“What’s that?”
“Common decency.”
They looked at one another. “My dear Dick,” said Rose, slowly, “when one comes down to the primitive emotions, one mustn’t expect even that. Put love, jealousy, or hatred in one scale—and civilization will be a feather in the other.”
He continued to look down at her. When he spoke it was under his breath.
“I agree. Hatred, you say? By God——” He checked himself, and turned abruptly towards the window.
Rose watched him a moment. “Dick,” she said, “you have only one person to consider—Cecily.”
He wheeled round. “And I have considered her. Kingslake overreached himself there. He knew I cared for her. What he didn’t know, was how much I cared.”
Rose hesitated before she made her appeal. “Listen to me, Dick,” she began, very gently. “I see what you’ve done for Cecily. You’ve restored her confidence in herself for one thing. You’ve given her back her youth—even her beauty; all she was losing, in short. She herself says so. She would never have had the courage to take up life again if it hadn’t been for you.” She paused, and then said suddenly, “Now there’s only one more thing you can do for her—go.”
She saw she had struck the right note, but she saw, too, the struggle in his face before he broke out into speech.
“But why?” he urged. “Why, in heaven’s name? It isn’t as though there had ever been a word—Cecily only wants my friendship. I know that well enough, worse luck,” he added, with a hopeless want of logic which Rose found pathetic. “I’ve never troubled her with anything else. Gossip, you say? Very well. I’ll see less of her. But to go away——”