“Would it bore you to hear the whole story?,” Eric asked.
There was a welcoming nod of encouragement. Eric tried to speak dispassionately, though he knew that he was appealing for sympathy and help; and the appeal grew stronger as he saw his companion’s expression becoming more grave.
“Confidence for confidence,” said O’Rane, when he had done. “Quite soon after I married, there came a time when it seemed possible that Sonia and I had made a mistake, a time when I felt that, if I wanted her to be happy, I should have to say, ‘Think this over carefully; you’ve only one life and, if you believe you’ll make more of a success of it with another man, you know I’ll not stop you’... I said that, Eric, and I’ve always felt it was the right thing to do. I won’t pretend it was easy, but the right thing seldom is. As it happens, everything’s turned out well... I believe it’s a question that a great many men ought to put to their wives, instead of exercising harem-rights over a human creature, made in God’s image, that they’ve bought or attached to themselves. Do you want to love a woman or to enjoy a slave?... I tell you this, because you must give that girl the opportunity of slipping out of your grasp—”
He stopped at the touch of a hand laid deprecatingly on his knee.
“I can’t keep her, if she wants to go,” said Eric.
“Indeed you can. Use your imagination, man! After all you’ve done for her, with the knowledge that you’re ill—Put it on the lowest ground; she wouldn’t dare to have it said of her that she’d thrown over a man with consumption because she couldn’t wait two years for him to get well. Probably you agree with me that a man who is a man doesn’t make capital out of his physical infirmities. You must persuade her that she’s under no obligation to you; and, if the decision goes against you, you must accept it with a good grace. You behaved well in coming to her rescue; you may have an opportunity of behaving even better in giving up all claim on her.”
Eric sat for some moments digging at the gravel with his stick. Then he touched O’Rane’s arm and stood up.
“Let’s move on,” he suggested. “It’s—it’s hot here... Raney, I’m not going to give her up. I don’t see why I should.”
“I hope you won’t have to.”
“No one can compel me, if she says she’ll wait.”