"I am surprised that you should have such thoughts."

"All poor men have them. It is only the poor who worry about inequality and injustice."

"You long to be rich?"

"I long to be free."

"Free? You mean from Raoul?"

"My position is a difficult one. I often ask myself if I am good for the boy. I ask myself, 'Is this living? What are you? A nurse? A tutor? A woman could play the first part better, and there are scholars who could make far better tutors than you could.' "

"But it was the wish of Raoul's parents that you should be the nurse, the tutor. He is of your own blood. No one could love him as you do.'!

"You are right and I am ungrateful, as I said I was. It is because you are so sympathetic that I pour my troubles into your ear."

"What would you do if you were rich and free? Tell me. I should like to hear. You would return to France?"

"To France? No. My old home is a government building now. It is in Orleans, I have been there ... not so long ago, walked through the streets past those old wooden houses, stood on the banks of the Loire and thought: 'If I were rich I would come back to Orleans and build a house, marry, raise a family and live as my people lived before the Terror.' I used to think that. But now I know that I would not go back to Orleans. I would go miles away ... to a new world. Perhaps to New Orleans. The river I should look at would not be the Loire but the Mississippi, and instead of building a great mansion and living like an aristocrat, I should have a plantation and grow cotton or sugar or tobacco. ..."

"That's more exciting than the mansion. For what would you do in the mansion?"

"I should grieve for the past. I should become one of those bores who are always looking backwards."

"And in the New World it is necessary to look forward ... to the next crop of sugar, tobacco or cotton. What do they look like when they are growing, I wonder? Sugar sounds nicest. That's because you can eat it, I suppose."

He laughed suddenly.

"Which would you grow if you could choose?" she asked.

"You have made me think that I should like to grow sugar." He smiled at her. "Melisande, you are so different from me. You are so full of gaiety. I am rather a melancholy person."

"What makes you melancholy?"

"The terrible habit of looking back. I always heard my parents say that the good old days were behind us and that we should never get back to the splendour of those times. They made the past sound wonderful, magnificent, the only life that was worth living. I suppose they heard it from their parents."

"It is an inheritance of melancholy."

He took her hands and said: "I want to escape from it. I long to escape from it."

"You can. This minute. These are the good times. Those were the bad times. Wonderful times are in the future ... waiting for you."

"Are they?"

"I feel sure of it. Wouldn't Raoul like to grow sugar?"

"The climate would kill him."

"I see. So you cannot go until you are no longer needed to look after him."

"No. But when he is twenty-one, I shall come into a little money. Then he will no longer need me. I shall be free."

"That is a long way to look forward. Still, in the meantime you have Raoul to care for, and you know that, although he is sometimes a rather difficult little boy, he is an orphan, and you ... you only ... can love him and help him and look after him as his parents wished."

After a while he began to talk of the New World with an enthusiasm which astonished her, for she had never seen him as animated as this before. He had wanted to go there, he explained, since he had realized that France would never be the France for which his parents had made him yearn.

"The old France is gone," he said. "There is a King on the throne, but what a King! The son of Egalite, a man who gave up his titles to join the National Guard. What could be expected of such a King? No! It shall not be France for me."

"Tell me about the plantation you would have. Let us pretend that the climate would be good for Raoul, and that you are now making plans for leaving."

"The climate could never be good for Raoul."

"But I said, pretend it would. You say you are melancholy and I am gay. When I am sad, I pretend. I have always pretended. It is the next best thing to reality. It is better to imagine something good is happening than to brood on what is bad and cannot be altered. Now ... how should we leave?"

"First we should cross the Atlantic. Are you a good sailor?"

"I am the best of sailors."

"I knew you would be. I have some friends in New Orleans. We should make for them. You would have to look after Raoul while I worked hard, learning all I had to learn about managing the plantation."

"That would be easy. I daresay there would be much to entertain us, and Raoul is interested in everything."

"We should employ negroes to work for us; and I think that, once I was proficient, the thing would be to get the plantation going and then ... build the house."

She was smiling dreamily, seeing not the sea and rocks, but a plantation of her imagining. It was a sugar plantation. She did not know what a sugar plantation looked like, but she imagined rows and rows of canes and laughing people in gay colours with dark shining faces. She saw them all dancing at the Mardi Gras.

He broke in on her dreams. "If ever I go, will you really come with me? Would you marry me, Melisande?"

"But ..."

"Forget I asked it. It was too soon. I see that. It is a mistake. I was carried away by your enthusiasm."

There was a short silence before he said: "I am right? It is too soon?"

"Yes," she answered, "I think it is too soon."

"What do you mean, Melisande?"

"That as yet you are my friend and I have been happy ... and very comfortable ... knowing you. It is too soon for big decisions. We do not, as yet, know each other very well."

"I know enough."

"You do not even know who my parents were."

"I did not think of knowing them. It is of knowing you that I am sure."

"You are a great comfort to me and that is a very good thing to be."

"I'll comfort you all the days of your life."

"I believe you would. You are gentle, and only sad when you look backwards."

"If you married me there would be so much to look forward to that I should no longer want to look back."

"A new life," she said dreamily, "in a new world."

"That would not be for years. You forget ... Raoul."

"How would Raoul feel if you married me?"

"A bit hurt at first perhaps. He has had my undivided attention for so long. But he is fond of you and would grow fonder. You have charmed him as you have charmed all others. At present he is too self-centred to see anyone very clearly apart from himself; but we should soon overcome any opposition."

"Leon, he is not a bad little boy. It is just that he has too much power ... and he is too young to handle it. He could change, I think."

"It would be so good for him to have us both. More ... normal. We could both be parents to him. It is so difficult ... a man all alone."

"Yes, I see that. But it is not Raoul we are discussing, Leon. It is ourselves."

"And I have spoken too soon."

"Yes, that is it. You have spoken too soon. Could we put this aside ... until later on ? Leave it for a few weeks, Leon. That is best. Let us talk of other things and suddenly ... soon ... I shall know. I feel it. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Melisande, I understand."

She jumped up. "It will soon be dark and I am late. Please ... I must go at once."

They walked back to Trevenning, but they did not talk any more of marriage. But when he left her he said: "We must meet often ... every day. We must get through this business of knowing each other 'as soon as possible. You are very beautiful and T am very impatient.''

"Good night," she said.

He took her hands and kissed them.

"I am very fond of you," she said, "and a little of Raoul. I think it could be a happy thing if we were all together."

He would have put his arms about her but she held him off. "Please ... we must wait. It is too important and, as yet, we cannot be sure."

She left him and, as she did so, she seemed to hear Fermor's mocking laughter. Two proposals—and how different!

"Life is a strangeness," she murmured in English.

Three ways were open to her now. Which should she choose?

Take the one you long for! she seemed to hear a voice urging her. Be bold. Say goodbye to the dull life. Live gaily and recklessly. That is the way. She could imagine the tuneful tenor voice:

"I would love you all the day, Every night would kiss and play, If with me you'd fondly stray Over the hills and far away ..."

Over the hills and far away to a sinful life ... to adventure. She thought: Clearly if I were wise I should marry Leon.

It was Christmas Day.

Melisande lay awake, though it was early and the house not yet astir.

Caroline's wedding day had come.

Fermor had returned only yesterday, having been, he said, delayed in London. As soon as she heard his voice she felt excitement rising within her; as soon as she looked from her window and saw him laughing as he was greeted by the grooms and servants, she knew great disquiet.

Now on this early morning she would look facts in the face and see them as they really were. She had dreamed—she who lived so much in dreams—that something would happen before this day was reached. Her romantic thoughts, winding along pleasantly to a happy ending, had given John Collings to Caroline, and had found a charming girl for Leon; that left Melisande and Fermor who, by a miraculous stroke of good fortune, had changed his nature; he became serious-minded without losing any of his gaiety; he became tender without losing any of his passion; he became loving instead of lustful.