'Is it not time,' she asked, 'that this should cease?'
He made a gesture of impatience.
'Understand clearly—if I am to help you for the future: if I am going to pull you through this crisis: if I am to direct and invent and combine for you, I mean to be treated with the semblance of kindness—the show of politeness at least.'
He sat up, moved by this appeal, which, indeed, was to his purse—that is, to his heart.
'I say, my husband,' she repeated, 'you must understand me clearly. Again, what I have done was done for you—for you. Unless you agree to my conditions it shall have been done—for myself. I have four thousand pounds in the bank in my own name. You cannot touch it. I shall go away and live upon that money—apart from you. And you shall have nothing—nothing—unless——'
'Unless what?' He shook off his wrath with a mighty effort, as a sulky boy shakes off his sulks when he perceives that he must, and that instantly. He threw off his wrath and sat up with a wan semblance of a smile, a spectral smile, feebly painted on his lips. 'Unless what, Zoe? My dear child, can you not make allowance for a man tried in this terrible fashion? I don't believe that any man was ever so mocked by Fortune. I have been crushed. Yes, any terms, any condition you please. Let us forget the past. Come, dear, let us forget what has happened.' He sprang to his feet and held out his arms.
She hesitated a moment. 'There is no other place for me now,' she murmured. 'We are on the same level. I am all yours—now.'
Then she drew herself away, and turned again to the table. 'Come, Alec,'she said, 'to business. Time presses. Sit down, and give me all your attention.'