"I was never more sane in my life; I ask you: Will you marry me?"
She looked at him incredulously, but something in the expression of his
eyes told her that he did mean it. "Oh, Richard," she said with a catch
in her voice, "I can't! I never could, you know."
He said: "Joan, if I weren't so ridiculously middle-aged, I'd go down on
my knees, here in the grass, and beg you to take me. I want you more
than anything else in the world."
She said: "You've made some awful mistake. There's nothing of me to
want; I'm empty, just a husk."
"That's not true, Joan," he protested. "You're the only woman I've ever
cared for. I want you in my life, in my home; I want your companionship,
your help in my work."
"In your work?" she asked in genuine surprise.
"Yes, in my work, why not? Wouldn't it interest you to help me in the
laboratory, sometimes? I'm rather keen on certain experiments, you know,
Joan, and if you'll only come, we could work together. Oh, it would all
be so utterly splendid! Just what I planned for us years ago. Don't you
think you can marry me, Joan?"
She laid a firm hand on his shoulder. "Listen," she said gently, "while
I try to make you understand. The woman you're thinking of is not Joan
Ogden at all; she's a purely fictitious person, conceived in your own
brain. Joan Ogden is forty-three, and old for her age; she's old in
body, her skin is old, and she'll soon be white-haired. Her mind has
been shrivelling away for years; it's not able to grasp big things as it
was once; it's grown small and petty and easily tired. Give it a piece
of serious work and it flags immediately, there's no spring left in it.
"Her body's a mass of small ailments; real or imaginary, they count just
the same. She goes to bed feeling tired out and gets up feeling more
tired, so that every little futile thing is enough to make her
irritable. She exaggerates small worries and makes mountains out of
molehills. Her nerves are unreliable and she dwells too much on her
health. If she remembers what she used to be like, she tries to forget
it, because she's afraid; long ago she was a coward and she's remained
one to this day, only now she's a tamer coward and gives in without a
struggle.
"It's different with you, Richard, you've got a right to marry. You want
to marry, because you're successful and because at your age a man
settles down. But haven't you thought that you probably want children, a
son? Do you think the woman I've described would be a desirable mother,
even if she could have a child at all? Would you choose to make
posterity through an old, unhealthy body; to give children to the world
by a woman who is utterly unfit to bear them, who never has loved you
and never could?"