“It hadn’t anything to do with us,” he said. “I should never want to marry again—even if 253 I were free. The thought is horrible to me. You mean a great deal to me. Think, if you doubt that and think again. I have had in this little front room of yours the only real moments of peace and happiness that I have had for years. I value them—you can not dream or imagine how much—but surely it is understood between us that our relation can not be anything but transitory. I am an artist with a way to make for my art: you are a working woman with a career, odd as it is,” he smiled whimsically, “that you have chosen, and that you will pursue faithfully until some stalwart young man dissuades you from it, when you will take your place in your niche as wife and mother, and leave me one more beautiful memory.”
“Surely,” Nancy said, “you know it isn’t—like that.”
“What is it like then?”
Nancy felt every sane premise, every eager hope and delicate ideal slipping beyond her reach as she faced his mocking, tender eyes.
“It can’t be that you believe you have been—fair with me,” she faltered.
“I don’t think I have been unfair,” he said, “I have made no protestations, you know.”
Nancy shut her eyes. Curious scraps of her early religious education came back to her.
“You have partaken of my bread and wine,” she said.
“It wasn’t exactly consecrated.”