She was quite unmoved, using her previous defense. "It will be a struggle of the new against the old."
"Ah, Judith," he replied almost sadly, "is he blinding you thus? And do you see my meaning clearly? All the better elements will oppose him. Whoever is with him will be against us."
"Who are you," she cried, "to pronounce on good and evil? Take care against self-righteousness, George."
"I will take care," he answered. "But there is another side to this, Judith. Put this larger issue by and turn to the smaller, the personal one between you and me. Judith, I have loved you. I thought you were womanly at bottom. But have you no heart, after all?" His intensity was growing.
"That still troubles you?" she inquired.
"Are you absolutely cold?" he asked. "Are your old friends nothing to you? What if they turn from you?"
"So," she said, "you threaten me with that?"
"It is inevitable," he said with energy. "Even as my love—no boy's love, Judith—wavers and grows sick, so will their friendship. Have we all mistaken you? Will you give such approval to such a man?"
Anger at last grew strong within her. "George!" she said in warning.
But he, casting before her his burning reproaches, would not be repressed. "I say the only thing which can bring you to yourself. Do my words sting? They tear me as I utter them!" His face was changing as he spoke, paling as if the effort weakened him, yet still he dragged out the words. "Judith, I could see you married to an honourable man, and still love and bless you. I will idealise you until you besmirch yourself—but you are no child, to do that unknowingly. On the day you give yourself to Ellis——"