Part 28 (2/2)
”No, G.o.d, no!” It was sudden panic. ”I love her.”
”And she loves you,” evenly. ”She'll return, unquestionably--and in the future will go again as inevitably, unless you fulfil your contract. It's life.”
Again Harry Randall stared straight before him, the weight of the universe suddenly on his shoulders.
”Fulfill--” he halted. ”Supposing I can't fulfill?”
”Wait. We'll discuss that in a moment. First, you admit there was a certain justification for what she has done?”
No rebellion this time, no false pride.
”Yes,” simply; ”you were right. I admit it.”
”The contract of implied happiness then; you failed because--”
Randall completed the sentence as was intended. ”Because we could not live, cannot live, as Margery demands, upon what it is possible for me to make. There is absolutely no other reason.”
”She is extravagant, you think?”
”For the wife of one in my position, yes.”
”I didn't ask you that. Is she extravagant, for herself as she is?”
Against his will the first suggestion of color showed on Randall's face.
”I fail to see the distinction,” he said.
”In other words,” remorselessly, ”you question my right to wield the probe. You prefer not to be hurt even to effect a cure.”
”No, I repeat that I'm not a cad. Besides, I've told you I trust you.
When a woman marries a man, though, with her eyes open--” He caught himself. ”Pardon me, I'm ashamed to have said that. To answer your question: no; Margery wasn't extravagant in the least by her standard.”
”You mean by 'her standard,'” apparently Roberts had heard only the last sentence, ”the habit and experience of her whole life, of twenty-two years of precedent when you married her.”
”Yes.”
”And of generations of inheritance back of that. The Coopers are an old stock and have always been moderately wealthy, have they not?”
”Yes, back as far as the record goes.”
”Very good. Can you, by any stretch of the imagination, fancy Mrs.
Randall, being as she is, ever living happily in an atmosphere so different from that she has known, which time and circ.u.mstance have made her own? Can you?”
”No.” The voice was low again, very low. ”In my sane moments, never.”
Roberts waited deliberately, until the pause added emphasis; with equal deliberation he drove the wedge home.
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