“I?”
“Yes. Be the woman, the eternal woman. You’ve never been her yet, but you could be. Now is the moment. You’re unhappy.”
“No,” she said sharply.
“Yes, you are. Viola, don’t imagine I can’t understand. You care for him and he’s hurting you—hurting you by being just himself, all he can ever be. It’s the fan he cares for.”
“And you tell me to throw it away!”
She spoke with sudden passion. They stood still for a moment in front of the statuette, looking at each other silently. Then Robin said, with a sort of bitter surprise:
“But you can’t love him like that!”
“I do.”
It gave her an odd, sharp pleasure to speak the truth to him.
“What are you going to do, then?” he asked, after a pause.