第63章

"Good!"she exclaimed,and laughed."He loves me.He wants me without reservation or calculation."There was a sting in this."And is he any worse,"she asked slowly,"than many others who might be mentioned?""No,"I agreed.I did not intend to be led into the thankless and disagreeable position of condemning Hambleton Durrett."But why have you waited all these years if you did not mean to marry a man of ability,a man who has made something of himself?""A man like you,Hugh?"she said gently.

I flushed.

"That isn't quite fair,Nancy."

"What are you working for?"she suddenly inquired,straightening up.

"What any man works for,I suppose."

"Ah,there you have hit it,--what any man works for in our world.

Power,--personal power.You want to be somebody,--isn't that it?Not the noblest ambition,you'll have to admit,--not the kind of thing we used to dream about,when we did dream.Well,when we find we can't realize our dreams,we take the next best thing.And I fail to see why you should blame me for taking it when you yourself have taken it.

Hambleton Durrett can give it to me.He'll accept me on my own terms,he won't interfere with me,I shan't be disillusionized,--and I shall have a position which I could not hope to have if I remained unmarried,a very marked position as Hambleton Durrett's wife.I am thirty,you know."Her frankness appalled me.

"The trouble with you,Hugh,is that you still deceive yourself.You throw a glamour over things.You want to keep your cake and eat it too.

"I don't see why you say that.And marriage especially--"She took me up.

"Marriage!What other career is open to a woman?Unless she is married,and married well,according to the money standard you men have set up,she is nobody.We can't all be Florence Nightingales,and I am unable to imagine myself a Julia Ward Howe or a Harriet Beecher Stowe.What is left?Nothing but marriage.I'm hard and cynical,you will say,but Ihave thought,and I'm not afraid,as I have told you,to look things in the face.There are very few women,I think,who would not take the real thing if they had the chance before it were too late,who wouldn't be willing to do their own cooking in order to get it."She fell silent suddenly.I began to pace the room.

"For God's sake,don't do this,Nancy!"I begged.

But she continued to stare into the fire,as though she had not heard me.

"If you had made up your mind to do it,why did you tell me?"I asked.

"Sentiment,I suppose.I am paying a tribute to what I once was,to what you once were,"she said.A--a sort of good-bye to sentiment.""Nancy!"I said hoarsely.

She shook her head.

"No,Hugh.Surely you can't misjudge me so!"she answered reproachfully.

"Do you think I should have sent for you if I had meant--that!""No,no,I didn't think so.But why not?You--you cared once,and you tell me plainly you don't love him.It was all a terrible mistake.We were meant for each other.""I did love you then,"she said."You never knew how much.And there is nothing I wouldn't give to bring it all back again.But I can't.It's gone.You're gone,and I'm gone.I mean what we were.Oh,why did you change?""It was you who changed,"I declared,bewildered.

"Couldn't you see--can't you see now what you did?But perhaps you couldn't help it.Perhaps it was just you,after all.""What I did?""Why couldn't you have held fast to your faith?If you had,you would have known what it was I adored in you.Oh,I don't mind telling you now,it was just that faith,Hugh,that faith you had in life,that faith you had in me.You weren't cynical and calculating,like Ralph Hambleton,you had imagination.I--I dreamed,too.And do you remember the time when you made the boat,and we went to Logan's Pond,and you sank in her?""And you stayed,"I went on,"when all the others ran away?You ran down the hill like a whirlwind."She laughed.

"And then you came here one day,to a party,and said you were going to Harvard,and quarrelled with me.""Why did you doubt met"I asked agitatedly."Why didn't you let me see that you still cared?""Because that wasn't you,Hugh,that wasn't your real self.Do you suppose it mattered to me whether you went to Harvard with the others?

Oh,I was foolish too,I know.I shouldn't have said what I did.But what is the use of regrets?"she exclaimed."We've both run after the practical gods,and the others have hidden their faces from us.It may be that we are not to blame,either of us,that the practical gods are too strong.We've learned to love and worship them,and now we can't do without them.""We can try,Nancy,"I pleaded.

"No,"she answered in a low voice,"that's the difference between you and me.I know myself better than you know yourself,and I know you better."She smiled again."Unless we could have it all back again,I shouldn't want any of it.You do not love me--"I started once more to protest.

"No,no,don't say it!"she cried.

"You may think you do,just this moment,but it's only because--you've been moved.And what you believe you want isn't me,it's what I was.

But I'm not that any more,--I'm simply recalling that,don't you see?

And even then you wouldn't wish me,now,as I was.That sounds involved,but you must understand.You want a woman who will be wrapped up in your career,Hugh,and yet who will not share it,--who will devote herself body and soul to what you have become.A woman whom you can shape.And you won't really love her,but only just so much of her as may become the incarnation of you.Well,I'm not that kind of woman.I might have been,had you been different.I'm not at all sure.Certainly I'm not that kind now,even though I know in my heart that the sort of career you have made for yourself,and that I intend to make for myself is all dross.But now I can't do without it.""And yet you are going to marry Hambleton Durrett!"I said.

She understood me,although I regretted my words at once.