“She doesn’t need to go that far afield to find her troubles. The wrecked family fortunes, and a broken old man to shield and comfort and care for on a music teacher’s wages, are enough to fill all the requirements, I should imagine.”
“Surely. But as to the money hardship ... you’ll be able to change all that, Poictiers.”
Carfax rose, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and slowly refilled it.
“You have come to see things in their right light, at last, have you?” he inquired at the end of the little interval of silence.
“Partly. There is only one light in which they can be seen. I had no shadow of right to fall in love with Richardia.”
“Wait a minute,” said Carfax in his gentlest tone. “Are you sure it was real? You know, you have had so many of these—er—these little erotic explosions in the past——”
“I know,” was the humble admission. “But this was different. You may say that the difference lay in the fact that it was forbidden, and point me to the moral twist—as old as the race—that makes the forbidden thing figure as the one thing altogether desirable. Doubtless I have the twist, in common with other men: but the difference remains.”
“You have written to Elizabeth?”
“Yes; I wrote last night at the hotel in Chattanooga.”
“I hope you said all you ought to say.”