“To claim you. To bind you to me forever. I have no longer the least intention of attempting to live without you. Some way it must be arranged.”
“It cannot be arranged.”
“It shall be.”
“Do you remember the promise you made me on Stanmore Heath?”
“I remember every word that has passed between us.”
“You cannot have me and your career too.”
“I shall make the attempt. If I fail, the career will have to go.”
“Do you hope for satiety before the end of the period during which a love affair may, with due precautions, be kept secret—”
“No!” he said violently. “I neither hope nor wish for anything of the sort. If I could have put you out of my mind, as I have always been able to banish other memories, I am free to confess that I should have done so. But I could as easily cease to breathe, and live. I refuse to contemplate life without you, and have come here sooner than I intended, because I cannot—will not—wait any longer to enter upon a complete understanding with you. It took me a long time to wake up; I hesitated longer than many men would have done. I am almost ashamed that I hesitated at all. It makes me seem to myself a monster of calculation. But you stood me off in the first place, and in the second,—well, aside from my career, I recognized that I had voluntarily assumed responsibilities that must bind me to a certain extent. With those I shall compromise as far as possible, but my career, I fancy, will take care of itself. If you have useful gifts and are willing to exercise them, life is only too ready to wring the last drop of blood out of your brain.”
“And do you fancy,” she cried harshly, “that I shall renounce my own career in order to follow you about and hide in back streets to be always at your beck and call? The egoism of man passes comprehension!”