And when she made no reply, he laughed, a little bitterly, a little tenderly—quite mirthlessly.
"I thought not. Well ... I used to hate him. I used to hate him very much—for other reasons, too. But he's not the man now that he was. He's been through the fire. He's better metal now. He's tempered. The dross is gone. He's not worthy of you ... who is?"
Suddenly Judith's tongue was loosed. "You don't understand," she cried, with an earnestness of which there could be no question. "There is no other man. I care for you ... very much. Oh, I do—I do...."
"Then ... would you marry me—will you?" There was a subtle note of irony in his voice which was not lost upon her. But she did not reply and he too was silent for a moment. When he spoke again the irony was less subtle.
"You care enough to marry me if—if ... things were different?"
"I don't understand." Her voice sounded very far away, as if it did not belong to her at all.
"Oh, yes, you do, Judith Wynrod," he said harshly, like a magistrate passing sentence. She thought she had never heard a voice so cold and terrible, so cruelly impersonal. But, without warning, it changed, and she knew that she had never heard such infinite tenderness.
"Oh, yes, you do...." It seemed to come from a great distance, like the soughing of the wind in the trees, sad, mysterious, supernatural. It was not Good's voice, but something vast, inchoate, nameless. She shivered and drew her coat more closely about her.
"But you're human," the voice went on. "You have more angel in you than most—but you're not an angel. You're wise—very wise, Judith Wynrod—too wise to be an angel. Heaven is for the fools. The wise have the earth. It's the little things—like table manners and polished shoes—that keep us out of heaven. I'm fool enough to brave these little things. But you're wise. You know that they would increase and multiply and crush us both, because they are stronger than we. If we were souls—merely souls—it would be different. But I'm a man. You're human, too. If we were souls alone—less human—less wise—the little things—would not matter. But we aren't just souls. No, we are not—we are not...."
The tender, wistful voice died away. The world seemed very distant to Judith for a moment, and only this man, who talked like a god—or an idiot—mattered. There was a tense, fleeting moment, when, had Good known it, the course of both their lives might have been changed. But he did not know it. The moment passed. The wind sighed in the trees again. The myriad noises of the night were loosed. A locomotive whistled dismally. A thousand tentacles seemed to come down on Judith and overwhelm her and bind her fast; and with the sound of the whistle she knew that the world was with her once more. She had been an angel for a moment. She was one no longer. The tears fell unchecked.