When he has failed so ludicrously and completely, Nancy has succeeded and succeeded beyond even his own ideas of success. She can go to Paris and have all they ever planned together, now; it has all bent down to her like an apple on a swinging bough, all hers to take, from lunch at Prunier's and sunset over the river to that perfect little apartment they know every window of by heart—and he is no nearer it than he was eight months ago. He has felt the pride in her voice and knows it as most human and justified, but because he is young and unreasonable that pride of hers hurts his own. And then there is something else. All through what she was saying it was “I” that said, not “we.”
“That's fine, Nancy,” he says uncertainly. “That's certainly fine!”
But she knows by his voice in a second.
“Oh, Ollie, Ollie, of course I won't take it if it makes you feel that way, dear. Why, I wouldn't do anything that would hurt you—but Ollie I don't see how this can, how this could change things any way at all. I only thought it would bring things nearer—both of us getting jobs and my having a Paris one and—”
Her voice might be anything else in the world, but it is not wholly convinced. And its being sure beyond bounds is the only thing that could possibly help Oliver. He puts his hands on her shoulders.
“I couldn't do anything but tell you to take it, dearest, could I? When it's such a real chance?” He is hoping with illogical but none the less painful desperation that she will deny him. But she nods instead.
“Well then, Nancy dear, listen. If you take it, we've got to face things, haven't we?”
She nods a little rebelliously.
“But why is it so serious, Ollie?” and again her voice is not true.
“You know. Because I've failed—God knows when I'll make enough money for us to get married now—with the novel gone bust and everything. And I haven't any right to keep you like this when I'm not sure of ever being able to marry you—and when you've got a job like this and can go right ahead on the things you've always been crazy to do. Nancy, you want to take it—even if it meant our not getting married for another year and your being away—don't you, don't you? Oh, Nancy, you've got to tell me—it'll only bust everything we've had already if you don't!”