"No," he replied quietly. She had hoped to take him at a disadvantage.
But he replied at once:
"No. I have thought that out. I do not separate you from the Road. I put neither first. It is true that there was a time when the Road was everything to me. But that was before I met you—do you remember?—in the inn at La Grave."
Violet Oliver looked curiously at Linforth—curiously, and rather quickly. But it seemed that he at all events did not remember that he had not come alone down to La Grave.
"It isn't that I have come to care less for the Road," he went on. "Not by one jot. Rather, indeed, I care more. But I can't dissociate you from the Road. The Road's my life-work; but it will be the better done if it's done with your help. It will be done best of all if it's done for you."
Violet Oliver turned away quickly, and stood with her head averted. Ardently she longed to take him at his word. A glimpse of a great life was vouchsafed to her, such as she had not dreamt of. That some time she would marry again, she had not doubted. But always she had thought of her husband to be, as a man very rich, with no ambition but to please her, no work to do which would thwart her. And here was another life offered, a life upon a higher, a more difficult plane; but a life much more worth living. That she saw clearly enough. But out of her self-knowledge sprang the insistent question:
"Could I live it?"
There would be sacrifices to be made by her. Could she make them? Would not dissatisfaction with herself follow very quickly upon her marriage? Out of her dissatisfaction would there not grow disappointment in her husband? Would not bitterness spring up between them and both their lives be marred?
Dick was still holding her hand.
"Let me see you," he said, drawing her towards him. "Let me see your face!"
She turned and showed it. There was a great trouble in her eyes, her voice was piteous as she spoke.