Part 30 (1/2)

”Yes.”

”Are you sure you do not expect the impossible?”

”Quite.”

She shook her head doubtfully.

”Are you sure you will never have to compromise? All the world compromises.”

”With its conscience,” said Cartoner. ”And look at the result.”

”Then you are good,” she returned, looking at him with a speculative gravity, ”as well as concise--and rather masterful.”

”It is clear,” he said, ”that a man who persuades a woman to marry against her inclination, or her conviction, or her conscience, is seeking her unhappiness and his own.”

”Ah!” she cried. ”But you ask for a great deal.”

”I ask for love.”

”And,” she said, going past that question, ”no obstacles.”

”No obstacles that both could not conscientiously face and set aside.”

”And if one such object--quite a small one--should be found?”

”Then they must be content with love alone.”

Wanda turned from him, and fell into thought for some moments. They seemed to be feeling their way forward on that difficult road where so many hasten and such numbers fall.

”You have a way,” she said, ”of putting into words--so few words--what others only half think, and do not half attempt to act up to. If they did--there would, perhaps, be no marriages.”

”There would be no unhappy ones,” said Cartoner.

”And it is better to be content with love alone?”

”Content,” was his sole answer.

Again she thought in silence for quite a long time, although their moments were so few. A clock on the mantel-piece struck half-past ten.

Cartoner had bidden Joseph P. Mangles good-night only half an hour earlier, and his life had been in peril--he had been down to the depths and up to the heights since then. When the G.o.ds arrive they act quickly.

”So that is your creed,” she said at length. ”And there is no compromise?”

”None,” he answered.

And she smiled suddenly at the monosyllable reply. She had had to deal with men of no compromise more than the majority of villa-dwelling women have the opportunity of doing, and she knew, perhaps, that such are the backbone of human nature.

”Ah!” she said, with a quick sigh, as she turned and looked down the length of the long, lamp-lit room. ”You are strong--you are strong for two.”

He shook his head in negation, for he knew that hers was that fine, steely strength of women which endures a strain all through a lifetime of which the world knows nothing. Then, acting up to her own creed of seeking always the clear understanding, she returned to the point they had left untouched.