"Nor I."
He paused. "I've found you out," he said. "Dear dirty living thing!...
You _are_ dirty, you know."
"I've found myself," she answered, thinking. "I feel as if I've never
loved you until this hut. I suppose I have in my way----"
"Lugano," he suggested. "Don't let's forget good things, Marjorie. Oh!
And endless times!"
"Oh, of course! As for _that_----! But now--now you're in my bones. We
were just two shallow, pretty, young things--loving. It was sweet,
dear--sweet as youth--but not this. Unkempt and weary--then one
understands love. I suppose I _am_ dirty. Think of it! I've lugged you
through the snow till my shoulders chafed and bled. I cried with pain,
and kept on lugging----Oh, my dear! my dear!" He kissed her hair. "I've
held you in my arms to keep you from freezing. (I'd have frozen myself
first.) We've got to starve together perhaps before the end.... Dear, if
I could make you, you should eat me.... I'm--I'm beginning to
understand. I've had a light. I've begun to understand. I've begun to
see what life has been for you, and how I've wasted--wasted."
"_We've_ wasted!"
"No," she said, "it was I."
She sat back on the floor and regarded him. "You don't remember things
you said--when you were delirious?"
"No," he answered. "What did I say?"
"Nothing?"
"Nothing clearly. What did I say?"
"It doesn't matter. No, indeed. Only you made me understand. You'd never
have told me. You've always been a little weak with me there. But it's
plain to me why we didn't keep our happiness, why we were estranged. If
we go back alive, we go back--all that settled for good and all."
"What?"
"That discord. My dear, I've been a fool, selfish, ill-trained and
greedy. We've both been floundering about, but I've been the mischief of
it. Yes, I've been the trouble. Oh, it's had to be so. What are we
women--half savages, half pets, unemployed things of greed and
desire--and suddenly we want all the rights and respect of souls! I've
had your life in my hands from the moment we met together. If I had
known.... It isn't that we can make you or guide you--I'm not pretending
to be an inspiration--but--but we can release you. We needn't press upon
you; we can save you from the instincts and passions that try to waste
you altogether on us.... Yes, I'm beginning to understand. Oh, my child,
my husband, my man! You talked of your wasted life!... I've been
thinking--since first we left the Mersey. I've begun to see what it is
to be a woman. For the first time in my life. We're the responsible sex.
And we've forgotten it. We think we've done a wonder if we've borne men
into the world and smiled a little, but indeed we've got to bear them
all our lives.... A woman has to be steadier than a man and more
self-sacrificing than a man, because when she plunges she does more harm
than a man.... And what does she achieve if she does plunge?
Nothing--nothing worth counting. Dresses and carpets and hangings and
pretty arrangements, excitements and satisfactions and competition and
more excitements. We can't _do_ things. We don't bring things off! And
you, you Monster! you Dream! you want to stick your hand out of all that
is and make something that isn't, begin to be! That's the man----"
"Dear old Madge!" he said, "there's all sorts of women and all sorts of
men."
"Well, our sort of women, then, and our sort of men."
"I doubt even that."
"I don't. I've found my place. I've been making my master my servant. We
women--we've been looting all the good things in the world, and helping
nothing. You've carried me on your back until you are loathing life.
I've been making you fetch and carry for me, love me, dress me, keep me
and my children, minister to my vanities and greeds.... No; let me go
on. I'm so penitent, my dear, so penitent I want to kneel down here and
marry you all over again, heal up your broken life and begin again."...
She paused.
"One doesn't begin again," she said. "But I want to take a new turn.
Dear, you're still only a young man; we've thirty or forty years before
us--forty years perhaps or more.... What shall we do with our years?
We've loved, we've got children. What remains? Here we can plan it out,
work it out, day after day. What shall we do with our lives and life?
Tell me, make me your partner; it's you who know, what are we doing with
life?"