"Ah, don't! please don't! Oh, you don't know how sorry I've been--"
"But why did you marry him?"
"To spite you--to show you I didn't care--because I was in a
rage--because I was a fool! You might as well tell me at once that
you're in love with someone else."
"Must one always be in love, then?" he sneered.
"I thought men always were," she said simply. "Please tell me."
"No, I'm not in love with anybody. I have had enough of that to last me
for a year or two."
"Then--oh, won't you try to like me again? Nobody will ever love you so
much as I do--you said I looked just the same--"
"Yes, but you _aren't_ the same."
"Yes I am. I think really I'm better than I used to be," she said
timidly.
"You're _not_ the same," he went on, growing angrier to feel that he had
allowed himself to grow angry with her. "You were a girl, and my
sweetheart; now you're a widow--that man's widow! You're not the same.
The past can't be undone so easily, I assure you."
"Oh," she cried, clenching her hands, "I know there must be something I
could say that you would listen to--oh, I wish I could think what! I
suppose as it is I'm saying things no other woman ever would have
said--but I don't care! I won't be reserved and dignified, and leave
everything to you, like girls in books. I lost too much by that before.
I will say every single thing I can think of. I will! Dearest, you said
you would always love me--you don't care for anyone else. I _know_ you
would love me again if you would only let yourself. Won't you forgive
me?"
"I can't," he said briefly.
"Have you never done anything that needed to be forgiven? I would
forgive you anything in the world! Didn't you care for other people
before you knew me? And I'm not angry about it. And I never cared for
him."
"That only makes it worse," he said.
She sprang to her feet. "It makes it worse for me! But if you loved me
it ought to make it better for you. If you had loved me with your heart
and mind you would be glad to think how little it was, after all, that I
did give to that man."
"Sold--not gave--"
"Oh, don't spare me! But there's no need to tell _you_ not to spare me.
But I don't care what you say. You've loved other women. I've never
loved anyone but you. And yet you can't forgive me!"
"It's not the same," he repeated dully.
"I _am_ the same--only I'm more patient, I hope, and not so selfish. But
your pride is hurt, and you think it's not quite the right thing to
marry a rich man's widow. And you want to go home and feel how strong
and heroic you've been, and be proud of yourself because you haven't let
me make a fool of you."
It was so nearly true that he denied it instantly.
"I don't," he said. "I could have forgiven you anything, however wicked
you'd been--but I can't forgive you for having been--"
"Been a fool? I can't forgive myself for that, either. My dear, my dear,
you don't love anyone else; you don't hate me. Do you know that your
eyes are quite changed from what they were when you came in? And your
voice, and your face--everything. Think, dear, if I am not the same
woman you loved, I'm still more like her than anyone else in the world.
And you did love me--oh, don't hate me for anything I've said. Don't you
see I'm fighting for my life? Look at me. I am just like your old
sweetheart, only I love you more, and I can understand better now how
not to make you unhappy. Ah, don't throw everything away without
thinking. I _am_ more like the woman you loved than anyone else can ever
be. Oh, my God! my God! what shall I say to him? Oh, God help me!"
She had said enough. The one phrase "If I am not the same woman you
loved, still I am more like her than anyone else in the world" had
struck straight at his heart. It was true. What if this, the second
best, were now the best life had to offer? If he threw this away, would
any other woman be able to inspire him with any sentiment more like love
than this passion of memory, regret, tenderness, pity--this desire to
hold, protect, and comfort, with which, ever since her tears fell on his
hand, he had been fighting in fierce resentment. He looked at the
huddled grey figure. He must decide--now, at this moment--he must decide
for two lives.
But before he had time to decide anything he found that he had taken her
in his arms.
"My own, my dear," he was saying again and again, "I didn't mean it. It
wasn't true. I love you better than anything. Let's forget it all. I
don't care for anything now I have you again."
"Then why--"
"Oh, don't let's ask each other questions--let's begin all over again at
two years ago. We'll forget all the rest--my dear--my own!"
Of course neither has ever forgotten it, but they always pretend to each
other that they have.
Her defiance of the literary sense in him and in her was justified. His
literary sense, or some deeper instinct, prompted him to refuse to use
Benoliel's money--but her acquiescence in his decision reversed it. And
they live very comfortably on the money to this day.
The odd thing is that they are extremely happy. Perhaps it is not, after
all, such a bad thing to be quite sure, before marriage, that the
second-best happiness is all you are likely to get in this world.