"But you know it wasn't because I'm not grateful, don't you? I can hardly believe yet that it isn't a dream. I'd have said there wasn't a human being on earth who'd have done it—except your mother. No, not even you, only your mother."
At this tribute to her mother, unexpected, sincere, tears dimmed Pauline's eyes and a sob choked up into her throat.
"It was your mother in you that made you come," he went on. "But you came—and I'll not forget it. You said you had come to stay—is that so, Pauline?"
She bent her head in assent.
"When I'm well and on top again—but there's nothing in words. All I'll say is, you're giving me a chance, and I'll make the best of it. I've learned my lesson."
He slowly released her hand. She stood there a moment, without speaking, without any definite thought. Then she left to send Langdon.
"Yes," Dumont reflected, "it was her duty. It's a woman's duty to be forgiving and gentle and loving and pure—they're made differently from men. It was unnatural, her ever going away at all. But she's a good woman, and she shall get what she deserves hereafter. When I settle this bill for my foolishness I'll not start another."
Duty—that word summed up his whole conception of the right attitude of a good woman toward a man. A woman who acted from love might change her mind; but duty was safe, was always there when a man came back from wanderings which were mere amiable, natural weaknesses in the male. Love might adorn a honeymoon or an escapade; duty was the proper adornment of a home.
"I've just been viewing the wreck with Culver," he said, as Langdon entered, dressed in the extreme of the latest London fashion.
"Much damage?"