Читать книгу Wintersmoon онлайн

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He broke off, hesitated, then fell on his knees at her feet, burying his face in her lap. She stared out into the room above him, as so often before she had stared, stroking his hair gently and wondering, not about him but about herself—why she was for ever wanting what she could not have, why the savour went instantly from anything secured. An old wonder and eternal so long as the human heart beats!

He raised his head, looked with aching desire into her eyes.

"Oh, Diana, help me! Send me away now and let me never return. You don't want me. You're bored with me. You'll be glad to be rid of me."

She took his head between her hands, bent down and kissed his forehead, then, moving, stood up, and he also, they both, side by side, before the fire.

She caught his hand and held it tightly in hers.

"No, Wildherne, I don't love you. That's true enough. But I love no one, and most certainly not myself. Love eludes me. At most I see it a room away, always out of touch. But friendship, that's another thing. Of all the nonsense this stupid post-war time has brought us that at least is our merit, that we've learnt the value of friendship between men and women, how to manage it and hold it so that it lasts. I want you as a friend. I can't trust anybody around me. They are false, and so am I. But you are not false. I can trust you altogether, and so I want you for a friend. Your Janet can't grudge me that. Besides, if all I hear is true, she's not a grudging woman."