Part 43 (1/2)
He drew out a chair for her, and removed his own to the other side of the table, keeping that barrier between them. In his whole manner there was a terrible constraint.
”You've eaten nothing,” he said.
Neither had he, she gathered, nor Jane. The trouble she had brought on them was jarring, dislocating, like the shock of bereavement. They had behaved as if in the presence of the beloved dead.
And yet, though he held himself apart, she knew that he had not sent for her to cast her off; that he was yet bound to her by the mysterious, infrangible tie; that he seemed to himself, in some way, her partner and accomplice.
Their silence was a link that bound them, and she broke it.
”Well,” she said, ”you have something to say to me?”
”Yes”--his hands, spread out on the table between them, trembled--”I have, only it seems so little----”
”Does it? Well, of course, there isn't much to be said.”
”Not much. There aren't any words. Only, I don't want you to think that I don't realise what you've done. It was magnificent.”
He answered her look of stupefied inquiry.
”Your courage, Kitty, in telling me the truth.”
”Oh, _that_. Don't let's talk about it.”
”I am not going to talk about it. But I want you to understand that what you told me has made no difference in my--in my feeling for you.”
”It must.”
”It hasn't. And it never will. And I want to know what we're going to do next.”
”Next?” she repeated.
”Yes, next. _Now._”
”I'm going away. There's nothing else left for me to do.”
”And I, Kitty? Do you think I'm going to let you go, without----”
She stopped him.
”You can't help yourself.”
”What? You think I'm brute enough to take everything you've given me, and to--to let you go like this?”
His hands moved as if they would have taken hers and held them. Then he drew back.
”There's one thing I can't do for you, Kitty. I can't marry you, because it wouldn't be fair to my children.”
”I know, Robert, I know.”
”I know you know. I told you nothing would ever make any difference. If it weren't for them I'd ask you to marry me to-morrow. I'm only giving you up as you're giving me up, because of them. But if I can't marry you, I want you to let me make things a little less hard for you.”