"Are you and Raphael going to marry?" he demanded so roughly that she, startled, stood straight up, facing him. "Yes, I see that you are," he rushed on. "And it puts me beside myself with jealousy. But you would be mistaken if you thought I meant I would have you, even if I could get you. What you said the last time I saw you, interpreted by what you've done since, has revealed you to me as what I used to think you—a woman incapable of love—not a woman at all. You are of this new type—the woman that uses her brain. Give me the old-fashioned kind—the kind that loved, without question."
She blazed out at him—at his savage, sneering voice and eyes. "Without question," she retorted, "and whether he was on the right side or the wrong. Loved the man who won, so long as he won; was gladly a mere part of the spoils of victory—that was the feature of her the poets and the novel writers neglect to mention. But it was important. You like that, however—you who think only of fighting, as you call it—though that's rather a brave name for the game you play, as you yourself have described it to me and as the whole world now knows you play it. You'd have no use for the woman who really loves, the woman who would be proud to bear a man's name if she loved him, though it were black with dishonor, provided he said, 'Help me make this name clean and bright again.' Why should not a woman be as jealous of dishonor in her husband as he is of it in her?"
Narcisse entered, hesitated; then, seeing Armstrong hat in hand and apparently going, she came on. "Hello," said she, shaking hands with him. She took a cigarette from the big silver box on the table, lit it, held the box toward Armstrong. "Smoke, and cheer up. The devil is said to be dying."
"Thanks, no, I must be off," replied Armstrong. He took a long look round the room, ending at the rambler-grown lattices. He bowed to Narcisse. His eyes rested upon Neva; but she was not looking at him, lest love should win a shameful victory over self-respect and over her feeling of what was the right course toward him if there was any meaning in the words woman and wife.
When he was gone, Narcisse stretched herself out, extended her feet toward the flames. "What a handsome, big man he is," said she, sending up a great cloud of cigarette smoke. "How tremendously a man. If he had some of Boris's temperament, or Boris some of his, either would be perfect."
A pause, with both women looking into the fire.
"After you left us last night," Narcisse continued, "Boris asked me to marry him."
Neva was startled out of her brooding.
"I refused," proceeded Narcisse. Another silence, then, "You don't ask why?"
"Why?"