And so with his arm around her waist, and his cheek touching hers they sat for awhile in silence.
Then suddenly Vane spoke. "Grey girl—I'm going away to-day."
"Going away?" She echoed the words and stared at him incredulously.
"But . . . but . . . I thought. . . ."
"So did I," he returned quietly. "When I came down here yesterday I had only one thought in my mind—and that was to make you give up Baxter. I wanted it from purely selfish reasons; I wanted it because I wanted you myself. . . ."
"And don't you now?" Her voice was wondering.
"More—infinitely more—than I did before. But there's one thing I want even more than that—your happiness." He was staring steadily over the great stretch of open country to where Crowborough lay in the purple distance. "When you came to me last night, little Joan, I thought I should suffocate with the happiness of it. It seemed so gloriously trustful of you . . . though, I must admit that idea did not come at first. You see I'm only a man; and you're a lovely girl. . . ." He laughed a little shortly. "I'd made up my mind to drift these next two or three days, and then when you came it seemed to be a direct answer to the problem. I didn't realise just to begin with that you weren't quite capable of thinking things out for yourself. . . . I didn't care, either. It was you and I—a woman and a man; it was the answer. And then you started to cry—in my arms. The strain had been too much. Gradually as you cried and clung to me, all the tearing overmastering passion went—and just a much bigger love for you came instead of it. . . . You see, it seemed to me that you, in your weakness last night, had placed the settlement on my shoulders. . . ."
"It's there now, dear man," she whispered. "I'd just got tired, tired, tired of fighting—— And last night it all seemed so clear." With her breast rising and falling quickly she stared over the hills, and Vane watched her with eyes full of love.
"I know it did—last night," he answered.
"Don't you understand," she went on after a moment, "that a woman wants to have her mind made up for her? She doesn't want arguments and points of view—she wants to be taken into a man's arms, and kissed, and beaten if necessary. . . . I don't know what was the matter with me last night; I only know that I was lying in bed feeling all dazed and bruised—and then suddenly I saw the way out. To come to you—and get things settled." She turned on him and her face was very tense. "You weren't—you weren't shocked," her voice was very low. "Not disgusted with me."
Vane threw back his head and laughed. "My lady," he said after a moment, "forgive my laughing. But if you could even, in your wildest dreams, imagine the absurdity of such an idea, you'd laugh too. . . ." Then he grew serious again, and stabbed at the ground with the point of his stick. "Do you suppose, dear, that I wouldn't sooner have taken that way out myself? Do you suppose that the temptation to take that way out isn't beating and hammering at me now? . . . That's why I've got to go. . . ."