"Well—first, there's this place. You like it, don't you? You must, since you made it. I've found that out, too."
"I love it," she answered. "But—" She shook her head.
"Now, do try to be patient with me. You must consider all three of my reasons together. That was only number one. Number two is Winchie."
She searched his face with swift terrified eyes. He smiled a frank and winning reassurance that instantly convinced her. "Please put that kind of thoughts about me out of your mind forever," he urged. "I've learned my lesson—that the beginning of fear is the end of trust. The boy's yours. You've got the right to him; he's got the right to you. Even if I could do for him, it'd be my duty— But I didn't come here this evening to talk about duty. That's a rotten hypocrisy."
"Is this Richard Vaughan?" she cried laughingly.
"The same—minus his grandfather," replied he, eyes and voice echoing her laugh. "No more duty for me. When anybody talks about doing his duty, he'd better be watched. If he boasts of having done his duty he'd better be locked up while they find out what mischief he's been at. No, I'm out for honest, selfish inclination only. That brings me to my third reason. I want you to stay. But—for very selfish sensible reasons I want you to want to stay. I've gotten acquainted with you. I need you. There's nobody who could take your place."
She smiled at what seemed to her the extravagant kindness of this.
"I mean just that," he went on. It wasn't the words he was saying; it never is a matter of words. It was the way he said it—the force behind the words, like the force behind the projectile. "I need you. Don't you think you could learn to need me? A man needs a woman. A woman needs a man. We've never given each other a fair trial. Why shouldn't we? Now that you've taught me, I don't want you to abandon me. And why should you begin all over again with another man?"
She sat motionless, hardly breathing, it seemed, from the stillness of her bosom. He waited long but no answer came. He went to the big old-fashioned chimneypiece, stood with his back to the logs; a look of somberness came into his face. "Well," he said, "I've said my say." There was silence in the room. He drew a long breath. "What do you think?"
She lifted her head. With flushed face and reproachful, almost resentful eyes she cried: "You've no right to come at me that way. You make it hard for me to do as I wish."