She laid her head on her hands, pressing her forehead against her clenched fingers.
"That's the only thing to do, I guess," he said in his curiously colourless voice. "I came too late. I'm paying for it. I'll go back to Paris and stay for a while. Time does things to people."
She nodded her bowed head.
"Time," he said, "forges an armour on us all.... I'll wait until mine is well riveted before I return. You're quite right, Steve.... You and I can't go on this way. There would come a time when the intense strain would break us both—break down our resolution and our sense of honour—and we'd go away together—or make each other wretched here.... Because there's no real happiness for you and me without honour, Steve. Some people can do without it. We can't.
"We might come to think we could. We might take the chance. We might repeat the stale old phrase and try to 'count the world well lost.' But there would be no happiness for you and me, Steve. For, to people of our race, happiness is composite. Honesty is part of it; loyalty to ideals is another; the world's respect, the approval of our own hearts, the recognition of our responsibility to the civilization that depends on such as we—all these are part of the only kind of happiness that you and I can understand and experience.... So we must give it up.... And the best way is the way I offer.... Let me go out of your life for a while.... Live your own life as you care to live it.... Time must do whatever else is to be done."
The girl lifted her dishevelled head and looked at him.
"Are you going to-night?"
"Yes."
"You are not coming back?"
"No, dear."