"A bit of an old woman, in fact?"
"Oh! I see I can't teach you. It doesn't matter. So you see, dear," in a different voice and raising her head, "there's not much left for you. But what there is I'd rather you had than any one else. I like you, Bryan—I like you so."
"And you think I ought to be satisfied with that?"
"Well, you know what you said a year ago."
"Yes—a year ago, but not now. Yesterday perhaps, but not this morning. It's the old Scots law limit—a year and a day. Often the wisdom that doesn't come in the year comes in a night. You're too deadly wise, Flash; too utterly disillusioned. I never could stand it. There'd be nothing to teach you; nothing to break down. You believe you've taken my measure, and every time I tried to lift our lives out of the mud, I'd feel you were laughing at me—down in that little bit you've just told me of. It may be as you say, all a make-believe, but, by G—d! it doesn't do to have both know it. What do you want most, really? Your liberty?"
She did not answer or raise her head.
"Well, you can have it." He got up and took his cap off the table. "Good-bye."
She didn't speak until he had his hand on the handle of the door. And then—
"Bryan, I've never let you kiss me. You can now if you like."
He spun round on his heel, as though some one had given him a blow between the shoulders. For a moment she thought he was going to strike her, or humble her pride to death. A foul name seemed to be actually forming itself on his lips. But he came across the room, and took her in his arms, and held her a long while.