“My own darling, think what it would mean if our secret were discovered—”
“Discovered? But how can we think of that? How can I go back there, with your kisses on my lips? Oh, I must live somewhere in secret until you go, and then—I have put aside the few things that I want to take. I could never have continued to live with him even if you hadn’t said you love me. I was obliged to pretend that I agreed to everything, but I will beg and starve rather than bear that misery any longer. Don’t you love me enough to face whatever may happen?”
“I love you with all my soul, Monica! Sit down again, dearest; let us talk about it, and see what we can do.”
He half led, half carried, her to a couch, and there, holding her embraced, gave way to such amorous frenzy that again Monica broke from him.
“If you love me,” she said in tones of bitter distress, “you will respect me as much as before I came to you. Help me—I am suffering so dreadfully. Say at once that I shall go away with you, even if we travel as strangers. If you are afraid of it becoming known I will do everything to prevent it. I will go back and live there until Tuesday, and come away only at the last hour, so that no one will ever suspect where—I don’t care how humbly I live when we are abroad. I can have lodgings somewhere in the same town, or near, and you will come—”
His hair disordered, his eyes wild, quivering throughout with excitement, he stood as if pondering possibilities.
“Shall I be a burden to you?” she asked in a faint voice. “Is the expense more than you—”
“No, no, no! How can you think of such a thing? But it would be so much better if you could wait here until I—Oh, what a wretched thing to have to seem so cowardly to you! But the difficulties are so great, darling. I shall be a perfect stranger in Bordeaux. I don’t even speak the language at all well. When I reach there I shall be met at the station by one of our people, and—just think, how could we manage? You know, if it were discovered that I had run away with you, it would damage my position terribly. I can’t say what might happen. My darling, we shall have to be very careful. In a few weeks it might all be managed very easily. I would write to you, to some address, and as soon as ever I had made arrangements—”
Monica broke down. The unmanliness of his tone was so dreadful a disillusion. She had expected something so entirely different—swift, virile passion, eagerness even to anticipate her desire of flight, a strength, a courage to which she could abandon herself, body and soul. She broke down utterly, and wept with her hands upon her face.
Bevis, in sympathetic distraction, threw himself on his knees before her, clutching at her waist.