“And realised that I’d never, never dined before!”
“Yes, how thin you were, Ivor! But you’ll be much fatter after to-night, for we will have a wonderful dinner somewhere in the country, because it’s our birthday. I hate my own so much, but I’m sentimental about ours....”
Now there was a mood of Magdalen’s which complained of Ivor’s “splendid isolation,” of his present way of not seeing any one else. Magdalen saw quite a number of other people: it was very difficult for her not to, for the world was full of men and women who, on given occasions, seemed unable to “touch” food unless Magdalen was there to “touch” it with them. At first she had seemed not to realise Ivor’s present way of life; and then there had come a time when she made a gesture against it. But man is not warned by gestures alone, so she had to clothe hers with words. And even then Ivor would not be brought to see that it mattered one way or the other, whether he saw people or didn’t. He read a great deal, he said. And he played rackets.... She teased him with her disfavour, he mocked her with his love. And then one day she got annoyed with him, and he with her.
They were at luncheon at his flat, and she asked him what he had done the evening before. She asked as though she didn’t know the answer, but that did not deter Ivor from giving it.
“Dinner, bed, book,” he explained. “Charming evening.”
“Its description, however, doesn’t make for much conversation,” said Magdalen.
“I want to know,” she dangerously said, “why, whenever I can’t dine with you, much as I’d like to, you must always dine alone. I feel there must be a reason for that....”
“What Magdalen wins the world must lose!” Ivor mocked humbly.
“That’s all very well,” she protested vividly. “But don’t you see, my dear, that it’s very unfair, your absurd isolation? (a) It’s unfair to me; (b) It’s unfair to yourself; and (c) It’s frightfully unfair to the countless people whom you deprive of the charm of your countenance and company, to say nothing of your conversation....”
“Besides,” she said plantively, “your idiotic isolation is making me what’s called a ‘marked’ woman. And if it’s all the same to you, Ivor, I’d just as soon not be a ‘marked’ woman. I hate being thought of as a woman who snatches young men from their natural surroundings and keeps them in close confinement for fear of competition, if any. To please me, Ivor ...” she suddenly pleaded.