“You said very cruel things in your letter. I felt them more than you think.”
“Don’t speak of that, Isabel. I was mad when I wrote it. Try and bear with me, dear one; I am so wretchedly weak, but I love you more than you will ever know. Never tell me anything of what you do or whom you see; let me come to you when you have a spare halfhour, and that shall be enough. But write to me often. Give me constant assurance of your love. Promise that, for I suffer terribly!”
She was about to say something, but he went on.
“It is so hard that all these people can come and talk with you freely, and you can waste on them your smiles and your brightness, whilst I stand apart and am hungry for one little word. What is it that pleases you in their society? Are they better than I—those people who were about you yesterday? With a little trouble one might make a wax-work figure which would go through those forms every bit as well, even to the talking. Cannot you see how unworthy they are of you—you who are more beautiful than all women, whose heart can speak such true and tender and noble things! It is sacrilege that they should dare to touch your hands!”
Her lips trembled; as he came and knelt by her, she knew again an impulse of pure devotion.
“Bernard, do you wish me to go back again? Shall I go to Knightswell?”
“How can I say yes? It is your happiness to be here. You feel and enjoy your power.”
“Bid me leave London, and I will not remain another day.”
She feared his answer, yet longed to arouse in him the energy which should make her subject. A woman cannot be swayed against her instincts by mere entreaty, but she will bow beneath the hand that she loves. Had he adored her less completely, had the brute impulse of domination been stronger in him, his power and her constancy could have defied circumstances. But he would not lay upon her the yoke for which her neck was bowed in joyful trembling. He would not save her from herself by the exertion of a stronger selfishness. Neither his reverence nor his delicacy would allow him to constrain her. It is the difference between practice and theory; the latter is pure, abstract, ideal; the former must soil itself in the world’s conditions.
“I cannot make myself so selfish in your eyes,” he said. “If your love will not bear this test, how can it face those yet harder ones?”