"Go on. Did he say that?"
"Yes."
"But with all my fine qualities of mind and heart," said I, "I lost
all when I lost my money!"
"What do you mean?"
"I'll tell you what I mean--you dropped me because you thought me
poor. Well, I don't blame you. It takes money to live, and you
deserved all that the world can give. I don't blame you. There were
other men in the world for you. The trouble with me was that there was
no other woman in the world for me. All our trouble--all our many
meetings and partings--have come out of those two facts."
"Did you think that of me?" she asked at length, slowly. I suppose she
was pale, but I could not see.
"I certainly did. How could I think anything else?"
"Harry!" she half whispered. "Why, Harry, Harry!"
"Admit that you did!" I exclaimed bitterly, "and let me start from
that as a premise. Listen! If you were a man, and loved a woman, and
she chucked you when you lost your money, do you think you'd break
your neck to make any more success in the world after that? Why should
you? Why does a man work? It's for a home, for the sake of power, and
mostly for the sake of the game."
"Yes."
"And I could play that game--I can play it now, and win at it, any
time I like. I quit it not because I was afraid of the game--it's the
easiest thing in the world to make money, if that's all you really
want to do. That's all your father wanted, or mine, and it was easy. I
can play that game. But why? Ah! if it were to win a quiet home, the
woman I loved, independence, usefulness, contentment,--yes! But when
all those stakes were out of the game, Helena, I didn't care to play
it any more. And that was why you thought I ran away. I did run
away--from myself, and you."
She was silent now, and perhaps paler--I could not see.
"--But wherever I have gone, Helena, all over the world, I've found
those two people there ahead of me, and I couldn't escape
them--myself, and you!"
"Did you think that of me, Harry?" She half whispered once more.
"Yes, I did. And did you think that of me?"
"Yes, I did. But I did not understand."
"No. Like many a woman, you got cause and effect mixed up: and you
never troubled yourself to get it straight. Let me tell you, unless
two people can come to each other without compromises and without
explanations and without reservations, they would better never come
at all. I don't want you cheap, you oughtn't to want me cheap. So how
can it end any way other than the way it has? If it was my loss of
fortune that made you chuck me, I oughtn't ever to give you a second
thought, for you wouldn't be worth it. The fact you did, and that I
do, hasn't anything to do with it at all."