He sat in a stupor. At last he muttered: “Why didn’t you deceive me? Doubt was better than—than this.”
“But why should I? I don’t regret what I did. It has helped to make me what I am.”
“Don’t—don’t,” he implored. “I admit that that is true. But—you are making me suffer—horribly. You forget that I love you.”
“Love!” There was a strange sparkle in her eyes and she raised her head haughtily. “Is that what you call love?” And she decided that she would wait before telling him that she had been Marlowe’s wife.
“No,” he answered, “it is not what I call love. But it is a part of love—the lesser part, no doubt, but still a part. I love you in all the ways a man can love a woman. And I love you because you are a complete woman, capable of inspiring love in every way in which a woman appeals to a man. And it hurts me—this that you’ve told me.”
“But you, your life, what you’ve been through—I honour you for it, love you the more for it. It has made me know how strong you are. I love you best for the battles you’ve lost.”
“Yes,” he said. “I know that those who have lived and learned and profited are higher and stronger than the innocent, the ignorant. But I wish—” He hesitated, then went on doggedly, “I’d be lying to you if I did not say that I wish I did not know this.”
“Then you’d rather I had deceived you—evaded or told a falsehood.”
“No,” he said with emphasis, and he looked at her steadily and proudly. “I can’t imagine you telling me a falsehood or making any pretense whatever. At least I can honestly say that after the first purely physical impulse of anger, I didn’t for an instant suspect you of any baseness. And whenever an ugly thought about you has shown itself in my mind, it has been—choked to death before it had a chance to speak.”
“I know that,” she said, “I know it, dear.” And she put her hand on his.