"Yes—if you'd do it," replied she. "But you wouldn't. You'd not leave me to bear the whole burden alone. You'd not be a coward."
His florid face became crimson. He fought for self-control, gave up the hopeless struggle, flung himself down beside her. "I can't go—I can't," he cried. "But—how can I stay? It's dragging us down—down." He was almost weeping. "Courtney, you must see it's dragging us down."
For the first time she had the sense of strength in herself greater than his, of weakness in him. She caressed his fair hair tenderly. "It's only a mood, dearest—only a mood. It'll pass—and we'll help each other, and be strong. We'll look forward to the end of this. For, in a few years Winchie'll be off to school. Then—I shall be free to make my own life. I'll go away to visit—stay on and on—and gradually——"
"You must promise you will not live with him."
"I will do my best. But—I must protect Winchie—and us."
He grew red, then pale, was silent for a time. Then he said irritatedly, weakly, "But don't you see what a position it puts me in!"
"And me?" She said it very quietly, with a certain restrained pathos. But he sat glum and moody, thinking of his own plight.
He roused himself. "All right," he cried, in a tone of contempt—for himself and for her. He embraced her with a kind of insolent familiarity. "Then I'll stay. If I went, I'd only come sneaking back. I'm no longer a man. I'm a slave to you." And he held her at arms length and eyed her with an expression that told her he was making inventory of her charms.
"Please don't talk that way," she begged, offended and wounded by that expression in his eyes more than she dared admit to herself. "I know you don't mean it. I know you—love. I know——"
"Love—let's only talk of love," he interrupted.