“I think,” he said, “that, if we were so foolish as to tot up the gains on either side, mine would be the greater.”
Again she pressed his hand.
“I’m not a bit like Josephine really, am I?”
“My dear child.” He was very near tears. “My dear child, not a bit.”
So he left her.
What was she afraid of? His judgment of her? That had come up as a dark rain-heavy cloud. But it had passed without shedding its waters. Now, yielding to the tenderness and pity she had just roused in him, he was led to an inly knowledge of her. She was afraid of her love, afraid of her own devouring absorption in it. (Something of the kind he had known himself, in early days with her.) So she clung to material things, to the existence they had together builded, to his own proven kindness, and, as she clung, only the fiercer burned the flame within her, flickering destruction to everything she cherished. Sooner or later she must yield. He saw that, but also he knew that to precipitate the severance might be forever to condemn her to her dread, so that she would be withered with it. But if, of her own despair, or fierce ecstasy, or sudden illumination of the inmost friendliness of what she feared, came surrender, then would she win through to the ways of brightness, and be mistress of her own life and love. He had passed his own alternative, an easy choice; he could see on to hers, a more grinding test. He shuddered for her, and, knowing its peril, made no move to help.
Often he would absent himself from the chambers for days together. The atmosphere was too explosive, the strain too great. She would see him to the door and kiss his cheek, and her eyes would say:
“Perhaps I shall be gone when you come back. You understand?”
And he would turn his eyes away because they said too much.
But she did not go.