"But no, Michel. I won't believe that." She spoke stoutly, though cold fear was upon her that a germ of truth lurked in his statement.
"Believe it or not, as you please. You are on the high-road to make the discovery for yourself, and you will find it a case of no compromise. One of the two must predominate. You will either become an amateur artist or an amateur wife and mother. Which do you suppose it will be?"
She shut her paint-box with an impatient snap.
"I really don't know. I am not in the mood for abstract speculation."
"No. You are in the mood for concrete love-making; and in pursuit of it, you're ready to face a drenching, to leave me is the worst possible company, without a sisterly qualm, and without even troubling to put my razor in your pocket."
"Don't talk melodramatic nonsense," she rebuked him sharply. Then pity and tenderness prevailed. "If it's really as bad as that, mon cher, why on earth didn't you take yesterday's chance, and ask Elsie to be your wife? I believe she would have said 'Yes.'"
"So do I. Therefore I preferred not to ask her. Still—it's none the less maddening that because you women have this incurable mania for marriage, one should be cut off from her sweet companionship, from the inspiration that is to be found in that delectable borderland between friendship and love; and insulted into the bargain by a chit of a mother-woman, with no more brains and imagination than a sparrow! But for me, at any rate, there can be no compromise. I do not choose to profane the sanctuary of my soul, to corrupt my Art, by becoming a mere breadwinner, a slave of the hearth-rug, and the tea-cup—in fact, the property of a woman. That's what it amounts to. And I doubt if any of us relish the position when it comes to the point. Even that devoted husband of yours, after waiting five years upon your imperial pleasure, seems in no hurry to tie himself up again; or you would hear less about his conscientious scruples, I assure you. They would be swept aside, like straws before a flood."
At that Quita's eyes flashed.
"Michel, you shall not speak so of him," she cried imperiously. "I've said already that I won't have the subject discussed. How should you understand a man like Eldred,—you, who hardly know the meaning of the word 'conscience'?"
"Dieu merci; since its chief function seems to be to make oneself and every one else uncomfortable.—Hark at the rain! I wish you joy of your journey."