"As for love," he said, forcing a lighter tone, "there are fifty-seven
different varieties, Athalie; and only one is poisonous,--unless taken
with the other fifty-six, and in small doses."
She smiled faintly and walked to the window. Rain beat there in the
darkness spattering the little iron balcony. Below, the bleared lights
of the city stretched away to the sky-line.
He followed, and slipped his arm through hers; and she bent her wrist,
interlacing her slim fingers with his.
"You know," he said, "that when I often speak with apparent authority
I am wrong. In the final analysis you are the real leader, Athalie.
Your instincts are the right ones; your convictions honest, your
conclusions just. Mine are too often confused with selfishness and
indecision. For mine is an irresolute character;--or it was. I'm
trying to make it firmer."
She pressed his hand lightly, her eyes still fixed on the
light-smeared darkness.
He went on more gravely: "Candour and the intuition born of common
sense,--that is where you are so admirable, dear. Add to that the
tenderest heart that ever beat, and a proud ignorance of the lesser,
baser emotions--and, who am I to interfere,--to come into the sweet
order of your life with demands that confuse you--with complaints
against the very destiny I brought upon us both--with the clamour of
a selfish and ignoble philosophy which your every instinct rejects,
and which your heart entertains only because it is your heart, and
its heavenly sympathy has never failed me yet.... Oh, Athalie,
Athalie, it would be a shameful day for me and a bitter day for you if
my selfishness and irresolution ever swerved you. What I have lost--if
I have indeed lost it--is lost irrevocably. And I've got to learn to
face it."
She said, still gazing absently into the darkness: "Yes. But I am just
beginning to wonder what it is that I may have lost,--what it is
that I have never known."
"Don't think of it! Don't permit anything I have said or done to
trouble you or stir you toward such an awakening.... I don't want to
stand charged with that. You are tranquil, now--"
"I--was."
"You are still!" he said in quick concern. "Listen, Athalie--the
majority of men lose their grip at moments; men as irresolute as I
lose it oftener. Don't waste sympathy on me; it was nothing but a
whine born of a lesser impulse--born of emotions less decent than you
could comprehend--"
"Maybe I am beginning to comprehend."