DARK HESTER
know what sort of reputation he has, where women are concerned. It has been discreditable to him. He had to leave the army because of it. He is the last sort of man I could have associated with Hester.’ The hot colour burned on Clive’s cheek while a cold fire burned in his eyes. ‘I had thought of an artist; a writer;—an idealist of some sort; not a ruthless, battered libertine.—A man whose love is an insult.—Mummy,’ he glanced at her, and as he had looked away from her emotion so she now looked away from his, dropping her eyes—‘I told you that I didn’t writhe with male jealousy; do you remember? And it was true when I said it. But I had it all the other night; on the way up here; after I’d left you.—I had it all; every bit of it,‘ said Clive, and had he been lying on her heart, in his bitter abasement, her son could not have been nearer. ‘I came up here,’ he said, ‘and I was as primitive as he is—damn him! And first it was Robin, sitting in the dusk, in the garden.—I saw he’d been frightened.—And then it was Hester, crouched on the sofa, crying.—That’s how I found her. And when I asked her if it were true that Captain Ingpen had been her lover, and whether she loved him still, she said that it was true. She said she loved him still. She said she’d always love
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