But Vanna did not answer. Her head fell forward until her face was hidden from sight; her hands burned within his. She was a woman, and for the moment there was no place in her heart for Piers’s lofty self-abnegation. A spiritual love—self-sacrifice and suffering in the hope of future bliss! And she was to be strong and brave, and help him when he failed; she, who was filled with a passion of longing for the dear, human, everyday joys; to whom for the moment they towered above the far-off, spiritual gain. The woman’s birthright of intuition revealed the future with flashlight clarity. Her heart was torn with a presage of the pangs which would rend it afresh, as she beheld happy wives, rich in home, husband, and children, while she wandered outcast, unsatisfied, athirst. The man, with shorter vision, could content himself in the present, and in the fulness of love’s revelations delude himself that joy would remain; but to the woman, for whom the love of him was an aching longing of body and soul, the sharpest pang of all came from the certainty of his mistake. She looked forward and beheld him restless and rebellious, chafing against his chains—the old, irritable discontent on lips and eyes. He would suffer; of a certainty he would suffer. So surely as he was made in man’s image, the day would dawn when his joy would be changed into despair. A wild longing seized Vanna to give her lover happiness while she might; to give him such a summer of joy and content that when the winter came he should look back and feel the price well paid.
Her fingers tightened on his arm, her eyes sought his in feverish entreaty.
“Piers! if I do give in—I have no strength to oppose you—if I give in, swear to me that if the time comes when you regret—when you feel bound, because there is some one”—she gulped painfully—“some one else whom you could take for a wife—swear that you will be honest with me; that you will not let me spoil your life! Swear that you will tell me the truth.”
He smiled into her troubled face, taking possession of her hands in a close, comforting grasp.
“What would you think if I asked the same promise of you? Can’t you give me credit for as much consistency as yourself? Is it possible that I could grow tired of you?”
But at that moment Vanna had no ears for the sweet protestations of love. Her grasp grew but the tighter, her gaze the more distressed.
“Swear to me! Swear!”
Piers gave a short, half-impatient laugh.
“I swear it. Now are you content?”