"Adorable...." And surely he could allow himself to kiss her, gently, for gratitude's sake.... But control left him at the quick hot response of her lips.... And Heaven had showered its madness upon him before control ever came back again——
He released her. Remained standing just where he was, arms hanging inert at his sides. His eyes were weary and troubled. Presently, replying to her silent questioning gaze, he said slowly:
"Yes—but you see ... there's Kathleen...."
CHAPTER IV
"But I didn't know he was married," murmured Patricia to the St. Bernard, after Gareth had gone.
Still, now that she had placed him in the middle of her world, and in a royal ecstasy of sacrifice offered up to him her previous middle-of-the-world, the very book of her heart—it were folly now to make another sacrifice of the altar itself. Patricia had been sincere in her half-laughing remark to Hetty several years ago, that she could not be bothered to give up the little things of life; but that one day when she found someone worth while, she would revel in the supreme indulgence of yielding up her all; flinging gift after gift upon the bonfire, to feed it: her lesser loves, her friends, her memories, the world's opinion of her, her tangible possessions, her individuality even....
She wanted fervently to vindicate herself of the self-charge of egoism; and chafed at the tardy arrival of the person who would be big enough.
Then, as in a transient flash, it seemed to her that Gareth Temple stood revealed as this person. The revelation happened at the mill-house during that pause after he had owned to her his tamperings with the fate of her book. Something in the proud, sad humility of the confession, confession of weakness and a lost ideal, threw him up to her, clear-edged against a luminous background.... What a blind idiot she had been to expect something worth while in its mere superficial meaning—something magnificent and successful and compelling. This man, this strayed idealist, excusing nothing, asking nothing, acquiescent in his own ill-equipment for everyday contest; this sensitive dreamer, with the fine strong face—enough of quick humanity in him to sin, and enough of nobility to confess his sin.... Surely he was worth while! The divine failure ... to him should be her bonfire.
And he loved her. She had to make him say outright he loved her. It gave her the right to do this which she contemplated.
The fortnight between her resolution and her interview with Leslie Campbell she spent in sorrowful discovery of the extent to which her book mattered after all—output of the best of her brain; how she would have rejoiced in its publication! It was no good telling herself that the labour was the fun, and ought to be compensation in itself. The suggestion met with no inner response.... A book written must be a book shared, or it was purposeless, a mere emotional clearance upon paper. A book written must be a book published.... Ruthlessly she had murdered her brain-child—as once she had murdered love-memory....