“It is true. I'm not blaming you. But it is a fact I have to meet.... Sue, do you think for one moment I intend being beaten in this enterprise? Don't you know me better than that? You are failing me. Not in love—that is personal. But in the work. Lately I have feared that Peter had your love. Now, Sue, if I am not to have you I can almost wish he had. When you do accept love it will hurt you. I have no doubt of that. There will be reactions. The conventional in you will stab and stab. But you are not little, and you will feel the triumph of it. It will make you. After all, however it may come, through door or window, love is life.”
She had folded her hands in her lap and was looking down at them. “I have no doubt you are right,” she said slowly and quietly.
He gave a weary sigh. “Of course. Your own intelligence tells you.... If you won't go with me, Sue, I may slip away alone. I've got to think. I've got to get money. I can get it, and I will. A little more energy, a little more expenditure of personality will do it. It can always be done.”
Her mind roused and seized on this as a momentary diversion. “Do you mean to go outside for it?”
“If it comes to that. Don't you know, Sue, that we're too far in with this thing to falter. The way to make money is to spend money. Peter's a chicken. If he won't come through, somebody's got to. Why it would cost more than a thousand dollars—perhaps two thousand—merely to do what I have planned to do with the picture you so suddenly dislike,” He looked about for his hat. “I'm going, Sue. I've let myself get stirred up; and that, of course, is foolishness. I'm just tiring you out. You can't help, I see that—not as you are.”
She rose and leaned against the wall by the door. He took her arm as he reached her side. “Buck up, little girl,” he said; “don't blame yourself.”
She did not answer, and for a long moment they stood thus. Then she heard him draw in his breath.
His arms were around her. He held her against him.
“Have you got a kiss for me, Sue?” he asked.
She shook her head.