“Never once have I really meant marrying you,” she insisted. “Never
once. I fell in love with you from the first. But when you seemed a
successful man, I told myself I wouldn’t. I was love-sick for you, and
you were so stupid, I came near it then. But I knew I wasn’t good
enough. What could I have been to you? A woman with bad habits and bad
associations, a woman smirched. And what could I do for you or be to
you? If I wasn’t good enough to be a rich man’s wife, I’m certainly not
good enough to be a poor one’s. Forgive me for talking sense to you
now, but I wanted to tell you this somehow.”
She stopped at my gesture. I sat up, and the canoe rocked with my
movement.
“I don’t care,” I said. “I want to marry you and make you my wife!”
“No,” she said, “don’t spoil things. That is impossible!”
“Impossible!”
“Think! I can’t do my own hair! Do you mean you will get me a maid?”
“Good God!” I cried, disconcerted beyond measure, “won’t you learn to
do your own hair for me? Do you mean to say you can love a man—”
She flung out her hands at me. “Don’t spoil it,” she cried. “I have
given you all I have, I have given you all I can. If I could do it, if
I was good enough to do it, I would. But I am a woman spoilt and
ruined, dear, and you are a ruined man. When we are making love we’re
lovers—but think of the gulf between us in habits and ways of thought,
in will and training, when we are not making love. Think of it—and
don’t think of it! Don’t think of it yet. We have snatched some hours.
We still may have some hours!”
She suddenly knelt forward toward me, with a glowing darkness in her
eyes. “Who cares if it upsets?” she cried. “If you say another word I
will kiss you. And go to the bottom clutching you.
“I’m not afraid of that. I’m not a bit afraid of that. I’ll die with
you. Choose a death, and I’ll die with you—readily. Do listen to me! I
love you. I shall always love you. It’s because I love you that I won’t
go down to become a dirty familiar thing with you amidst the grime.
I’ve given all I can. I’ve had all I can.... Tell me,” and she crept
nearer, “have I been like the dusk to you, like the warm dusk? Is there
magic still? Listen to the ripple of water from your paddle. Look at
the warm evening light in the sky. Who cares if the canoe upsets? Come
nearer to me. Oh, my love! come near! So.”
She drew me to her and our lips met.