'I cannot,' she said hastily, with a rush of colour. 'Indeed this is impossible.'
'Why so?'
'It cannot be. I will not go back from my word.'
'I have my conscience, that speaks imperiously,' said Philip. 'I cannot, I will not be driven by your obstinacy to act dishonourably, unjustly.'
Salome said nothing. She was startled by his vehemence, by his roughness of manner, so unlike what she had experienced from him.
'Very well,' said he hurriedly. 'You shall take me, and with me my share of the mill, and so satisfy every scruple. That, I trust, will content you as it does me.'
The girl was frightened, and looked up suddenly to see if he meant what he said. His back was toward the window. Had he occupied a reverse position she would have seen that his eyes were not kindled with the glow of love, that he spoke in anger, and to satisfy his conscience, not because he had made up his mind that she, Salome, was the only woman that could make him happy.
The Rabbis say that the first man was made male-female, and was parted asunder, and that the perfect man is only to be found in the union of the two severed halves. So each half wanders about the world seeking its mate, and gets attached to wrong halves, and this is the occasion of much misery; only where the right organic sections coalesce is there perfect harmony.
It did not seem as if Philip and Salome were the two halves gravitating towards each other, for the attraction was small, and the thrust together came from without—was due, in fact, to the uninviting hand of Mrs. Sidebottom.
'Come,' said he, 'I wait for an answer. I see no other way of getting out of our difficulties. What I now propose will assure to you and your mother a right in this house, and Mrs. Sidebottom will be able to obtain admission only by your permission. Do you see? I cannot, without a moral wound and breakdown of my self-respect, accept a share of the mill without indemnifying you, according to what I believe to have been the intentions of my uncle. You refuse to take anything to which you have not a right. Accept me, and you have all that has fallen to me.'