“Dear love....” She wept, and the tortures of which she spoke were his. “If only I might yield to you.”
“What is it stops you? Obstinacy, self-righteousness....”
“If it were either would I not yield now, now, with your dear head upon my breast?” She was sobbing there. “Dear love, you unman me.” His breathing was irregular. “Listen, you unman me, you weaken me. We were both looking forward, and must still be able to look forward. And backward, too. Not stain our name, more than our name, our own personal honour. Margaret, we are clean, there must be no one who can say, ‘Had they been innocent, would they have paid to hide it?’ And this fresh charge, this fresh and hideous accusation! And you would accept all, admit all! My dear, my dear, it must not be, we have not only ourselves to consider.”
“Not only ourselves!” He held her closer, whispered in her ear.
She had heard him discuss commercial morality with her father, had seen into both their souls; learnt her lover’s creed. One must not best a fellowman, fool though he might be, nor take advantage of his need nor ignorance. She had learnt that there were such things as undue percentage of profit, although no man might know what that profit was. “Child’s talk,” her father had called it, and told him Wall Street would collapse in a day if his tenets were to hold good. Margaret had been proud of him then, although secretly her reason had failed to support him, for it is hard to upset the teaching of a lifetime. To her, it seemed there were conventions, but common sense or convenience might override them. In this particular instance why should she not submit to blackmail, paying for the freedom she needed? But he could not be brought to see eye to eye with her in this. She used all the power that was in her to prove to him that there is no sharp line of demarcation between right and wrong, that one can steer a middle course.
The short morning went by whilst she argued. She put forth all her powers, and in the end, quite suddenly, became conscious that she had not moved him in the least, that as he thought when he came into the room, so he thought now. He used the same words, the same hopeless unarguable words. “Being innocent we cannot put in this plea of guilty.” She would neither listen nor talk any more, but lay as a wrestler, who, after battling again and again until the whistle blew and the respite came, feels both shoulders touching the ground, and suddenly, without appeal, admits defeat.
When Gabriel wrote the letter to the bank stopping the cheque that was to be paid to Mrs. Roope on the morrow, she signed it silently. When he asked her to authorise him to see her father if necessary, to allow either or both of them to act for her, she acquiesced in the same way. She was quite spent and exhausted.
“I will let you know everything we do, every step we take.”
“I don’t want to hear.” She accepted his caresses without returning them, she had no capacity left for any emotion.
Then, after he had gone, for there was no time to spare and he must not miss his train, she remained immobile for a time, the panorama of the future unfolding before her exhausted brain. What a panorama it was! She was familiar with every sickening scene that passed before her. Lawyer’s office, documents going to and fro, delay and yet more delay. Appeal to Judge in Chambers, and from Judge in Chambers, interrogatories and yet more interrogatories, demands for further particulars, the further particulars questioned; Counsel’s opinion, the case set down for hearing, adjournments and yet further adjournments.