Part 26 (2/2)
”Afraid of me?”
”Afraid of the pain.”
”What pain?”
”And the--wickedness of it.” Lawrence, frozen with astonishment--he had foreseen resistance, but not of this quality--let fall her hand.
”Yes, we'll part now. We can part now. I love you, but not too much to get over it in a year or so; and you? you'll forget sooner, because I'm not worth remembering.”
”Forget you?”
”Oh! yes, it's not as if you really cared for me; you wouldn't talk to me of money if you did. But I suppose you've known so many. . . . Val warned me long ago that you had not a good name with women.”
”Val said that? Val!”
”And now you're angry with Val; I repeat what I oughtn't to repeat, and make mischief. Lawrence, this isn't Val's doing; it isn't even Mrs. Cleve's: it's my own cowardice. I daren't marry you.”
”But why not?”
”You're not trying to be good.”
”The language of the nursery defeats me, Isabel.”
She flushed. ”That means I've hurt you.”
”Naturally.”
”I can't help it.” That was truer than he realized, for she could hardly help crying. She could not soften her refusal, because she was so shaken and exhausted by the strain of it that she dared not venture on more than one sentence at a time.
”I'm very sorry.”
”But as my wife you could be as 'good' as you liked?”
”You would not leave me strength for it.”
”I should corrupt you?”
”Yes, I think you would deliberately tempt me. . . . I think you have tonight.”
”Do you care for no one but yourself?” he flung at her in his vertigo of humiliation and anger.
”No: I care for G.o.d.”
”For G.o.d!” Lawrence repeated stupidly: ”what has that to do with your marrying me?”
He heard his own betise as it left his lips, and felt the immeasurable depth of it, but he had not time to retract before every personal consideration was wiped from his mind by a cry from Isabel in a very different accent--”Lawrence! oh! look at the time!”
She pointed to the dial of an illuminated clock, hanging high in the soft September night. It was eight minutes to twelve. ”What time did you say our train went?”
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