence and his withdrawal brought home to her the torment of their difference. She gave a cry like a wounded animal and dashed past him into her room. Norman ought to have followed her but he was too angry with her to understand, and far too hurt himself to have any pity for the greater hurt he had inflicted upon Nina. He walked out into the pine woods and wondered what he was going to do with the rest of his life. He bitterly regretted that he had left Anne but not for a moment did it occur to him to return to her.

Toby and Anne disposed at length of the appeased Germans and looked for the others on the terrace. They found no trace of them. “They’re together then,” said Anne with a little sigh of relief. “That’s something.”

“One can’t tell whether they’re together or not,” objected Toby; “I’m afraid that was a serious business.”

“It’s all my fault,” said Anne miserably. “I ought of course to have told her about the Germans before. You see she hasn’t been brought up to understand——”

“Telling doesn’t do any good,” interrupted Toby gloomily. “You oughtn’t to have been here, so that Norman could see the difference between you—that’s where you’ve made your mistake.”

“But surely, Toby, it would have happened whether I was here or not?” Anne pleaded.

“Possibly,” said Toby, “but we shouldn’t have been here to see it happen. Half of the tragedies of life are made by onlookers. Norman wouldn’t have been so angry with her, and she wouldn’t be so sick at his being angry with her—if we hadn’t had to see it happen.”

“If I thought she was alone, I’d go to her,” said Anne after a pause.

“What good would that do?” asked Toby. “If you take her part it would be silly; if you take Norman’s it will be worse.”

“Couldn’t I just be nice to her?” Anne pleaded. “You know she does love me, Toby?”

“She did, before Norman took to telling her to behave like you,” said Toby drily.

“Oh I know! I know!” moaned Anne. “He’s so stupid! so very stupid. Couldn’t you _tell_ him, Toby? I can’t—but surely you could explain, he _mustn’t_ treat her like that! It’s so foolish, because she’s so ready to learn if only he’ll admire her enough!”

“I don’t know that a man can admire a woman and teach her how to behave at the same time,” objected Toby. “He can adore her, of course, and teach her, but that isn’t quite the same thing. It doesn’t seem to answer as well.”

“It doesn’t answer at all,” said Anne with conviction. “Nobody likes being adored and not admired. It’s almost as bad as being venerated instead of loved—but perhaps not quite.”

“There’s something worse than either of those,” said Toby in a low voice, “being treated like a placid friend when you want to be an ardent lover.”

“But there isn’t any question of that,” said Anne. “Fortunately we haven’t got that contingency to bother about.”

“No,” agreed Toby, slowly puffing at his cigar in the friendly darkness, “I don’t suppose we need bother about it. What is it you suggest I should say to Norman, Anne? Personally I’m all against giving advice to lovers. The only advice I believe in is that of passive resistance. I should leave them entirely alone if I were you. No doubt they’ll scratch each other’s eyes out, but they’ll probably scratch them in again afterwards.”

Anne thought that Toby’s theories of love were a little coarse, but she respected his judgment. He mightn’t see the necessity of doing what she wanted, but he would do it quite well, when he had made up his mind to it. “If you would take Norman for a walk to-morrow, Toby,” she explained, “and just point out that Nina must be much more considered in her feelings than anyone else, because if it’s hard for him to have to correct her—and Norman will find it very hard—it is even worse for her to have to be corrected. And whatever happens, he’s not to drag in my name. It would be cruel to her and to me. He’s so naturally kind that if he’d any idea of the pain it must be to her, he’d not mind being hurt himself to save her.”

“I’m to tell Norman that—from you?” asked Toby.

“Not particularly from me—from both of us,” said Anne, “it’s the same thing.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” said Toby, “but please don’t stop to think what it means, for fear you should take it back.”

Anne looked startled for a moment; there was a dangerous gentleness in Toby’s voice, mixed with a hint of laughter. She wasn’t quite sure what he meant, and it occurred to her for the first time that perhaps she ought to find out. Then the seriousness of Norman’s problem submerged her. “I do hope they _are_ together!” she murmured, turning towards the house.