‘Remember, dearest, I shall have my sacrifice to make too,’ he said. ‘I must leave the army. And I shall almost break my poor mother’s heart, for she has plans for my marriage which she has cherished ever since I was at Eton. But I could sacrifice a great deal more than that for your sake.’
‘Do not talk of it any more,’ said Bella, in a frightened voice. ‘It is too awful. I like you—yes,’ as he drew her face round to him so that her eyes reluctantly met his,—‘yes, very much. I hardly think’—falteringly and in tears—‘I could go on living if you went away, and I were not to see you any more; but what you are asking is horrible—to defy everybody—to give up everything—to be pointed at and spoken of as something utterly lost and wretched—a thing to be spurned by other women—women who are my inferior in everything—except that one wicked act. Why, my very housemaids would look down upon me. No, I could not be so degraded. I could not sink so low.’
‘I see,’ said Captain Standish. ‘You love yourself and your good name better than you love me. You were not ashamed to sell yourself to Piper. The world applauds that kind of bargain. But you are not generous enough to give yourself to the man you love.’
He had let go her hand, and was walking with long quick steps backwards and forwards across the deep bay, like a lion in a cage. Bella thought there was something grand and noble about him in this lofty rage. She loved him all the more for the hard things he said to her, since his hard speeches proved the intensity of his love.
‘You are very cruel,’ she said, piteously.
‘I am very much in earnest. I thought to find in you something better and grander than the shallow conventional woman of society who only plays with hearts, who wants to walk through the deep waters of passion without wetting her feet. You talk of sinking very low—of degradation. Where is the degradation in the life I offer you—the fair sweet unfettered life that poets have loved ever since the world began?’
‘You would be tired of an idle life in Italy,’ said Bella.
‘With you, no. But we could wander about. We should not be tied to one spot. I would take you to Algiers—Morocco. We could ride over that strange land together—and when we had used up the Old World we would be off to the New. I would take you across the Rocky Mountains. I would make you my comrade and companion—a hardy traveller—a dead shot. You should be no slavish English wife, sitting at home while your husband enjoyed his life. No, love, you should share every sport I had, hunt with me—shoot—fish—row—ride with me. I would not have a pleasure in life that you could not share.’
The picture was full of charm for a woman who, in her eagerness to enjoy life, had already almost exhausted the pleasures of humdrum existence. Bella felt that this would indeed be the beginning of a new life; this would be to drain to the dregs the cup of youth and gladness. And then worldly pride for once took the shape of a good angel, and pointed to the view from that wide bay-window, the Park and deer, the avenue of goodly elms, the grandeur and importance of her position as Mrs. Piper. Was she to surrender all this, and give up her name to be a byeword and a reproach into the bargain? No, she had hearkened too long to the tempter, but she was not weak enough for this.
‘You must never speak to me of this again,’ she exclaimed. ‘I will try to think there has been no serious meaning in what you have said. Let us both forget it.’