"No; it shall end. I will end it. I can endure it no longer."
"You are still young. You will perhaps have forty years more to
live--all like this--as dull and empty. It is the price we must pay."
"No," he repeated, "it shall end. I swear that I will go on like this
no longer."
"You had better go to London and walk in Piccadilly to get a little
society."
"What do you care what I do or where I go?"
"We will not reproach each other, Harry."
"Why--what else do you do all day long but reproach me with your gloomy
looks and your silence?"
"Well--end it if you can. Find some change in the life."
"Be gracious for a little, and listen to my plan. I have made a plan.
Listen, Iris. I can no longer endure this life. It drives me mad."
"And me too. That is one reason why we should not desire to change it.
Mad people forget. They think they are somewhere else. For us to
believe that we were somewhere else would be in itself happiness."
"I am resolved to change it--to change it, I say--at any risk. We will
leave Louvain."
"We can, I dare say," Iris replied coldly, "find another town, French
or Belgian, where we can get another cottage, behind high walls in a
garden, and hide there."
"No. I will hide no longer. I am sick of hiding."
"Go on. What is your plan? Am I to pretend to be some one else's
widow?"
"We will go to America. There are heaps of places in the States where
no English people ever go---neither tourists nor settlers--places where
they have certainly never heard of us. We will find some quiet village,
buy a small farm, and settle among the people. I know something about
farming. We need not trouble to make the thing pay. And we will go back
to mankind again. Perhaps, Iris--when we have gone back to the
world--you will--" he hesitated--"you will be able to forgive me, and
to regard me again with your old thoughts. It was done for your sake."
"It was not done for my sake. Do not repeat that falsehood. The old
thoughts will never come back, Harry. They are dead and gone. I have
ceased to respect you or myself. Love cannot survive the loss of
self-respect. Who am I that I should give love to anybody? Who are you
that you should expect love?"