“You’ve seen an act.”
“I have not! I know a little of you, Theo. Though you may pretend I don’t, I do. I know there’s more to you then what you present to the world –”
“There isn’t!” His voice was so loud now that she was forced to fall silent, staring at him in wonder.
She didn’t think he would shout at her with such venom, but clearly, she had been wrong.
“What the world sees is what is reallyhere.” He gestured to himself. “Let me tell you who I am.” He walked around the settee again. “I am a man obsessed with order.” He returned the whisky glass he had misplaced to the coaster and mopped the mess he had caused with his handkerchief in one swift movement. “I like everything in its place. Everything has to be just so.”
He kicked a footstool into place, as Margaret jumped back, fearing just how far he would kick that stool. He marched towards the game table and folded it up, pushing it back against the wall in its usual place.
“That is the only thing that has any meaning in my life,” he said sharply, turning to face her again.
“Nothing else gives meaning?” she asked, her voice low, but still strong.
“No, because I do not feel emotion like other people.” He gestured to his chest again, thumping his own hands into thecenter. “There is only stone here. Cold and hard. So do not delude yourself with thinking there’s anything else here.”
“That’s still not what I see.” She shook her head. She had glimpsed again and again there was more to him. What about the time he had caught her when she fell from the ladder? How he had urged her to eat? The fact that he came to eat with her more and more, so they spent an increasing amount of time together?
“Then you’ve created an illusion of who I am.” He walked around her. “It’s not who I am.” He snatched up the book he had left on the table, tucked it under his arm, then buttoned up his tailcoat neatly.
Perfect order. It’s all that matters to him, is it?
“You can say that, but I do not believe you.”
“Then you’re a fool.”
“Theo!” she snapped at him.
“Stop calling me that.”
“I thought you liked it.”
“Not anymore. I’ve changed my mind. Do not call me that. Call me by my full name. There shall be no more intimacy. None at all!”
She didn’t know what had gotten into him, but she couldn’t bear it. She marched toward him, but he held his ground, no longer escaping her around the furniture.
“Is that what you’re afraid of here, Theo? Intimacy?”
“I’m afraid of nothing, because as I told you, there is only stone here.” He thumped his chest.
“There’s more to you –”
“There isn’t!”
She reached up toward him. She didn’t think about what she was doing, only that she had to end this argument now and show him how wrong her was, that there was in fact something much deeper to him.
She pulled sharply on his lapels, dragging him down toward her.
“What are you doing?” he flustered, dropping the book.
“Worried I’m making a mess of your suit?” she asked.
“Yes – mmnhm!” His words were cut off as he she crashed her lips against his own.
It was her first kiss. A far cry from what she had imagined it would be.
He stood there, stunned, his lapels in her grasp and not returning the press of her lips, yet she didn’t stop. She would show him what there was here, and just how close they had come to having this thrill earlier in the day, if he had only been the one to close the distance between them.
