Part 59 (1/2)
”Well, but--Marian: perhaps I may have spoken rather harshly just now; but I did not mean you to take it so. You must be reasonable.”
”Pray let us have no more words about it. I need no apologies, and desire no advances. Good-bye is enough.”
”But, Marian,” said he, coming nearer, ”you must not fancy that I have ceased to love you.”
”Above all,” said Marian, ”let us have no more of that. You say you hate this place and the life we lead here. I am heartily sick of it, and have been so for a long time.”
”Let us go elsewhere.”
”Yes, but not together. One word,” she added resolutely, seeing his expression become fierce. ”I will not endure any violence, even of language, from you. I know of old what you are when you lose your temper; and if you insult me I will summon aid, and proclaim who I am.”
”Do you think I am going to strike you?”
”No, because you dare not. But I will not listen to oaths or abuse.”
”What have you to complain of? What is your grievance?”
”I make no complaint. I exercise the liberty I bought so dearly to go where I please and do what I please.”
”And to desert me when I have sacrificed everything for you. I have incurred enormous expenses; alienated my friends; risked my position in society; and broken my mother's heart for your sake.”
”But for that I would have left you before. I am very sorry.”
”You have heard something in that letter which makes you hope that your husband will take you back. Not a woman in London will speak to you.”
”I tell you I am not going back. Oh, Sholto, dont be so mean. Can we not part with dignity? We have made a mistake. Let us acknowledge it quietly, and go our several ways.”
”I will not be got rid of so easily as you suppose,” he said, his face darkening menacingly. ”Do you think I believe in your going out alone from this hotel and living by yourself in a strange city? Come! who is it?”
”Who is----? What do you mean?”
”What new connexion have you formed? You were very anxious about our s.h.i.+p returning the other day--anxious about the mails, of course.
Perhaps also about the surgeon.”
”I understand. You think I am leaving you to go to some other man. I will tell you now the true reason.”
”Do,” said he, sarcastically, biting his lip.
”I will. I am leaving you because, instead of loving you, as I foolishly thought I could, I neither respect nor even like you. You are utterly selfish and narrow-minded; and I deserve my disappointment for having deserted for your sake a far better man. I am sorry you have sacrificed so much for me; but if you had been worthy of a woman's regard, you would not have lost me.”
Douglas stared at her. ”_I_ selfish and narrow-minded!” he said, with the calm of stupefaction.
”Yes.”
”I may have been narrow-minded in devoting myself so entirely to you,”
said he slowly, after a pause. ”But, though I do not ask for grat.i.tude, I think I have been sufficiently a loser to disregard such a monstrous a.s.sertion as that I am selfish.”
”You show your selfishness by dwelling on what you have lost. You never think of what I have lost. I make no profession of unselfishness. I am suffering for my folly and egoism; and I deserve to suffer.”