Part 21 (2/2)

”That before the world I would remain her husband. That everything would be secret.”

”Oh!” cried Elsie vehemently with anger and surprise. ”Then she never really cared for you either. Never!” And then indignantly: ”You didn't promise that though, did you?”

There I stood, poor sinner, and hadn't a word to say. And I felt while seeking to defend myself that by nature a man always remains a sophist.

”Dear Elsie! remember that this consideration for a proud woman like Lucia is of much greater import than the sacrifice for us. Consider how much I have grieved her. Consider how few women would so n.o.bly forgive this to their husbands. Consider that after all the past makes it my duty to care for her and my children. Disgrace is a very dreadful thing for them, something much more dreadful than you can probably comprehend.”

”I consider just that a disgrace,” said Elsie, illogically, but to the point, ”to want to keep up a lie before the world.”

”Consider then, Elsie, what it would mean for me. I should not see my children again. They would not want to recognize me. I should bring a terrible sorrow upon them, and I am very fond of them.”

”Would none of them try to understand it, to forgive it?” asked Elsie.

”Not one of them, I fear. Even were it only on account of their mother, whom they adore. And remember that, beside my children, I should also lose my position. My wife ? I mean Lucia is wealthy, but I am not ?”

”Would your health suffer if you were poorer?” asked Elsie, with naive directness and perfect sobriety, though the question almost sounded ironical to me. In a very impolitic fas.h.i.+on I had again reserved my weakest argument for the last.

”Not that! Not that! ? but perhaps I am too much spoilt ? I should have the whole world against me ? and I don't know if all that ?”

I felt that I was going wrong, thus I would end by myself casting a doubt upon the self-sacrificing power of my love. Elsie helped me out of it.

”May I now speak quite frankly with you too? Yes? Then listen! I am so dazed, so overwhelmed by the greatness of that which I receive from you, so suddenly and so bewilderingly, that you must not expect me at once to judge rightly. It seems ridiculous to me that I should not be satisfied with the least that you would offer me, now that I am getting so infinitely much more than I ever could have hoped for or expected.

Though I never saw you again after this night, yet I should be eternally grateful to you. But forgive me if in your difficulty I judge too much according to my own feelings. Your grief for your children - that I can comprehend. But all the rest I don't understand; it is strange to me, contrary to my nature. Of the world and of the money I should not think - I don't know these things and have not experienced their power. I only know that I should like to be with you always and should like to confess it openly before all the world. And if I were in Lucia's place, and really cared for you, I wouldn't want for one moment to bind you, cost what it would to me. I shouldn't be able to bear it, that you lived beside me and were looked upon as my husband and secretly cared for another, I should think that much more terrible than all the sorrows of a divorce.”

”Lucia would never agree to a divorce. That is a matter of religion with her. A Catholic marriage is indissoluble.”

”And are you, yourself, also a Catholic, devoutly Catholic?”

”Lucia says that I have no religion whatever.”

Elsje looked at me anxiously.

”Is that so? And I had just hoped to learn so much from you concerning that. It occupies me all day long. Even now I have a hundred questions ready, for you. I had put all my trust in you.”

”In what faith were you brought up, Elsie?

”Brought up? I wasn't brought up. I must make another confession to you?”

I saw that she hesitated and was troubled. I began to fear some unpleasant secret or other.

”Speak without fear, Elsie. It is safe with me. Trust me.”

”That I would like to, but see, I know you are a distinguished man of n.o.ble birth.”

”That signifies nothing, Elsje - I am not so proud of that.”

I was joking, but she understood me.

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