Meme. The short blunt name which she had never used slid into her thoughts. It gave her sharp pain. All these months she had kept his memory away from her. She pushed it back now with violence. It didn't happen the way I thought it did. There was no magic, no enchantment. It was trivial and cheap: Father said so. I must never think of it. For Time and the river have brought me on here to this clipped moment, and even now it slips into the past as I try to hold it.

'What must be must be, and there is no going back'. That is the river's eternal murmur.

'Theo!'

She looked up slowly to meet her young husband's eyes. The wine had given him courage. He flung across the room and seized her roughly by the shoulders. 'Kiss me!' he shouted, and his trembling fingers fumbled at her bodice.

She shrank convulsively, pushing against the chair-back. Her flesh seemed to gather itself up and recoil from his hands. She gave a moan of terror. 'No, please——'

His face flamed. 'What's the matter with you? You're my wife! You look——' His voice thickened, was nearly unintelligible. 'You look as though you hated me'. He dropped his hands and sank to his knees beside her chair. Theo huddled as far from him as possible. The sound of his heavy breathing filled the cabin.

'Theo——' His voice cracked. He swallowed.

Her heart pounded in sickening strokes. Slowly, inch by inch, she turned her head toward him. He was grotesque, crouching there, this great panting animal, an enemy, a wild beast. Suddenly his face pierced through the thick mist of fear. His mouth was twisted like that of a small child that has been unbearably humiliated and does not understand. His eyes, bewildered and desperate, slid quickly away from hers. But before his mouth hardened back into its customary defiance, she had seen, and it cut through her own terror. He was not an enemy, not a wild beast, but a groping, unhappy human being, unsure of himself or his real worth. Her throat closed with pity, for she knew in that second that, under his clumsy show of masculinity, he was as frightened as she.

'Poor Joseph,' she whispered. The two words trembled between them. He stared, unbelieving, on guard. Tears filled her eyes and she smiled at him, the compassionate smile of maternal women through all the ages.

They did not belong together, their bodies had for each other no chemical attraction, their souls no communion. But they were both caught. Equally helpless bits of jetsam on the forward-surging river of life. And for well or ill they must remain together, nor hurt each other too much. She closed her eyes and, stretching out her arms, drew his head gently against her breast.

CHAPTER NINE