"Do you think he did--shoot himself?"
They continued to stand staring into each other's eyes--the width of the room between them. A red azalea on the long mahogany table, strewn with books, separated them by its fierce splash of color. The apathy of Diane's voice was not that of worn-out emotion, but of emotion which finds no adequate tones. The very way in which her inquiry ignored all other subjects between them had its poignancy.
"What do
you think?"
"Oh, I suppose he did. Every one says so; then why shouldn't it be true? If it were, it would only be of a piece with all the rest."
"I reminded you last night that he had other troubles besides--besides--"
"Besides those I may have caused him."
"If you like to put it so. He might have been driven to a desperate act by loss of fortune."
"Leaving me to face poverty alone. No; I can't think so ill of him as that. If you suggest it by way of offering me consolation, you're making a mistake. Of the two, I'd rather think of him as seeking death from horror--horror of me--than from simple cowardice."
"It would be no new thing in the history of money troubles; and it would relieve you of the blame."
"To fasten it on him. I see what you mean; but I prefer not to accept that kind of absolution. If there's any consolation left to me, it's in the pride of having been the wife of an honorable man. Don't take it away from me as long as there's any other explanation possible. I see you're puzzled; but you'd have to be a wife to understand me. Accuse me of any crime you like; take it for granted that I've been guilty of it; only don't say that he deserted me in that way. Let me keep at least the comfort of his memory."
"I want you to keep all the comfort you can get, Diane. God forbid that I should take from you anything in which you find support. So far am I from that, that I come to offer you--what I have to offer."
There was a minute's silence before she replied:
"I don't know what that is."
"My name."
There was another minute's silence, during which she looked at him hardly.
"What for?"
"I should think you'd see."
"I don't. Will you be good enough to explain?"
"Is that necessary? Is this a minute in which to bandy words?"
"It's a minute in which I may be permitted to ask the meaning of your--generosity."
"It isn't generosity. I'm saying nothing new. I've come only for an answer to the question I asked you before going to South America, three months ago."
"Oh, but I thought that question had answered itself."
"Then perhaps it has--in that, whatever reply you might have given me under other conditions, now you must accept me."
"You mean, I must accept--your name."
"My name, and all that goes with it."
"How could you expect me to do that, after what happened last night?"
"What happened last night shall be--as though it had not happened."
"Could you ever forget it?"
"I didn't say I should forget it. I suppose I couldn't do that any more than you. I said it should be as though it hadn't been."
"And what about Dorothea?"
"That must be as it may."
"You mean that Dorothea would have to take her chance."
"She needn't know anything about it--yet."
"You couldn't keep it from her forever."
"No. But she'll probably marry soon. After that she'll understand things better."
"That is, she'll understand the position in which you've been placed--that you could hardly have acted otherwise."
"I don't want to go into definitions. There are times in life when words become as dangerous as explosives. Let us do what we see to be our obvious duty, without saying too much about it."
"Isn't it your first duty to protect your child?"
"My first duty, as I see it now, is to protect you."
"I don't see much to be gained by shielding one person when you expose another. What happens to me is a small matter compared with the consequences to her."
"Your influence hasn't hurt her in the past; why should it do so now?"
"You forget that there are other things besides my influence. Her whole position, her whole life, would be changed, if she had for a mother--if you had for a wife--a notorious woman like me."
"There are situations where the child must follow the parent."
"But there are none, as far as I know, in which the parent must sacrifice the child."
"I don't agree with you. There are moments in which we must act in a certain definite manner, no matter what may be the outcome. Don't let us talk of it any more, Diane. You must know as well as I that there is but one thing for us to do."
"You mean, of course, that I must marry you."
"You must give me the right to take care of you."
"Because it's a duty that no one else would assume. That's what it comes to, isn't it?"
"I repeat that I don't want to discuss it--"
"You must let me point out that some amount of discussion is needed. If we didn't have it before marriage, we should have it afterward, when it would be worse. You won't think I'm boasting if I say that I think my vision is a little keener than yours, and that I see what you'd be doing more clearly than you do yourself. You know me--or you think you know me--as a guilty woman, homeless, penniless, and without a friend in the world. You don't want to leave me to my fate, and there's no way of helping me but one. That way you're prepared to take, cost what it will. I admire you for it; I thank you for it; I know you would do it like a man. But it's just because you
would do it like a man--because you
are doing it like a man--that your kindness is far more cruel than scorn. No woman, not the weakest, not the worst, among us, would consent to be taken as you're offering to take me. A man might bring himself to accept that kind of pity; but a woman--never! You said just now that you had come to offer me--what you had to offer; but surely I'm not fallen so low as to have to take it."
"I said I offered you my name and all that goes with it. I would try to tell you what it is, only that I find something in our relative positions transcending words. But since you need words--since apparently you prefer plainness of speech--I'll tell you something: I saw Bienville this morning."
She looked up with a new expression, verging on that of curiosity.
"And--?"
"Since then," he continued, "I've become even more deeply conscious than I was before of the ineradicable nature of what I feel for you."
"Ah?"
"I've come to see that, whatever may have happened, whatever you may be, I want you as my wife."
"Do you mean that you would overlook wrongdoing on my part, and--and--care for me, just the same?"
"I mean that life isn't a conceivable thing to me without you; I mean that no considerations in the world have any force as against my desire to get you. Whatever your life has been, I subscribe to it. Listen! When I saw Bienville this morning he withdrew what he said on shipboard--as nearly as possible, without giving himself the lie, he denied it--and yet, Diane, and yet I knew his first story was--the truth. No, don't shrink. Don't cry out. Let me go on. I swear to God that it makes no difference. I see the whole thing from another point of view. I'll not only take you as you are, but I want you as you are. I give you my honor, which is dearer than my life--I give you my child, who is more precious than my honor. Everything--everything is cheap, so long as I can win you. Don't shrink from me, Diane. Don't look at me like that--"
"How can I help shrinking from anything so base?"
Her voice rose scarcely above a whisper, but it checked the movement with which, after the minutes of almost motionless confrontation, he came toward her with eager arms.
"Base?" he echoed, offended.
"Yes--base. That a man should care for a woman whom he thinks to be bad is comprehensible; that he should wish to make her his wife is credible; that he should hope to lift her out of her condition is admirable; but that he should descend from his own high plane to stay on hers is despicably weak; while to drag down with him a girl in the very flower of her purity is a crime without a name."
The dark flush showed how quickly his haughty spirit responded to the flicker of the lash.
"If you choose to put that interpretation of my words--" he began, indignantly.
"I don't; but it's the interpretation they deserve. There's almost no indignity that can be uttered which you haven't heaped upon me; and of them all this last is the hardest to be borne. I bear it; I forgive it; because it convinces me of what I've been afraid of all along--that I'm a woman who throws some sort of evil influence over men. Even you are not exempt from it--even you! Oh, Derek, go away from me! If you won't do it for your own sake, do it for Dorothea's. I won't do battle with Bienville's accusations now. Perhaps I may never do battle with them at all. What does it matter whether he tells the truth or lies? The pressing thing just now is that you should be saved--"
"Thank you; I can take care of myself. Let's have no more fine splitting of moral hairs. Let us settle the thing, and be done with it. There's one big fact before us, and only one. You can't do without me; I can't do without you. It's a crisis at which we've the right to think only of ourselves and thrust every one else outside."
"Wait!" she cried, as he advanced once more upon her. "Wait! Let me tell you something. You mustn't be hard on me for saying it. You asked just now for my answer to your question of three months ago. My answer is--"
"Diane!" he said, lifting his hand in warning. "Be careful. Don't speak in a hurry. I'm not in a mood to plead or argue any longer. What you say now will be--the irrevocable word."
"I know it. It will not only be the irrevocable word, but the last word. Derek, I see you as you are, a strong, simple, honest man. I admire you; I esteem you; I honor you; I'm grateful to you as a woman is rarely grateful to a man. And yet I'd rather be all you think me; I'd rather earn my bread as desperate women do earn it than be your wife."
They looked at each other long and steadily. When he spoke, his words were those she had invited, but they made her gasp as one gasps at that which suddenly takes one's breath.
"As you will," he said, briefly.