“Only with yourself? Then she doesn’t care for you? And you’re not thinking of her?”
“Of course she cares for me.”
“But she’d get over it almost at once?”
“Perhaps,” he admitted.
“Do you trust her? Do you believe she will be able to be a good woman?”
“That will be my look-out,” he said impatiently. “If she fails, it will be my fault. It’s always the man’s fault. Always.”
“Very well,” said his mother resignedly. “I can say no more, can I? You must do as you like.”
The sudden withdrawal of her opposition softened him as nothing else would have done. He compared the sweetness of her resignation with his own sneer of a minute ago. He felt anxious to do something that would show his penitence.
“Mother, I hate to wound you. But I must be true to what I have worked out for myself. I must marry Lily. Apart from a mad love I have for her, there is a deeper cause, a reason that’s bound up with my whole theory of behavior, my whole attitude toward existence. I could not back out of this marriage.”
“Is all your chivalry to be devoted to the service of Lily?” she asked.