He was not strong and right. He did not have a soul of iron, this man: not despise her as a weakling. He was weak himself. He was a child and wanted sympathy....
Some other words of his came drifting back to her as she stared blankly at those spots of darker green and he sat with his head averted—was it in anger or in shame?
He never would have married a woman who wrote: hated clever women! All that came back to her. Had she played fair? He wanted somebody to help, encourage; could she be his rival? For better, for worse——
Suddenly she found herself talking.
"Hugh," she was saying, back on the words of a yet earlier rehearsal, "I'm so sorry. I've been such a beast, and I have wanted so to do the proper thing. I've been a beastly wife to you, and now I've come to say you're right. I can't finish the new book; I can't get on at all." She paused and said deliberately; "I'm just an amateur."
And in one moment, before she had finished, he was on his feet. He had his arms round her with all of his old love, and held her at arms' length, and looked at her with pride, as though she had just spoken of anything except her failure.
"Darling little girl," he said, "don't, don't, you make me feel so bad. Don't say you've been a beast. Do you think I don't know what I've been to you? Do you think I don't know how true the whole book was?"
She smiled back at him, and he never saw the little bitterness or pathos there was in it, as she heard his old word of tolerant affection—"little."
He had not used that word for ages....
He drew her to him and kissed her very lovingly. "Oh, Helena," he murmured, close beside her ear, "if only you knew how I've missed you, how miserable I've been, how I have loathed myself. You splendid people think we horrid selfish beasts don't realise our vices. Oh yes, we do though, those of us who think, but we hope no one else observes them. I knew that I had bullied Ruth, sacrificed her life to mine, and I vowed when I married you—but what's the use? You never change your nature, and I'm just a selfish swine."