“Then,”—his voice was quieter still; she did not see that his hands were clenched under the flap of the table—“in this scheme of life of yours, how many children—how many servants, rooms, all that sort of thing—should you consider necessary?”
She smiled. “As for houses, servants and things, that just depends on one's income. I hate ostentation, but I do like a beautifully run house, and I adore horses and dogs and things. But the children—” she flushed again—“why, dearest, I think any couple ought to be simply too thankful for all the children they can have. Unless, perhaps,” she added naïvely, “they're frightfully poor.”
“Where should people live to be happy in this way?” he asked, still in those carefully quiet tones.
She was looking out of the window, trying to formulate her thoughts. “I don't think it matters very much where one lives,” she said in her soft, clear tones, “as long as one has friends, and is not too much in the city. But to own one's house, and the ground under one, to be able to leave it to one's son, to think of his son being born in it—that I think would add enormously to one's happiness. To belong to the place one lives in, whether it's an old country, or one of the colonies, or anywhere.”
“I see,” said Stefan slowly, in a voice low and almost harsh. Startled, she looked at him. His face was knotted in a white mask; it was like the face of some creature upon which an iron door has been shut. “Stefan,” she exclaimed, “what—?”
“Wait a minute,” he said, still slowly. “I suppose it's time we talked this thing out. I've been a fool, and judged, like a fool, by myself. It's time we knew each other, Mary. All that you have said is horrible to me—it's like a trap.” She gave an exclamation. “Wait, let me do something I've never done, let me think about it.” He was silent, his face still a hard, knotted mask. Mary waited, her heart trembling.
“You, Mary, told me something about families in England who live as you describe—you said your mother belonged to one of them. I remember that now.” He nodded shortly, as if conceding her a point. “My father was a New Englander. He was narrow and self-righteous, and I hated him, but he came of people who had faced a hundred forms of death to live primitively, in a strange land.”
“I'm willing to live in a strange country, Stefan,” she almost cried to him.
“Don't, Mary—I'm still trying to understand. I'm not my father's son, I'm my mother's. I don't know what she was, but she was beautiful and passionate—she came of a mixed race, she may have had gipsy blood—I don't know—but I do know she had genius. She loved only color and movement. Mary—” he looked straight at her for the first time, his eyes were tortured—“I loved you because you were beautiful and free. When your child bound you, and you began to collect so many things and people about you, I loved you less. I met some one else who had the beauty of color and movement, and I almost loved her. She told me the name Berber wasn't her own, that she had taken it because it belonged to a tribe of wanderers—Arabs. I almost loved her for that alone. But, Mary, you still held me. I was faithful to you because of your beauty and the love that had been between us. Then you rose from your petty little surroundings”—he cast a look of contempt at the pretty furnishings of the room—“I saw you like a storm-spirit, I saw you moving among other women like a goddess, adored of men. I felt your beautiful body yield to me in the joy of wild movement, in the rhythm of the dance. You were my bride, alive, gloriously free—once more, you were the Desired. I loved you, Mary.” He rose and put his hands on her shoulders. Her face was as white as his now. His hands dropped, he almost leapt away from her, the muscles of his face writhed. “My God, Mary, I've never wanted to think about you, only to feel and see you! Now I must think. This—this existence that you have described! Is that all you ask of life? Are you sure?”
“What more could one ask!” she uttered, dazed.