“But me no buts, unless you wish me to vanish again and for ever. Wretch that I am, I have longed for you unspeakably more than once since I ran away from you. You didn’t care, of course?”
“I did. I did, indeed. Why did you leave me, Sidney?”
“Lest a worse thing might befall. Come, don’t let us waste in explanations the few minutes we have left. Give me a kiss.”
“Then you are going to leave me again. Oh, Sidney—”
“Never mind to-morrow, Hetty. Be like the sun and the meadow, which are not in the least concerned about the coming winter. Why do you stare at that cursed canal, blindly dragging its load of filth from place to place until it pitches it into the sea—just as a crowded street pitches its load into the cemetery? Stare at ME, and give me a kiss.”
She gave him several, and said coaxingly, with her arm still upon his shoulder: “You only talk that way to frighten me, Sidney; I know you do.”
“You are the bright sun of my senses,” he said, embracing her. “I feel my heart and brain wither in your smile, and I fling them to you for your prey with exultation. How happy I am to have a wife who does not despise me for doing so—who rather loves me the more!”
“Don’t be silly,” said Henrietta, smiling vacantly. Then, stung by a half intuition of his meaning, she repulsed him and said angrily, “YOU despise ME.”
“Not more than I despise myself. Indeed, not so much; for many emotions that seem base from within seem lovable from without.”
“You intend to leave me again. I feel it. I know it.”