But Mamise was in earnest. She believed in one emotion at a time. It offended her to have Davidge suggest that the funeral baked meats of her tragedy should coldly furnish forth a wedding breakfast. She wanted to revel awhile in her elegiac humor and pay full honor to her sorrow, full penalty for her guilt. She put aside his amorous impatience and returned to her theme.
“Well, after all the evil I have done, I wanted to make some atonement. I was involved in the sinking of I don’t know how many ships, and I wanted to take some part in building others. So when I met you and you told me that women could build ships, too, you wakened a great hope in me, and an ambition. I wanted to get out in the yards and swing a sledge or drive a riveting-gun.”
“With those hands?” He laughed and reached for them.
She put them out of sight back of her as one removes dangerous toys from the clutch of a child, and went on:
“But you wouldn’t let me. So I took up the next best thing, office work. I studied that hateful stenography and learned to play a typewriter.”
“It keeps you nearer to me.”
“But I don’t want to be near you. I want to build ships. Please let me go out in the yard. Please give me a real job.”
He could not keep from laughing at her, at such delicacy pleading for such toil. His amusement humiliated her and baffled her so that at length she said:
“Please go on home. It’s getting late, and I don’t like you at all.”
“I know you don’t like me, but couldn’t you love me?”