"Do you want to make it possible for me ever to think of myself without intolerable loathing?"
"Dear, dear!" She held out her hands.
"Promise me to forget the old evil compact."
"Ethan, you'll regret this," she said, dropping her hands; "it's not you who ask it of me—it's all those others." She nodded towards the dark mass of shadow made by the Fort against the gay autumnal background of scarlet maple and golden elm. "It's the Ganos—it's she most of all. I might have known. If you live under her roof, you come under her law."
She knew him too well to imagine she could stand out successfully against his resolution that the compact should be abandoned. What little by little helped to heal her spirit was presently her belief that he not only willed the new course, but desired it. Of that he had fully persuaded her—he had almost persuaded himself.
CHAPTER XXXV
They were still discussing plans of travel, or, rather, as the days went on, plans of avoiding travel.
"Italy is a long way off," Ethan had said; "we'll go there another year."