"Of course I have." He spoke with low-voiced vehemence. "Do you suppose I like playing the sneak any better than you do? It's d.a.m.nable."

He had dropped on the arm of a chair, and they stared at each other like blind people who suddenly see.

"But you have liked it here," she faltered.

"Oh, I've liked it--I've liked it." He moved impatiently. "Haven't you?"

"Yes," she burst out; "that's the worst of it--that's what I can't bear.

I fancied it was for your sake that I insisted on staying--because you thought you could write here; and perhaps just at first that really was the reason. But afterwards I wanted to stay myself--I loved it." She broke into a laugh. "Oh, do you see the full derision of it? These people--the very prototypes of the bores you took me away from, with the same fenced--in view of life, the same keep-off-the-gra.s.s morality, the same little cautious virtues and the same little frightened vices--well, I've clung to them, I've delighted in them, I've done my best to please them. I've toadied Lady Susan, I've gossiped with Miss Pinsent, I've pretended to be shocked with Mrs. Ainger. Respectability! It was the one thing in life that I was sure I didn't care about, and it's grown so precious to me that I've stolen it because I couldn't get it in any other way."

She moved across the room and returned to his side with another laugh.

"I who used to fancy myself unconventional! I must have been born with a card-case in my hand. You should have seen me with that poor woman in the garden. She came to me for help, poor creature, because she fancied that, having 'sinned,' as they call it, I might feel some pity for others who had been tempted in the same way. Not I! She didn't know me.

Lady Susan would have been kinder, because Lady Susan wouldn't have been afraid. I hated the woman--my one thought was not to be seen with her--I could have killed her for guessing my secret. The one thing that mattered to me at that moment was my standing with Lady Susan!"

Gannett did not speak.

"And you--you've felt it too!" she broke out accusingly. "You've enjoyed being with these people as much as I have; you've let the chaplain talk to you by the hour about 'The Reign of Law' and Professor Drummond.

When they asked you to hand the plate in church I was watching you--_you wanted to accept."_

She stepped close, laying her hand on his arm.

"Do you know, I begin to see what marriage is for. It's to keep people away from each other. Sometimes I think that two people who love each other can be saved from madness only by the things that come between them--children, duties, visits, bores, relations--the things that protect married people from each other. We've been too close together--that has been our sin. We've seen the nakedness of each other's souls."

She sank again on the sofa, hiding her face in her hands.

Gannett stood above her perplexedly: he felt as though she were being swept away by some implacable current while he stood helpless on its bank.

At length he said, "Lydia, don't think me a brute--but don't you see yourself that it won't do?"

"Yes, I see it won't do," she said without raising her head.

His face cleared.

"Then we'll go to-morrow."

"Go--where?"

"To Paris; to be married."

For a long time she made no answer; then she asked slowly, "Would they have us here if we were married?"

"Have us here?"

"I mean Lady Susan--and the others."

"Have us here? Of course they would."

"Not if they knew--at least, not unless they could pretend not to know."

He made an impatient gesture.

"We shouldn't come back here, of course; and other people needn't know--no one need know."

She sighed. "Then it's only another form of deception and a meaner one.

Don't you see that?"

"I see that we're not accountable to any Lady Susans on earth!"

"Then why are you ashamed of what we are doing here?"

"Because I'm sick of pretending that you're my wife when you're not--when you won't be."

She looked at him sadly.

"If I were your wife you'd have to go on pretending. You'd have to pretend that I'd never been--anything else. And our friends would have to pretend that they believed what you pretended."

Gannett pulled off the sofa-ta.s.sel and flung it away.

"You're impossible," he groaned.

"It's not I--it's our being together that's impossible. I only want you to see that marriage won't help it."

"What will help it then?"

She raised her head.

"My leaving you."

"Your leaving me?" He sat motionless, staring at the ta.s.sel which lay at the other end of the room. At length some impulse of retaliation for the pain she was inflicting made him say deliberately:

"And where would you go if you left me?"

"Oh!" she cried.

He was at her side in an instant.

"Lydia--Lydia--you know I didn't mean it; I couldn't mean it! But you've driven me out of my senses; I don't know what I'm saying. Can't you get out of this labyrinth of self-torture? It's destroying us both."

"That's why I must leave you."

"How easily you say it!" He drew her hands down and made her face him.

"You're very scrupulous about yourself--and others. But have you thought of me? You have no right to leave me unless you've ceased to care--"

"It's because I care--"

"Then I have a right to be heard. If you love me you can't leave me."