"What?"
"You didn't know that my coming here last spring—and loving you—cured me of the drinking habit. I know, it's stupid and disgusting. I used to loathe myself when I gave way. But it's the only resort in loneliness. And if I realized that you were lost to me, what would I care?"
She nodded sympathetically. "I was going all to pieces, in another way. I was sliding down as fast as Winchie and I were coasting the hill back there. I was going the way of all women who have no love—grown-up love—in their lives. I know now, the reason I used to keep myself together and built myself up and looked after things was because I was waiting and hoping for love, and was expecting it. Love is all of a woman's life, as things are run in this world—at present."
"And quite enough it is, too," said he.
"No," disagreed she. "But let that pass. If I went back to—to that life—alone, I'd be going to ruin. And I'd probably drag him and Winchie down with me. A woman of that unburied-dead sort drags down everybody about her.... You've only to look round, in any station of life, to see those women by the scores. Some few are saved by children—not many and they are of a different nature from me—from most women, I think.... If I don't go back, I either go to you disgraced, a shame to my family, a lifelong stain on my boy here, a miserable, afraid dependent of yours.... No, don't interrupt; I've thought it all out.... Or, I'd plunge into a life of social dissipation. If possible, that sort of woman is worse for herself and for her husband and children than the domestic rotter. A chattering, card-playing gadabout. Possibly I might remain true to my husband, but— If the world weren't the fool it is, it would have discovered long ago that there are worse vices than—" As always when she forced herself to say frank, merciless things, she looked straight into his eyes with defiant audacity—"worse vices than ours."
"But—" he began, shifting his gaze and coloring.
"Oh, yes, it is. Don't make any mistake about it. But I know lots of 'good' women—liars, gossips, naggers, petty swindlers of their husbands, envious, malicious, spiteful—lots and lots of so-called good women beside whom I'd feel white as this snow."
"Rather!" exclaimed Basil.
"So—if you'll go with me—I'm going home—to make it a home—to be a good mother—to give Richard at least his money's worth in care and comfort and—" She looked at him with eyes suddenly solemn—"and that is all, Basil—all. It's all I can give him, all he has the right to.... I'm going home to be a good woman, if you'll come and be there too."
"There's only one life for me—to be as near you as you'll let me."