The shadow of convention which had stood between them sank away into nothingness, for convention is born of the head, not of the heart, and when heart meets heart, there is no place for head. Maud took his two outstretched hands and pressed them.
“You are a man,” she said, “and that is the highest praise of all. I have tried very hard to be a woman, but I have not succeeded so well.”
“You have succeeded very well,” he said. “No one has guessed it.”
Pride is not a dominant emotion, and is driven off the field as soon as the greater magnates appear.
“After all,” she thought wearily, “what does it matter?” And then because her passion was strong and she was young, she broke down utterly. “My God, what shall I do?” she cried, “and what are you to think of me? I have thrown overboard self-respect, and reticence, and decency. I have nothing left but the hope that he knows nothing of it.”
Manvers lied bravely.
“I am sure he has never had an inkling of it,” he said. “It has been hard for you.”
“And all the time there is the horrible consciousness that one may break down.”
“You will not break down. When one has great physical pain, one thinks one cannot endure it a moment longer. But as a matter of fact one can and does. One endures it until it stops.”
“But who is to assure me of that? Not you, of all men, who have guessed my secret.”