"I'm not going to take risks with your reputation."
"But it would be just the same! If you put your denial into the paper, people would still go on talking as long as we went on meeting! Does it matter? Do you mind it so much, Eric? Oh, my dear, I can't afford to lose you!"
She fell away from him, and he walked back to the fire. This, then, was the moment that came to every man once—the moment that he forced into the lives of his puppets once a play.
"Barbara!"
She was still shaken with sobs.
"Barbara, are you listening? You said you'd put your hand in the fire for me. Well, did you mean that?"
He snapped the question at her, and she was galvanized to drag herself upright on the sofa.
"Yes, I said that."
"You'll do anything I ask?"
"Yes." From the slow-drawn answer he knew that more was coming. "I've told you everything. I don't belong to myself.… There's one thing that—that I don't think you're going to ask me."