“So now,” he said, “when I’ve helped her to be self-reliant; when she’s found a life of her own, apart from his; now, when he’s thrown over by the woman who has fooled him, now I’m to disappear in order that he may enslave her again!” He rose swiftly, with a bitter laugh, and stood before her. “Oh, you good women! you good women!”
Rose watched him as he walked blindly towards the mantelpiece and stood leaning his elbow upon it.
“You misunderstand me,” she said, at last; “I am not arguing from the standpoint of the conventional ‘good woman’ at all. I—well, I have no rigid views on the subject. I look upon each case as something to be considered on its own merits, or demerits.”
“And on which side would you put mine?” He asked the question with mockery.
“Viewed from the outside,” returned Rose, judicially, “I should say it has merits. Cecily has been badly treated. You are a decent man, and there are no children to be considered. But there are two drawbacks. One is that she doesn’t love you—yet, at least. The other—and it is the most important—is Cecily’s own nature.”
Mayne turned round. “Yes?” he said. “What about that?”
“You spoke of her husband enslaving her again,” she answered. “He will never do so. All that made that possible is over. But Cecily happens to be a very faithful woman. I’ve sometimes thought,” observed Mrs. Summers, reflectively, “that to bestow this characteristic upon a woman is the last refinement of cruelty on the part of the gods.” She paused a moment, and shrugged her shoulders. “I may be wrong. In any case Cecily has the faithful temperament. She has loved her husband. She will never really love again. But that is not saying there’s no danger if you stay. Let us imagine that you stay. Cecily is a woman—therefore all things are possible. But, Dick, can you look me in the face and tell me that you don’t know the disaster of—of such a possibility? Even now, though she doesn’t love him, she’s worrying about Robert because he looks ill, because he’s unhappy,—heaven knows what. Just the maternal instinct, you know. She will never cease to worry about him. Suppose you gained your point; would you keep her friendship? Would you get anything worth having in its place? Dick, you know you wouldn’t!”
He was silent, and after a moment she went on in a low tone.
“It’s because the really good things in life are so few, that I want you not to run the risk of losing——”
Mayne faced her. “The best I’ve had?” he suggested, finishing the sentence slowly.