“My dear Madeline,” said he slowly, holding her hand with intimate pressure, “I cannot permit you to betray yourself for me. You are—”
“Quite old enough in the ways of the world,” she interjected, “to know my own mind. I love you, Guy, and unless I’ve mistaken your attitude, you love me. When our minds meet in such a matter, why should anything be permitted to intervene?” Her hand still lay in his; her eyes held his; her personality fairly enveloped them. With lips a little parted, she bent toward him. “It’s a bit unusual, dear, for the woman to propose, to the man, but we are an unusual two, and the business of life has shaken us free from the conventions of the drawing-room and frothy society. With us there need be no cant nor pretence nor false modesty, because there is not the slightest possibility of misunderstanding.”
“And yet, Madeline, we may not defy the right and permit you to sacrifice yourself,” he opposed. “There is a standard which neither cant nor pretence nor false modesty can affect—the standard of honour.”
“Honour!” she inflected. “What is honour, such honour, when a woman loves.”
“Nothing—and therefore must the love abide; honour can’t abide once it is lost.”
She shook her head sadly. “I’m afraid it’s not so much my honour as your love,” she said. “A week ago, and I would have had a different answer—in fact, I would have been the one to answer and you the one to ask. You know it quite as well as I; for when you left me that afternoon in Paris, expecting to return in the evening, you were ready to speak and I was ready with the answer. Then fate, in the person of an unsympathetic Foreign Office intervened, and sent you on the instant to St. Petersburg. We never met again until in this hotel. I have not changed, but you have. I fear your answer does not ring quite true; it isn’t like you. Why is it, Guy?”
Never a reference to Mrs. Clephane; never an intimation—and yet Mrs. Clephane might as well have been in the room, so living was her presence.
“Madeline,” said he, lingeringly freeing her hand, “I hardly know what to say nor how to say it. I’m embarrassed, frightfully embarrassed; yet you have been frank with me so I must be frank with you—even though it hurts. I’m distressed to have been such a bungler, such a miserable bungler, such a blind fool, indeed. The false impression must be due to me; assuredly, without the most justifiable cause you would not have drawn the erroneous inference. And a man who is responsible for that inference with a woman of your experience and ability, Madeline, must be more or less a fool, even though his intentions have been absolutely correct.”
“Which leads where, Guy?” she mocked.
“Nowhere,” he replied, “I’m trying to say something, and can’t say it. But you know what it is, Madeline. I’m sorry, supremely sorry. Let us forget this little talk, and go on as though it hadn’t occurred—playing our parts in the present game and besting the other by every means in our power. I can’t accept your offer, because I cannot pay the consideration. It still must be à outrance with us, Madeline; no quarter given and no quarter asked.”