“If you were ever to come inside my cage you would have to stay for ever,” said Cromartie. He had recovered himself now, his moment of weakness was past. “And if you don’t decide to do that, I don’t think we can go on seeing each other at all. I think I shall die if I see you like this. We can never be happy together.”
“Well, we had better be unhappy together than unhappy apart,” said Josephine. She had suddenly begun to cry.
“My darling creature,” said Cromartie, “it’s all a silly mistake; but we will arrange things somehow. I’ll get the curator to have you in the next cage to me instead of that damned nigger, and we shall see each other all the time.”
Josephine shook her head vigorously to get the tears out of her eyes, like a dog that has been swimming.
“No, that won’t do,” she declared angrily, “that won’t do at all. It has got to be the same cage as yours or I won’t live in a cage at all. I haven’t come here to live in a cage by myself. I’ll share yours and be damned to everyone else.”
She gave an angry laugh and shook her yellow hair back. Her eyes sparkled with tears, but she looked steadily at Cromartie. “Damn other people,” she repeated; “I care for nobody in the world but you, John, and if we are going to be put in a cage and persecuted, we must just bear it. I hate them all, and I’m going to be happy with you in spite of them. Nobody can make me feel ashamed now. I can’t help being myself and I will be myself.”
“Darling,” said Cromartie, “you would be wretched here. It’s awful; you mustn’t think of it. I have a much more sensible plan. I can’t ask them to let me go. Anyhow I shan’t do that. But I am still so feeble that I can easily make myself really ill again, and then I think they will let me go and we can get married.”
“That won’t do,” said Josephine. “We can’t wait any longer, and you would die if you tried that. There was nothing about your not being allowed to marry in the contract when you came here, was there?” she asked. “You have only got to tell them that you are going to get married to-day, and that your wife is ready to live in your cage.”
During this conversation several people had come into the Ape-house, and after looking at Josephine in a highly scandalised manner had gone out again, but now Collins came in. He looked rather puzzled and awkward when he saw Josephine, but she turned to him at once and said:
“Mr. Cromartie and I wish to see the curator; will you please find him and ask him to come here?”