"You were so different from any other girl. I've wanted to be good to you from the beginning, but now I see that if we go on I shall only be bad. It all comes in the end to my being bad—really bad—and I want you to know it."
"I don't know," said Maggie, "that I've thought very much whether you're good or bad. And it doesn't matter. I can look after myself."
"No, you can't," he said vehemently, making a step towards her and then suddenly stopping. "That's just it—you can't. I've been thinking all the time since the other evening when we were together, and I've seen that you believe every word I say and you trust me. I don't mean to tell lies—I don't know that I'm worse than most other men—but I'm not good enough for you to trust in all the same. I've been knocking about for years, and I suppose I've had most of my idealism knocked out of me. Anyway I don't believe in most people, and you still do. I'm not going to be the one to change you."
"Perhaps I know more about life than you think," said Maggie.
"No, how can you? You've never had a chance of seeing any of it. You'd get sick of me in no time. I'm moody and selfish and bad-tempered. I used to drink a bit too. And I can't be faithful to women. I might think I was going to be faithful to you and swear I would be—and then suddenly some one would come along. I thought for a bit I'd just go on with you and see what came of it. You're so unusual, you make me want to be straight with you; but I've seen it wouldn't be fair. I must just slip out of your path and you'll forget me, and then you'll meet a much better man than I and be happy. I'm queer—I have funny moods that last for days and days sometimes. I seem to do every one harm I come in touch with. There's my father now. I love him more than any one in the world, and yet I make him unhappy all the time. I'm a bad fellow to be with—"
He stopped suddenly, looked at her and laughed. "It isn't any good, Maggie ... You haven't any idea what a sweep I am. You'd hate me if you really knew."
She looked steadily back at him. "We haven't much time," she said, speaking with steady, calm conviction as though she had, for years, been expecting just such a conversation as this, and had thought out what she would say. "Aunt Elizabeth can come back earlier than she said. Perhaps I shall say something I oughtn't to. I don't care. The whole thing is that I love you. I suppose it's true that I don't know anything about men, but I'd be poor enough if my love for you just depended on your loving me back, and on your being good to me and all the rest of it. I've never had any one I could love until you came, but now that you have come it can't be anything that you can do that can alter it. If you were to go away I'd still love you, because it's the love in me that matters, not what I get for it. Perhaps you'll make me unhappy, but anyway one will be unhappy some of the time."
She went up to him and kissed him. "I know Caroline Smith or some one would be very shocked if they thought I'd said such things to you, but I can't help what they say."
He had a movement to catch her and hold her, but he kept himself off, moved away from her, turning his back to her.
"You don't understand ... you don't understand," he repeated. "You know nothing about men, Maggie, and you know nothing about me. I tell you I wouldn't be faithful to you, and I'd be drunk sometimes, and I'd have moods for days, when I'd just sulk and not speak to a soul. I think those moods some damned sort of religion when I'm in them, but what they really are is bad temper. You've got to know it, Maggie. I'd be rotten to you, however much I wanted not to be."