She had left them without a word, and Trennahan did not see her until
the following evening, when she sent for him.
She received him in the room at the end of the hall, where they were
sure not to be interrupted. As he entered he averted his face hastily,
and cursed himself for a scoundrel. But he went straight to the point.
"I have made you suffer," he said, "and as only you can suffer. I have
no excuse to offer except my own weakness. Do you remember that I asked
you once if you thought you could love me did you come to understand all
the weakness of my nature, and that you replied you could? Will you
forgive me this display of it? I have no desire--no intention of
marrying any other woman."
"I have not doubted your honour. But I shall not marry you. I do not
want you without your love. I see now that I never had it."
"You did, and you have it still. It is impossible for a man to explain
himself to a woman. Will you let me decide for both? I am going away for
a time. When I return I want you to marry me."
She shook her head. "There would be three people miserable instead of
one. If I had not gone there yesterday, perhaps I should never have
known: I simply made up my mind after that night at Monterey that I
would think no more about it. By and by you might have got over it and
we might have been happy in a way--I don't know. It is not your fault
that I found out. And I went to the Library by the merest chance
yesterday. It seems like fate, and I shall recognise it. If Helena did
not love you, it would be different; but I had a terrible scene with her
last night. I never thought even she could feel so. For the time I felt
much sorrier for her than for myself--I felt rather dull, for that
matter. After she went I thought all night. It was a terrible night."
She stopped and shivered.
He took her hand, but she withdrew it. "I thought of everything. You
know I once told you that my only religion was to do what I believed to
be right. If love means anything, it means that one should make the
other person happy, not oneself. I thought and thought. You two were
more to me than any people living. I have not ever really loved anyone
else, except my aunt, and her not half so much as Helena. Therefore my
love would not be worth much if I did not consider you two before
myself. If Helena did not love you, it would be different. I would try
to forget that she had fascinated you, and I should see no reason why I
should not marry you if you still wished me to. But she loves you. I
never expected to see such tragedy. But even if I did not believe she
would make you happy, I would not give you to her, for I vowed to live
for that--long before the night at Tiny's--in the garden. But Helena
could make any man happy. She has everything."
She paused again. He made no reply for a moment. He was staring at the
carpet, at a hideous green-and-yellow dragon. The comedy which cuts
every black cloud in thin staccato blades was suggesting that he had
something to be grateful for, inasmuch as the scene with Helena had been
spared himself.
"You are far more suited to me than she is," he said finally. "I am too
old for her. I am not for you. If we have souls, yours and mine were
made for each other. Years have nothing to do with us. They would mean
everything between Helena and myself."
She leaned forward and fixed her eyes on his, compelling his gaze.
"If you had never met me, would you not be engaged to Helena by this
time?"
"Doubtless, but that proves nothing."
"Will you give me your word of honour that you do not wish you were
free, that you would not gladly marry her now?"
He drew a long breath. He felt like a prisoner on the witness stand
driven to save himself by incrimination of another. But he was in that
state of mind when only the truth is possible.
"I will put it in another way. Do you want anything in the world as much
as Helena?"
"No," he said; "I do not."
She got up and walked to the window, and drew aside the curtains. The
sky was brilliant with moon and stars; the bay and hills lovely with the
mystery of night. California had never been more unsympathetically
beautiful. She jerked the curtains together and went back to him. As she
did not sit down, he rose.
"That is all," she said, "except that you must let me explain to my
father."
"And let you bear the whole brunt of it. Not if I know myself."
"You must. I understand him, and you do not. Besides, if he knew that
you and Helena had anything to do with the breaking of the engagement he
would never let me speak to either of you again, and I have no other
friends. I shall tell him that I no longer wish to marry you, and he
cannot compel me to give reasons. If he speaks to you about it, you must
tell him that you will marry no woman against her will, and let him see
that you mean it."
"Magdaléna, you are a grand woman."
"I am a very dull and stupid person who has made up her mind that the
only chance of making life bearable is to do what is right. I am
terribly commonplace. I wonder you stood me as long as you did."
"You are the reverse of stupid and commonplace; and I am by no means
sure that you are doing right. I, too, have thought over this matter,
for nearly as many days as you have hours. I have tried to get outside
myself, to view the case quite dispassionately; and I honestly believe
that--as you insist upon putting me before yourself--it would be better
for me to marry you than Helena."
"I do not believe it. Nor could I marry you after what you just
acknowledged. I have never had much pride with you, but I have that
much. Marry you when you said that you wanted nothing so much in the
world as to marry Helena Belmont? That was the end of everything."
He left the room and the house. Magdaléna went up the stair slowly,
assisting herself with the banister. Her limbs felt as if their muscles
had fallen to dust. Her heart seemed to have taken it outside of herself
altogether; there was no sensation where sensation was supposed to sit,
unless it were that of vacancy. Her brain was not confused; she did not
feel in the least as if she were going to be ill. She knew what she had
done, what she had to do in the future; and she wished that her heavy
limbs were as dead as that something within her for which she had no
name.