She started up, and freeing herself from him moved
away to the other side of the hearth. "Ah, don't make
love to me! Too many people have done that," she
said, frowning.
Archer, changing colour, stood up also: it was the
bitterest rebuke she could have given him. "I have
never made love to you," he said, "and I never shall.
But you are the woman I would have married if it had
been possible for either of us."
"Possible for either of us?" She looked at him with
unfeigned astonishment. "And you say that--when it's
you who've made it impossible?"
He stared at her, groping in a blackness through
which a single arrow of light tore its blinding way.
"I'VE made it impossible--?"
"You, you, YOU!" she cried, her lip trembling like a
child's on the verge of tears. "Isn't it you who made me
give up divorcing--give it up because you showed me
how selfish and wicked it was, how one must sacrifice
one's self to preserve the dignity of marriage . . . and to
spare one's family the publicity, the scandal? And
because my family was going to be your family--for
May's sake and for yours--I did what you told me,
what you proved to me that I ought to do. Ah," she
broke out with a sudden laugh, "I've made no secret of
having done it for you!"
She sank down on the sofa again, crouching among
the festive ripples of her dress like a stricken masquerader;
and the young man stood by the fireplace and
continued to gaze at her without moving.
"Good God," he groaned.
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