‘Have you no shred of pity?’ he asked quietly. ‘Think of Gundred. The most damnable thing in the world has happened to her. She has given herself—her whole self—and got nothing in exchange. Can’t you at least let her have pity and respect? Poor little Gundred! I thought it was a square bargain when I struck it. I thought I gave her all I had to give. I swear I thought so. And yet all the time I belonged to you, Isabel, and you to me. Don’t you see that the only thing we can do now in common honesty is to spare Gundred all we can, and spare ourselves the dishonour of cheating Gundred even more than we have already?’
But Isabel was beyond appeals, frankly barbarous and merciless. ‘Gundred took her risks. All women do when they marry,’ she said. ‘And now she does not count any longer. What sort of man are you, to be pining about Gundred when I am here by your side? Look at me—yes, look, look—and see how long you can remember Gundred.’
She fixed his gaze with burning eyes. But he turned away his head and refused to take up the challenge.
‘I suppose it is your right,’ he answered, ‘to make everything as hard for me as you can. I deserve it, I know. Oh yes, you blot out all thought of everything but you, as soon as I look at you. You are the only thing I can see in the world. And I won’t look at you, Isabel. It is no use. Must I tell you again? I won’t stain the love we have for each other by any further treacheries towards the duty we owe to each other and my wife. Oh, Isabel, if you would only believe me, it is because I love you so awfully, so damnably, that I cannot look at you, or touch you. I love you too much. I ache in all my bones with the love of you, and I love you too much and too well to satisfy my love. Oh, don’t you understand? We could never forgive ourselves, never feel clean again. Our love would have been spoiled, made filthy and horrible with deception and mean lies and beastliness. It’s a sort of responsibility we have, to keep it clean. We can’t kill it; it is there, it always will be there. But, at least, we can prevent it from turning us black and rotten. I’d sell my life, Isabel, to have our love free and honourable—I would, Isabel.’
Isabel laughed. ‘Oh, this dry and tedious discussion!’ she cried. ‘How many men would hair-split and quibble like this? Thank God, I have blood in my veins! My people never cared where or whom or why they loved. They took their pleasure where they found it. They were above all laws but their own desires. No silly conventions and superstitions ruled them. They were big, passionate men and women, with life in their veins, not sawdust.’
‘Do you care nothing, absolutely nothing,’ he asked, ‘for—well, for feeling that you have behaved as cleanly as you can? Nothing for consequences? Nothing for anything but the pleasure of the moment?’
‘It is in my blood,’ repeated Isabel arrogantly, investing the crude horror of her selfishness with a certain barbaric grandeur. ‘You know how I hate these huckstering considerations of yours. My self-respect is involved in getting what I want. Defeat is my only shame. And consequences—who cares for them? I know,’ she went on, giving the quotation with proud defiance—‘“I know that about this time there is a prophecy that a Queen of England is to be burned, but I care nothing if I be she, so that I have and hold the love of the King.” The love of my King I have and I hold; what does the rest signify? I told you Queen Anne and I were cousins.’
‘How I wish,’ he said—‘oh, how I wish to God I could make you understand what I feel. I feel the most contemptible beast on the earth; you alone can help me to win back a little of what I have lost. If only you would make it easier for me, Isabel—if only you would make it easier for me, by believing how ghastly hard it is.’
‘Yes; hard, hard, hard,’ said Isabel—‘hard I believe it is,’ she repeated, meeting the anguish and the struggle of his gaze. ‘And I want to make it harder. I want to make it impossible. Find yourself, Kingston—know yourself. Don’t go on tormenting us both with scruples and neurotic nonsense.’
He rose and stared down at her with furious eyes. ‘You are pitiless,’ he said—‘altogether horrible and evil. There’s no decency or civilization in you. You are as fierce as a savage. As I listen to you I hate you; every fibre in me hates and dreads you.’