"Well, that will do for a start. I want to talk, if you'll listen. Frankly, Stapledon, we are not what we might be each to the other. I wish I understood you better. There's hardly a man in the world that I regard more deeply. Yet I know right well you don't echo the sentiment. We grow less intimate daily, instead of better friends. Yet we're bound together in a sort of way by the past, however distasteful that may be to you. At least I should say we must be. And so many common interests—say what you please to the contrary. Both fairly intelligent and intellectual, both prone to probe under the surface of things. What's the barrier? Frankly I have no idea. I thought at one time it might have to do with Honor; and so did Mr. Endicott. He talked to me with amazing vigour and plain choice of homely words. Yes, honestly, he made me feel like a criminal lunatic for about a week. Then, thank God, you recovered your health, and we met, and I saw at a glance that the old man was utterly wrong and had been engaged with a mare's nest. Yet there's a gulf between us, despite so much that we enjoy in common."
"Since you wish to speak of this, I say that there are some things that cannot be enjoyed in common."
Yeoland started.
"You mean that I was wrong, then, and Mr. Endicott right? But don't you see how infernally greedy and unreasonable you are? Either that, or you continue to misunderstand me of set purpose. I gave you Honor for your own; yet you grudge me my place at Godleigh—at the footstool of the throne you share with her. What do I rob you of? Do the birds rob you when they eat the crumbs fallen from your table? I cannot remotely judge of your attitude."
"That is true; but every other man can. And it may be that many do."
"Have you considered that this position you take is in some measure a reflection on your wife?"
"I have not, and if I had, I do not ask your criticism upon that."
"Well, I shall never see how you hold any ground for this ridiculous animosity, Stapledon; but for the sake of argument, you must be conceded a case. What is your exact grievance in English? The thing I have done I can do again: go; but before we imagine you bidding me to do so, or picture me as obeying, out of regard for Honor—before that climax, I say, consider what you are doing in common justice. By banishment you take from me every temporal and spiritual treasure worth living for. As I stand here, I believe I am a happy man—almost; happy in Godleigh; happy in renewed intercourse with Honor; happy—on my oath before Heaven—in the knowledge that she belongs to you. I may be unfinished and unfurnished—only half a man, as Mark Endicott didn't hesitate to tell me; but, such as I am, this hillside is my life, and, if you bade me depart from it and I went, then I should presently die."
Myles lifted his head and looked from under his brows half in contempt, half in dubiety.
"You're a slight thing to turn a man's hair grey—a slight thing on your own showing," he answered. "Can you dissect yourself so glibly and mean it? You parade your own emptiness without flinching. Yet you believe what you say, no doubt; and there may be truth in it, but not all the truth. I can't suppose you utterly abnormal in your attitude towards other people, just because you say you are."