“And my happiness—have you thought of it?”
“I love you.”
“And you feel that your love ought to be enough to make me happy?”
“Your love is all I need,” replied she with sad gentleness.
“That’s the woman’s point of view,” cried he. “I’ll admit it’s more or less mine, too—when I’m with you or have been thinking about you till my head’s turned. But—Rix”—he was powerfully in earnest now—“while love may be all that’s necessary to make a woman happy, it isn’t so with a man. For a man, love is to life what salt is to food—not the food as it is with a woman, but the thing that gives the food savor.”
He paused. But she sat silent, her gaze upon her hands folded listlessly in her lap. He went on: “You have been indulging this whim of yours without giving it a serious thought. Now, I want you to think—to help me save us from the folly your willfulness and my weakness are tempting us to commit. I want you to ask yourself: ‘What sort of life would Chang and I lead together? Would I tolerate his devotion to his work? Would I respect him if he gradually yielded to my temptings and gave up his work? Whichever way it turned out, wouldn’t I either dislike or despise him?’”
“You—don’t love me,” she murmured.
“I do. But I’m not so selfish as your inexperience and thoughtlessness make you.”
She scarcely heard. She was gazing with all her mind and heart at the new Chang revealed clearly for the first time in the intense earnestness of this their first profoundly and crucially serious talk. This was the man her father had warned her about. There were dark circles round her eyes as if they had been bruised, and in them the look of present pain. He happened to glance at her. He saw—groaned. “No matter!” he cried. “I love you. I can’t bear it. I’m weak—contemptibly weak where you’re concerned. We’ll surely fail—fail miserably. But we must go on, now. I had a presentiment—I was a damn fool to come here to-day. Yes—we’ve drifted too far. We must go on—over the falls.”
He stopped, appalled by his own passionate outburst. She shook her head slowly. “No, we must not go on,” said she.