"But you told me as much, that night in Monte Carlo?"
"I didn't mean it. I was tired out that night; I was embittered, and insane, if you like! I want to be good! No woman wants sin and wrongdoing! But, O Jim, can't you see, it's you, you, I want, before everything else!"
He smote the palms of his hands together, in a little gesture of impotent misery.
"That's just it—you tried to make me save myself for my own sake,—and it couldn't be done. It was a failure. And now you're trying to make me save myself for your sake——"
"It's not your salvation I want—it's you!"
"But it's only through being honest that I can hold and keep you; can't you see that? If I can't trust myself, I can't possibly trust you!"
"Couldn't we try—once more?" Her voice was little more than a whisper.
He looked up at the soft and velvet stars that peered down so voluptuously from a soft and velvet sky. He looked at them for many moments, before he spoke again.
"If I got back to my work again, my right and honest work, I could be honest!" he declared, vehemently.
"But we are going back," she assuaged.