“The price she’d have to pay and you’d have to pay—yes.”
He frowned. His face was puckered with suspicion. “Isn’t it that you’re afraid for yourself?”
The heat of his anger scorched me. I had watched this interpretation of my conduct taking shape under my repeated refusals.
“I’ve been accused of counting the cost before to-day,” I said. “I’m not counting the cost now. I’m thinking of Vi with her clean standards and her sense of duty. If she were the woman to consent to what you’re proposing, I wouldn’t want to marry her and you wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice yourself for her. But she won’t consent, and I won’t consent.”
Lurching heavily to his feet, he stood over me threateningly. “Don’t you know I can force you? If I divorced her you’d have to marry her.”
“But you won’t.”
“But I would if I thought it was only for my sake you were refusing.”
“It’s only partly for your sake.”
“Why, then?”
“I’ve shared your hospitality.”