He kept his hand over hers. "I meant, the truth about the old story you
speak of."
"But that's what I want to know, Newland--what I ought to know. I
couldn't have my happiness made out of a wrong--an unfairness--to
somebody else. And I want to believe that it would be the same with
you. What sort of a life could we build on such foundations?"
Her face had taken on a look of such tragic courage that he felt like
bowing himself down at her feet. "I've wanted to say this for a long
time," she went on. "I've wanted to tell you that, when two people
really love each other, I understand that there may be situations which
make it right that they should--should go against public opinion. And
if you feel yourself in any way pledged ... pledged to the person
we've spoken of ... and if there is any way ... any way in which you
can fulfill your pledge ... even by her getting a divorce ... Newland,
don't give her up because of me!"
His surprise at discovering that her fears had fastened upon an episode
so remote and so completely of the past as his love-affair with Mrs.
Thorley Rushworth gave way to wonder at the generosity of her view.
There was something superhuman in an attitude so recklessly unorthodox,
and if other problems had not pressed on him he would have been lost
in wonder at the prodigy of the Wellands' daughter urging him to marry
his former mistress. But he was still dizzy with the glimpse of the
precipice they had skirted, and full of a new awe at the mystery of
young-girlhood.
For a moment he could not speak; then he said: "There is no pledge--no
obligation whatever--of the kind you think. Such cases don't
always--present themselves quite as simply as ... But that's no matter
... I love your generosity, because I feel as you do about those things
... I feel that each case must be judged individually, on its own
merits ... irrespective of stupid conventionalities ... I mean, each
woman's right to her liberty--" He pulled himself up, startled by the
turn his thoughts had taken, and went on, looking at her with a smile:
"Since you understand so many things, dearest, can't you go a little
farther, and understand the uselessness of our submitting to another
form of the same foolish conventionalities? If there's no one and
nothing between us, isn't that an argument for marrying quickly, rather
than for more delay?"
She flushed with joy and lifted her face to his; as he bent to it he
saw that her eyes were full of happy tears. But in another moment she
seemed to have descended from her womanly eminence to helpless and
timorous girlhood; and he understood that her courage and initiative
were all for others, and that she had none for herself. It was evident
that the effort of speaking had been much greater than her studied
composure betrayed, and that at his first word of reassurance she had
dropped back into the usual, as a too-adventurous child takes refuge in
its mother's arms.
Archer had no heart to go on pleading with her; he was too much
disappointed at the vanishing of the new being who had cast that one
deep look at him from her transparent eyes. May seemed to be aware of
his disappointment, but without knowing how to alleviate it; and they
stood up and walked silently home.