“I haven’t been down in three days,” he was saying, “because there’s been trouble in Boston which made it impossible. I’ve only slept an hour or two a night. They’ve been trying to do me in ... some of the men I always trusted. They’ve been double-crossing me all along and I had to stay to fight them.”
He told her a long and complicated story of treachery, of money having been passed among men whom he had known and trusted always. He was sad and yet defiant, too, and filled with a desire to fight the thing to an end. She failed to understand the story; indeed she did not even hear much of it: she only knew that he was telling her everything, pouring out all his sadness and trouble to her as if she were the one person in all the world to whom he could tell such things.
And when he had finished he waited for a moment and then said, “And now I’m willing to chuck the whole dirty business and quit ... to tell them all to go to hell.”
Quickly she answered, “No, you mustn’t do that. You can’t do that. A man like you, Michael, daren’t do such a thing....” For she knew that without a battle life would mean nothing to him.
“No ... I mean it. I’m ready to quit. I want you to go with me.”
She thought, “He says this ... and yet he stayed three days and nights in Boston to fight!” She saw that he was not looking at her, but sitting with his head in his hands; there was something broken, almost pitiful, in his manner, and it occurred to her that perhaps for the first time he found all his life in a hopeless tangle. She thought, “If I had never known him, this might not have happened. He would have been able to fight without even thinking of me.”
Aloud she said, “I can’t do it, Michael.... It’s no use. I can’t.”
He looked up quickly, but before he could speak she placed her hand over his lips, saying, “Wait, Michael, let me talk first. Let me say what I’ve wanted to say for so long.... I’ve thought.... I’ve done nothing else but think day and night for the past three days. And it’s no good, Michael.... It’s no good. I’m forty years old to-day, and what can I give you that will make up for all you will lose? Why should you give up everything for me? No, I’ve nothing to offer. You can go back and fight and win. It’s what you like more than anything in the world ... more than any woman ... even me.”
Again he tried to speak, but she silenced him. “Oh, I know it’s true ... what I say. And if I had you at such a price, you’d only hate me in the end. I couldn’t do it, Michael, because ... because in the end, with men like you it’s work, it’s a career, which is first.... You couldn’t bear giving up. You couldn’t bear failure.... And in the end that’s right, as it should be. It’s what keeps the world going.”