"Couldn't help it! No, I suppose you struggled and fought and called him all kinds of hard names, and then you sent for me, expecting me to go to him and do the same. Well, I shan't do anything of the sort. I think you were twice as much to blame as he was. And if you ever—let yourself in for such an experience again, I'll never kiss you again—that's perfectly certain."
"Austin!"
"Well, I mean it—just that. I don't know much about society, but I know something about women. There are women who are just plain bad, and women who are harmless enough, and attractive, in a way, but so cheap and tawdry that they never attract very deeply or very long, and women who are good as gold, but who haven't a particle of—allure—I don't know how else to put it—Emily Brown's one of them. Then there are women like you, who are fine, and pure, and—irresistibly lovely as well; who never do or say or even think anything that is indelicate, but whom no man can look at without—wanting—and who—consciously or unconsciously—I hope the latter—tempt him all the time. You apparently feel free to—play with fire—feeling sure you won't get even scorched yourself, and not caring a rap whether any one else gets burnt; and then you're awfully surprised and insulted and all that if the—the victim of the fire, in his first pain, turns on you. 'Said dreadful things to you'—I should think he would have, poor devil! Perhaps young girls don't realize; but a woman over twenty, especially if she's been married, has only herself to blame if a man loses his head. Were you sweet and tender and—aloof, just because you were sick and disgusted and disillusioned, instead of because that was the real you—are you going to prove true to your mother's training, after all, now that you're happy and well and safe again? If you have shown me heaven—only to prove to me that it was a mirage—you might much better have left me in what I knew was hell!"
He left her, so abruptly that she could not tell in which direction he had turned, nor at first believe that he had really gone. Then she knelt for what seemed to her like hours, the knowledge of the justice of all he had said growing clearer every minute, the grief that she had hurt him so growing more and more intolerable, the hopelessness of asking his forgiveness seeming greater and greater It did not occur to her to try to find him, or to expect that he would come back—she must stay there until she could control her tears, and then she must go home. A few women, taking advantage of the blessed custom which keeps nearly all Anglican and Roman churches open all day for rest, meditation, and prayer, came in, stayed a few minutes, and left again. At eleven o'clock there was a short service, the daily Morning Prayer, sparsely attended. Sylvia knelt and stood, mechanically, with the other worshippers. Then suddenly, just before the benediction was pronounced, Austin slid into the seat beside her, and groped for her hand. Neither spoke, nor could have spoken; indeed, there seemed no need of words between them. A very great love is usually too powerful to brook the interference of a question of forgiveness. The clergyman's voice rose clear and comforting over them:
"'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all ever more. Amen.'"
"Is there a flower-shop near here?" was the perfectly commonplace question Austin asked as they went down the church steps together into the spring sunshine.
"Yes, just a few steps away. Why?"
"I want to buy you some violets—the biggest bunch I can get."
"Aren't you rather extravagant?"
"Not at all. The truth is, I've come into a large fortune!"