Her familiar tone was odious to him. The sudden perversion of his thoughts from Lettice to this creature, from his dream of purity and elevation to this degrading reality, filled him with disgust. Nay, something more than disgust entered his mind as he saw the smile on her besotted face. A demon of revenge seized upon him, and all but gained the mastery. For one instant he was perilously near to springing on her where she sat, and strangling the life out of her. All passions and all possibilities are in the soul of every one of us, at every moment; only the motive power, the circumstance, the incitement, are needed to make us cross the boundary of restraint. If Alan was not a murderer, it was not because the thing was impossible to him, but because at the crisis of temptation his heart had been penetrated by the influence of the woman whom he revered, and filled with higher thoughts—even through the channel of humiliation and self-contempt.
He answered her calmly.
"There is no arranging what has happened between us two—nor do you wish it any more than I. Say what you want to say, and go."
"Good! I will say what I want to say—but I will not go. I mean to stay with my husband; it is my right. Till death do us part—are not those the pretty words of the farce we played together?"
"Who made it a farce—did I?"
"Listen, my friend. This is one thing I want to say. Assuredly it was you, and no other, who made our marriage a miserable failure. You took me from a life I loved, from friends who loved me, from a freedom which I valued, and you made no effort to study my tastes and accommodate yourself to my habits."
"God knows I made the effort. But what were those tastes and habits? Think of them—think of them all! Could I have accommodated myself to all—even to those you concealed from me?"
"Bah! you should have known whom you had married. You were so blind and foolish, that I had a right to think you would never interfere with my liberty. I was the child of liberty—and liberty is a sacred possession, which it is an outrage to take away from any woman. You expected me to change, to become all at once another being, cold and impassive like yourself—while, as for you, you were to change in nothing! It was your duty to come to my level—at least to approach it. I would have met you halfway; we could have made our contract, and I would have kept my part of the bargain. You demanded too much, and that is why you lost everything. I condemn you—humanity condemns you. The ruin was your work!"
"There is something novel in the theory, but I don't think many people would accept it." He was prepared to talk seriously with her, if she wished it, but no man could be serious in view of such a preposterous claim. So he fell back upon the cold, ironical calmness which exasperated Cora far more than a storm of rage would have done. "At any rate," he said, "I did not deprive you of your liberty. You retained that!"
"I kept it for myself. You would have taken it away, and you hated me for keeping it. I keep it still. I have been free to go where I would, free to wander over this terrible and desolate city, free now to come back to you, and stay with you, until you swear to cease your persecutions, and swear to make a new compact on more equitable terms."