She was backing towards the door, retreating from him. He stepped over to the window, widening the distance that separated them.
“Do you feel more secure now? You needn't fear me,” he reproached her. “Was it because I spoke of our love? We have no reason to be ashamed of it. We've played fair. How could we do less when Varensky has played so fair by us? It's for our sakes he's gone, that he may free us.” Then, “You're setting out alone on a journey. Would you mind telling me its object?”
“You know. To prevent him. To catch up with him. To bring him back.”
“And if he refuses?”
“To die with him.”
He smiled whimsically. “The vanishing point! For you, with your high standard of honor, if you were to overtake it, your problem would be solved. But suppose the vanishing point eludes you. Suppose your husband agrees to live, have you thought of that? It means that you and I will never——”
With an imploring gesture she cut him short. “It means that you and I will never learn to despise each other. It means that I shall always remember you at your greatest, as I've seen you in the last seven days, self-sacrificing, brave and noble—so self-forgetting that you could even forget the woman you adored.”
He sank his head. In the gray square of window he looked old and haggard. “It's true, and yet it's incredible: if we were to allow him to die, we should despise each other. In the long years——” He glanced up. “Though you were willing to let him and I won you, do you think I would want you? Not that way. I'd want you so little that I'm coming with you to help you to prevent him.”
VIII
Long lines of neglected tillage! Deserted farms! Broken fences! A gray expanse of sky! Knots of peasants trekking always westward! Panting cattle, nearing the exhaustion point! Creaking carts! Dawn growing whiter; day growing golden; sunlight fading; night becoming flecked with stars! Always the rhythm of the engine, the plunging into the distance, the impatient urgency to thrust forward!