'Because, if the woman couldn't, if it turned out that she couldn't, the last state would be worse than the first. Murder added to felo de se! There's that to consider.' Now he returned to her in an active consciousness of her presence. 'Suppose you loved a man who had one great—well, one great devil in him? Could you love a man with a devil in him?'
There was a touch of humour hardly won in his voice. Trix responded to it.
'With a thousand, if he was a man after all!'
'Ah, yes, I daresay. But with one—one immense fellow—a fellow who had sat on him and flattened him for years? Could you fight the fellow and beat him?'
Trix thought. 'I think I might have perhaps, before—before I got a devil too, you know.'
'Say he was a swindler—could you keep him straight? Say he was cruel—could you make him kind?' He paused an instant. 'Suppose he was a churl—could you open his heart?'
'All that would be very, very hard, even for a good woman,' said Trix Trevalla. 'And you know that in a case something like those I failed before.'
'Because, if you couldn't, it would be hell to you, and worse hell to him.'
'Yes,' murmured Trix. 'That would be it exactly.'
'But if you could——' He walked to the window and looked out. 'It would be something like pulling down the other side of the Inn and giving the sun fair play,' said he.