“I never deluded myself for a moment. And you must admit that I have been English enough! Believe me when I say that a brief relapse on my part is necessary——”
“I cannot understand your having a ‘relapse’ unless you are tired of me.”
“I am not in the least tired of you; no one could ever tire of you. It is all so subtle——”
“Don’t talk verbiage, please. There are no subtleties that can’t be turned into black and white if you choose to do it. I can quite understand your being homesick for California, and I’ve fully intended to take you back some day. But you might wait. I have kept you pretty hard at the grind, and if it were not for all the political work I’ve got to do this autumn and winter, I’d take you over to the Continent for a few months. And after a year or two we shall do a great deal of travelling, I hope: I want more and more to study the colonies.”
“That is one reason I thought it best to go now—you are going to be so busy you won’t miss me at all. When you’re travelling about, speaking here and speaking there, you’ll be surrounded by men all the time. You won’t need me in the least.”
“It is always the greatest possible pleasure to me to know that you are where I can see you at any moment, and that you have no interests apart from my own.”
“That is just the point. I should like a few trifling ones for a time. If you want it in plain English, here it is—I want to be an Individual for just one year. I made a great effort to surrender all I had to you, and you must admit that I was a success. But reaction is bound to come sooner or later, and that is what is the matter with me.”
Cecil stood still and looked at her. “Oh,” he remarked. “That is it? Why didn’t you say so at once? I ought to have expected it, I suppose. I saw what you were before I married you—about the worst spoiled woman I had ever met in my life. But you had brains and character, and you loved me. I hoped for everything.”
“And you can’t be so ungrateful as to say that you have been disappointed.”
“No. I certainly have not been—up to a week ago: I thought you the most perfect woman God ever made.”