"Yes, and I refuse to be entrapped! I know love—I know all the specious things that love can say; the talk of independence, the talk of equality! But I know the reality, too. The reality is the absolute annihilation of the woman—the absolute merging of her identity."
"So that is love?"
"That is love."
He stood looking at her with a long profound look of deep restraint, of great sadness.
"Maxine," he said, at last, "you have many gifts—a high intelligence, a young body, a strong soul, but in the matter of love you are a little child. To you, love is barter and exchange; but love is not that. Love is nothing but a giving—an exhaustless giving of one's very best."
She tried to laugh. "I understand! I should give!"
"No, sweet, you should not. You cannot know the privileges of love, for you do not know love."
"Oh, Ned! How cruel! How cruel!"
"You do not know love," he spoke, very gently, without any bitterness, "and I do know it; for it has grown in me, day by day, in these long months away from you. I am not to be praised, any more than you are to be blamed. But I do love you—with my heart and my soul—with my life and my strength. I would die for you, if dying would help you; and as it won't, I will do the harder thing—live for you."
Her lips were parted, but they uttered no sound; her eyes, dark with thought, searched his face.