«There, I’m not,» said Marjorie through her tears. «I’ll try to stop. Guy wouldn’t have wanted us to cry for him. You’re right; he would have wanted us to live for him—worthily, in his splendid way.»
«We who knew him and loved him must make our lives a memorial of him.» In ordinary circumstances George would have died rather than make a remark like that. But in speaking of the dead, people forget themselves and conform to the peculiar obituary convention of thought and language. Spontaneously, unconsciously, George had conformed.
Marjorie wiped her eyes. «Thank you, George. You know so well what darling Guy would have liked. You’ve made me feel stronger to bear it. But, all the same, I do feel odious for what I thought about him sometimes. I didn’t love him enough. And now it’s too late. I shall never see him again.» The spell of that «never «worked again: Marjorie sobbed despairingly.
George’s distress knew no bounds. He put his arm round Marjorie’s shoulders and kissed her hair. «Don’t cry, Marjorie. Everybody feels like that sometimes, even towards the people they love most. You really mustn’t make yourself miserable.»
Once more she lifted her face and looked at him with a heart-breaking, tearful smile. «You have been too sweet to me, George. I don’t know what I should have done without you.»
«Poor darling!» said George. «I can’t bear to see you unhappy.» Their faces were close to one another, and it seemed natural that at this point their lips should meet in a long kiss. «We’ll remember only the splendid, glorious things about Guy,» he went on— «what a wonderful person he was, and how much we loved him.» He kissed her again.
«Perhaps our darling Guy is with us here even now,» said Marjorie, with a look of ecstasy on her face.
«Perhaps he is,» George echoed.
It was at this point that a heavy footstep was heard and a hand rattled at the door. Marjorie and George moved a little farther apart. The intruder was Roger, who bustled in, rubbing his hands with an air of conscious heartiness, studiously pretending that nothing untoward had occurred. It is our English tradition that we should conceal our emotions. «Well, well,» he said. «I think we had better be going in to luncheon. The bell has gone.»
The End
