“Did you think that of me?” she asked at length, slowly. I suppose she was pale, but I could not see.
“I certainly did. How could I think anything else?”
“Harry!” she half whispered. “Why, Harry, Harry!”
“Admit that you did!” I exclaimed bitterly, “and let me start from that as a premise. Listen! If you were a man, and loved a woman, and she chucked you when you lost your money, do you think you’d break your neck to make any more success in the world after that? Why should you? Why does a man work? It’s for a home, for the sake of power, and mostly for the sake of the game.”
“Yes.”
“And I could play that game—I can play it now, and win at it, any time I like. I quit it not because I was afraid of the game—it’s the easiest thing in the world to make money, if that’s all you really want to do. That’s all your father wanted, or mine, and it was easy. I can play that game. But why? Ah! if it were to win a quiet home, the woman I loved, independence, usefulness, contentment,—yes! But when all those stakes were out of the game, Helena, I didn’t care to play it any more. And that was why you thought I ran away. I did run away—from myself, and you.”
She was silent now, and perhaps paler—I could not see.
“—But wherever I have gone, Helena, all over the world, I’ve found those two people there ahead of me, and I couldn’t escape them—myself, and you!”
“Did you think that of me, Harry?” She half whispered once more.
“Yes, I did. And did you think that of me?”