Marian saw that Howard was looking at her in the straight, frank fashion she remembered and liked so well. “I’ve come for you,” he said.
“Yes, you are to take me in,” she evaded, her look even lamer than her words.
“You know what I mean.” He was smiling, his heart in his eyes, as if the dozen people were not about them.
“I see you have not changed,” she laughed, answering his look in kind.
“Changed? I’m revolutionized. I was blind and now I see. I was paralyzed and behold, I walk. I was weak and lo, I am strong—strong enough for two, if necessary.”
“Now, hasn’t it occurred to you that I might possibly have something to say about my own fate?”
“You? Why, you had everything to say. I reasoned it all out with you. You simply can’t add anything to the case I made you make out for yourself when I talked it over with you. I made you protest very vigorously.”
“Well, what did I say—that is, what did you make me say?”
“You said you were engaged—pledged to another—that you could not draw back without dishonour. And I answered that no engagement could bind you to become the wife of a man you did not love; that no moral code could hold you to such a sin; that no code of honour could command you to permit a man to degrade himself and you. Then you pleaded that you were not sure you liked my kind of a life, that you feared you wanted wealth and a great establishment and social leadership and—and all that.”
“Did I?” Marian said with exaggerated astonishment.