"You mustn't bother about that," said he. "Besides, there's nothing to settle."
"I shan't pretend I'm going to try to pay you back," she went on, as if he had not spoken. "I never could do it. But you will get part at least by selling this furniture and the things at the laboratory."
"Dorothy—please," he implored. "Don't you understand you're to stay on here, just the same? What sort of man do you think I am? I did this for you, and you know it."
"But I did it for my father," replied she, "and he's gone." She was resting her melancholy gaze upon him. "I couldn't take anything from you. You didn't think I was that kind?"
He was silent.
"I cared nothing about the scandal—what people said—so long as I was doing it for him. . . . I'd have done anything for him. Sometimes I thought you were going to compel me to do things I'd have hated to do. I hope I wronged you, but I feared you meant that." She sat thinking several minutes, sighed wearily. "It's all over now. It doesn't matter. I needn't bother about it any more."
"Dorothy, let's not talk of these things now," said Norman. "There's no hurry. I want you to wait until you are calm and have thought everything over. Then I'm sure you'll see that you ought to stay on."
"How could I?" she asked wonderingly.
"Why not? Am I demanding anything of you? You know I'm not—and that I never shall."
"But there's no reason on earth why you should support me. I can work. Why shouldn't I? And if I didn't, if I stayed on here, what sort of woman would I be?"