“Why?” he said, seizing her hands, so that she had to turn towards him. “Why?”
She did not answer at once, and when she did, every word went through him.
“You want me to take her place, and you say, forget? How could I? Forget! In her place. Ah! don’t ask me!”
From the living pain in her voice, he had a gleam of insight that to her the shadow was substance, the substance only shadows, and he said in a voice that shook, in spite of all his efforts to keep it calm and persuasive—
“Think, darling, can it be worse together than alone? Won’t you think of me a little?” He wanted to break into passionate words telling of his starvation, but somehow he couldn’t; they refused to come, they rose indeed to his lips, but vanished ashamed and unspoken.
“Think of you? I do think of you. Do you think I don’t know, that I haven’t thought and thought? I can’t trust myself. I should only make you wretched—I’m not good enough. It’s too strong for me—I can’t forget. I’m not good enough. Can’t you see what it is you’re asking of me?”
His grasp tightened upon her hands. In spite of himself he did see her side of the question, something of what it meant to her proud and sensitive nature to stand in the place of the dead woman; it did not move his passionate desire by the breadth of one single hair, but it deprived him suddenly of the power of fighting her with words. He seemed to see beforehand all her answers to his arguments, all the pitiless irony of the situation. It was not in him to thrust his convictions down the throats of other people. He wished to, but he was not able. The fatal turn of his mind was always to see the other view. He could only say—
“For my sake, dear.”
“It can’t be—it can’t be; it would kill me, perhaps both of us. I know what would come. Her place! Horrible!” She shivered as if with deadly cold, and shut her eyes. Then she said quite calmly—
“Some day, you see, it would be too strong for me, I should leave you, or kill myself. I can’t love as you do; if I could, perhaps it would be different. I know myself, I’m shallow, not good enough for you.”