Lily's relation with Nicholas was largely founded, as she had told herself, upon pretence, and the rapture of complete sincerity could never be hers. But she told him, again and again, in reply to his impassioned protestations of gratitude, that she felt herself entitled to assume no attitude of forgiveness.
"It wasn't for the—the sin," she said painfully, "that I thought of divorce. It would only have been a pretext——"
Nicholas gazed at her as tenderly as uncomprehendingly.
"Poor darling, you've been more generous than words can say. And you do understand a little, Lily? It would never, never have happened if my little wife hadn't been away from me for such a long while."
"You do need me, Nicholas?"
"Need you? By Jove, I should think I do," cried Nicholas, in the old buoyant, explosive way. She knew it to be true.
Nicholas had given her his love, and it would be hers always. He depended upon her, he trusted her. She had given him herself, cheated of her right to know the possibilities in herself, the possibilities in life; cheated into accepting her values ready-made. But the gift had been made.
Lily knew that never, to gratify her aching longing for the freedom that only Truth can give, could she see herself justified in seeking to force upon Nicholas a vision of the facts as she saw them.
By degrees that to herself were imperceptible, she put behind her the old, childish visions that had typified themselves to her under the names of Flames and Carnations. Only her faith in that to which she personally relinquished all claim, remained unimpaired, and destined to endure.
For a long while bitterness tinged her thoughts of Philip.