"Roma...." he began, but her tears and passion bore down everything.
"House, furniture, presents, carriages, horses, everything will go soon,
and I shall have nothing whatever! No matter! You said a woman loved
ease and wealth and luxury. Is that all a woman loves? Is there nothing
else in the world for any of us? Aren't you satisfied with me at last?"
"Roma," he answered, breathing hard, "don't talk like that. I cannot
bear it."
But she did not listen. "You taunted me with being a woman," she said
through a fresh burst of tears. "A woman was incapable of friendship and
sacrifices. She was intended to be a man's plaything. Do you think I
want to be my husband's mistress? I want to be his wife, to share his
fate, whatever it may be, for good or bad, for better or worse."
"For God's sake, Roma!" he cried. But she broke in on him again.
"You taunted me with the dangers you had to go through, as if a woman
must needs be an impediment to her husband, and try to keep him back. Do
you think I want my husband to do nothing? If he were content with that
he would not be the man I had loved, and I should despise him and leave
him."
"Roma!..."
"Then you taunted me with the death that hangs over you. When you were
gone I should be left to the mercy of the world. But that can never
happen. Never! Do you think a woman can outlive the man she loves as I
love you?... There! I've said it. You've shamed me into it."
He could not speak now. His words were choking in his throat, and she
went on in a torrent of tears: "The death that threatens you comes from no fault of yours, but only
from your fidelity to my father. Therefore I have a right to share it,
and I will not live when you are dead."
"If I give way now," he thought, "all is over."
And clenching his hands behind his back to keep himself from throwing
his arms around her, he began in a low voice: "Roma, you have broken your promise to me."
"I don't care," she interrupted. "I would break ten thousand
promises. I deceived you. I confess it. I pretended to be reconciled to
your will, and I was not reconciled. I wanted you to see me strip myself
of all I had, that you might have no answer and excuse. Well, you have
seen me do it, and now ... what are you going to do now?"