"Must you go?"
"I ought to."
"There is that other bedroom. And Mrs. Connor has gone home for the
night."
"I told her to remain," he said sharply.
"I told her to go."
"Why?"
"Because I wanted you to stay--this first night here--with me--in the
home of my youth which you have given to me again."
He came to her and looked into her eyes, framing her face between his
hands: "Dear, it would be unwise for me to remain."
"Because you love me?"
"No." He added with a forced smile: "I have put on armour in our
behalf. No, that is not the reason."
"Then--may you not stay?"
"Suppose it became known? What would you do, Athalie?"
"Hold my head high ... guilty or not."
"You don't know what you are saying."
"Not exactly, perhaps.... But I know that I have been changing. This
day alone with you is finishing the transformation. I'm not sure just
when it began. I realise, now, that it has been in process for a long,
long while." She drew away from him, leaned back on the banisters.
"I may not have much time;--I want to be candid--I want to think
honestly. I don't desire to deny even to myself that I am now become
what I am--a stranger to myself."
He said, still with his forced smile; "What pretty and unknown
stranger have you so suddenly discovered in yourself, Athalie?"
She looked up at him, unsmiling: "A stranger to celibacy.... Why do
you not take me, Clive?"
"Do you understand what you are saying!"
"Yes. And now I can understand anything you may say or do ... I
couldn't, yesterday." She turned her face away from him and folded her
hands over the newel-post. And, not looking at him, she said: "Since
we have been here alone together I have known a confidence and
security I never dreamed of. Nothing now matters, nothing causes
apprehension, nothing of fear remains--not even that ignorance of fear
which the world calls innocence.
"I am what I am; I am not afraid to be and live what I have become....
I am capable of love. Yesterday I was not. I have been fashioned to
love, I think.... But there is only one man who can make me
certain.... My trust and confidence are wholly his--as fearlessly as
though he had become this day my husband....