"But he may——"
She laid her fingers on his lips. "Trust me," she said. "I've planned it all. Only, that's the one thing we mustn't ever talk about." She laughed, with desperate straining to be audacious. "There is honor, even in the dishonorable."
"You—dishonorable? I, perhaps—yes, certainly. But you—you belong to yourself. It is I who will play the part of dishonor. You can be as cold and distant as you like. I must smile and pretend to be a friend." He shrugged his shoulders, laughed unpleasantly.
"That's manly!" exclaimed she, nerves instantly unstrung.
"What can you expect of—of me?" he replied, so down that she straightway relented.
"Let's drop this subject, dear," she pleaded. "Let's never speak of it again—and think of it as little as possible. It's one of the conditions of our life. We will admit it—and ignore it."
"How can we drop a subject that crops out, comes to the tips of our tongues, every time we look at each other? But be patient, dear. I shall grow hardened——"
"Oh, but you must not, Basil!" she cried in dismay. "We must not. That's our danger, and we must fight it.... Isn't it pitiful! If we were two coarse people, mere animals, merely the ordinary man and woman, why, we'd be happy and never give remorse a thought."
"If we suffer more, we enjoy more," said he, clasping her as if some power had tried to snatch her away. "When I feel ashamed, Courtney, all I have to do is to remember your hair, to feel again its soft splendor on my face, between my fingers—and I am delirious."
"Love—always love!" she murmured. "No price too great to pay for it."