“But Anthony, you must let me speak. You are giving up everything for
me, and you don't even know--”
“I know all I wish to know now, dear.”
“But this is very important. I can't forgive myself, when I realize that
you don't know what I have done--”
I could n't stand this. I simply took her two shoulders in my hands
and made her look squarely at me; and I spoke with a sudden uprush of
feeling.
“Dear, dear girl,” I said, “I'm not interested in what you have done. I
am interested in what you are.”
“But Anthony, if I am not worthy--”
It hurt me to hear her speak in this way. I was thinking swiftly,
bitterly, of certain episodes in my own life. I was thinking of the men
I knew, and what they had done. I thought of Crocker and his outrageous
code. I thought of my own latest episode of the sort--with the little
girl at “Number Nine”--and of the queer masculine twist in my own
thinking that had led me to consider myself “unmanly” because I had run
away from that girl when she wanted me to stay.
No, I could not bear to have her speak or even think so of herself. So I
said, still holding her there before me:
“Men are accustomed to judge women, Heloise. You say that I must
know what you have done. Has it occurred to you that I ought to tell
you--very humbly, dear--what _I_ have done?”
She looked really puzzled at this.
“Why,” she said, “I don't know--I never thought. T have always heard
that men were--well, different.”
“You have heard that--from men,” I replied sadly, and turned away.
She caught my arm. “But apart from all that, Anthony,” she broke out,
“there is one thing that you _must_ let me say. You _must!_” She
hesitated, caught her breath, then plunged desperately along with it.
She was not looking at me now. Her color was rising; and her voice low.
“I have--a--husband--” she said.
“Yes.” I interrupted her. “I am going to talk to him now.”