He wondered about her, as she
about him. He saw again that face in the night under the trellis. He
heard the voice that had called to him and Vere in the garden. And he
knew that enmity, mysterious yet definite, might arise even between
Hermione and him; that even they two--inexorably under the law that
has made all human beings separate entities, and incapable of perfect
fusion--might be victims of misunderstanding, of ignorance of the
absolute truth of personality. Even now he was companioned by the
sudden and horrible doubt which had attacked him in the garden: that
perhaps she had been always playing a part when she had seemed to be
deeply interested in his work, that perhaps there was within her some
one whom he did not know, had never even caught a glimpse of until
lately, once when she was in the tram going to the Scoglio di Frisio,
and once the last time they had met. And yet this was the woman who
had nursed him in Africa--and this was the woman against whose
impulsive actions he had had the instinct to protect Vere--the
Hermione Delarey whom he had known for so many years.
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