She shook her head, and went on, with the same reasonable sweetness. "And then, there's another thing. If I married you, sooner or later you would have to take me home to your people. Have you really thought of that, and how you would feel about it, when it came to the point?—No, no, it's impossible for me to marry you."
"But that—that American!—you would have married him?"
"That was different," she said, and her voice grew thinner. "It's the knowing that tells, Maurice. You would have that still to learn. You don't realise it yet, but afterwards, it would come home to you.—Listen! You have always been kind to me, I owe you such a debt of gratitude, that I'm going to be frank, brutally frank with you. I've told you often that I shall never really care for anyone again. You know that, don't you? Well, I want to tell you, too—I want you to understand quite, quite clearly that ... that I belonged to him altogether—entirely—that I ... Oh, you know what I mean!"
Maurice covered his face with his hands. "The past is the past. It should never be mentioned between us. It doesn't matter—nothing matters now."
"You say that—every one says that—beforehand," she answered; and not only her words, but also her way of saying them, seemed to set her down miles away from him, on a lonely pinnacle of experience. "Afterwards, you would think differently."
"Louise, if you really cared, it would be different. You wouldn't say such things, then—you would be only too glad not to say them."
In her heart she knew that he was right, and did not contradict him. The busy little clock on the writing-table ticked away a few seconds. With a jerk, Maurice rose to his feet. Louise remained sitting, and he looked down on her black head. His gaze was so insistent that she felt it, and raised her eyes. His forlorn face moved her.
"Why is it—what is the matter with me?—that I must upset your life like this? I can't bear to see you so unhappy.—And yet I haven't done anything, have I? I have always been honest with you; I've never made myself out to be better than I am. There must be something wrong with me, I think, that no one can ever be satisfied to be just my friend.—Yet with you I thought it was different. I thought things could go on as they were. Maurice, isn't it possible? Say it is! Show me just one little spark of good in myself!"
"I'm not different from other men, Louise. I deluded myself long enough, God knows!"
She made a despondent gesture, and turned away. "Well, then, if either of us should go, I'm the one. You have your work. I do nothing; I have no ties, no friends—I never even seem to have been able to make acquaintances. And if I went, you could stay quietly on. In time, you would forget me.—If I only knew where to go! I am so alone, and it is all so hard. I shall never know what it is to be happy myself, or to make anyone else happy—never!" and she burst into tears.