“You see a change in me, then?”
“You are not quite yourself, I think.”
“I tell you again that I am myself at last. You do not seem to like the real man any better than the unreal: I am afraid you will not have me on any terms. Well, let us go downstairs, since you prefer it.”
“Oh, not unless you wish it too,” said Marian, a little bewildered.
He took her candle and led the way out without another word or a look at the bed. Marian, as he stood aside to let her go downstairs before him, was suddenly seized with a fantastic fear that he was going to kill her. She did not condescend to hurry or look back; but she only felt safe when they were in her room, and he no longer behind her.
“Sit down,” he said, placing the candle on the mantelpiece. She sat down at the table, and he stood on the hearthrug. “Now,” said he, “about the future. Are you coming back? Will you give the life at Holland Park another trial?”
“I cannot,” she said, bending her head almost on her hands. “I should disgrace you. And there is another reason.”
“It is not in your power, nor in that of all London, to disgrace me if I do not feel disgraced. It is useless to say that you cannot. If you say ‘I will not,’ then that will settle it. What is the other reason?”
“It is not yet born. But it will be.”
“That is no reason to me. Do you think I shall be a worse father to it than he would have been?”