“Well?” he said finally.
Catherine sank down in the chair where Marian had sat, and leaned forward, folding her hands above her knees. Her dark eyes did not leave his. He saw that for the first time in their relationship all shyness had slipped from her. There was something magnificent about her, he thought, now that he really saw her unveiled.
“Oh, Stacey, don’t! don’t!” she said at last.
“Why not?” he asked, with polite detachment. “Sanctity of the marriage relation?” She shook her head. “What then? Moral discipline of self-denial? Regard for Ames Price—Vernon’s third-best golf player? Or concern for Marian? You needn’t worry about Marian. She’ll never feel remorse, and no more shall I. Come, Catherine, you’re not communicative!”
“You—you know I can’t talk readily,” she said. “But, oh, Stacey, don’t! please don’t! I’m not speaking to you with reasons—only from my heart.”
“No,” he returned grimly, “you’re speaking with all the massed tradition heaped up under the impression that through it some purpose can be followed. All a mistake, I tell you!”
“No! No!” she cried, her grave face alight with expression. “I’m not!” Suddenly her eyes grew pitiful. “Oh, Stacey,” she said, “you poor hurt child! Do you want to hurt yourself more?”
At this his calm was shaken. A dull resentment stirred in him,—but not because he was vain, or even proud.
“I suppose,” he said slowly, “that because I—some one else that I used to be—felt in such and such a way about Marian, you would not have me trample on those old illusions, for fear of pain. Catherine, I do not give that for my illusions!”
“Oh, nor I, either, Stacey! ‘Don’t’ is all I can say. In your heart you know I’m right.”