"After all--you were right when you wanted me to be your mistress."
He turned on her with an astonished stare. "You--my mistress?"
Through all her pain she thrilled with pride at the discovery that such a possibility had long since become unthinkable to him. But she insisted. "That day at the Fulmers'--have you forgotten? When you said it would be sheer madness for us to marry."
Lansing stood leaning in the embrasure of the window, his eyes fixed on the mosaic volutes of the floor.
"I was right enough when I said it would be sheer madness for us to marry," he rejoined at length.
She sprang up trembling. "Well, that's easily settled. Our compact--"
"Oh, that compact--" he interrupted her with an impatient laugh.
"Aren't you asking me to carry it out now?"
"Because I said we'd better part?" He paused. "But the compact--I'd almost forgotten it--was to the effect, wasn't it, that we were to give each other a helping hand if either of us had a better chance? The thing was absurd, of course; a mere joke; from my point of view, at least. I shall never want any better chance... any other chance...."
"Oh, Nick, oh, Nick... but then...." She was close to him, his face looming down through her tears; but he put her back.
"It would have been easy enough, wouldn't it," he rejoined, "if we'd been as detachable as all that? As it is, it's going to hurt horribly. But talking it over won't help. You were right just now when you asked how else we were going to live. We're born parasites, both, I suppose, or we'd have found out some way long ago. But I find there are things I might put up with for myself, at a pinch--and should, probably, in time that I can't let you put up with for me... ever.... Those cigars at Como: do you suppose I didn't know it was for me? And this too? Well, it won't do... it won't do...."
He stopped, as if his courage failed him; and she moaned out: "But your writing--if your book's a success...."
"My poor Susy--that's all part of the humbug. We both know that my sort of writing will never pay. And what's the alternative except more of the same kind of baseness? And getting more and more blunted to it? At least, till now, I've minded certain things; I don't want to go on till I find myself taking them for granted."