"Of you—"
But he would not listen. "You were born and bred to breathe this atmosphere. Can you ask me to doom you to exile in some hole or corner, some place so lost that the whisper of my ill fame will not find it? Some kraal in South Africa!—--an iron hut in the Australian bush!—where else? . . . You would die of such a life, or live only to learn to hate me."
"Never that. Love outweighs all."
"So we tell ourselves, so we believe, till we are required to lay down for love even our self-respect. Could I retain that—could I forgive myself—knowing I had robbed you of all that had made life fair for you, and left you only the happiness of giving up your life for love?"
"Selfishness speaks there . . ."
"Vanity, the father of selfishness, is present in every human affair. It is not a pretty thought; but men and women in this world are made that way. There is my vanity, too, to be thought of." Lanyard had a wry, apologetic smile. "Consider that you have never known a want you could not gratify out of your private means; while I am a penniless adventurer, a man living from hand to mouth, today on a modest pension, tomorrow on God knows what . . ."
"At last!" said Eve de Montalais: "it is that, then, your pride that stands between us."
"A man with less is not a man whom you could love."
She made no direct reply, but after a time sat up and began to gather round her the folds of her wrap.
"I am a little weary," she told Lanyard. "There is more to be said than you have said, my Michael! but not now, not here . . . Perhaps another night . . . Please take me home."