He got up and walked across the room once or twice, steadying himself with one last great effort. In a moment he stopped dead in front of her.
"See here, Beatrice!"
"Yes?"
"It can't happen again, do you see? It's got to stop right here and now! I can't stand it—call it weak of me if you like, but I can't. It'll drive me stark mad. We are not going to talk about these things again, do you see?"
"What sort of things?"
"Anything! Anything that can possibly bring these things into my head and make a human fiend of me. And you're not to tempt me to talk of them, either. Do you promise?"
"I promise anything that's reasonable—anything that will help you. But do you intend to let this—this weakness end everything—spoil our whole life?"
"Spoil! What on earth is there to spoil? We've got on well enough up to now, haven't we? Well, we'll go back to where we were, where we were this morning! And we'll stay there, please God, as long as we two shall live! You're free, absolutely free, from now on! I shan't question anything you may care to do from this moment, I promise you!"
She remained silent a moment, awed in spite of herself by the fervency of his words. She was cruelly disappointed in him. She had made so many attempts, she had humbled herself so often, she had suffered his rebuffs so many times and she had brought him at one time in spite of himself so near to a happier state of things that his one-minded insistence on his own humiliation seemed to her indescribably petty and selfish. His jealousy, his vile, rudimentary dog-in-the-manger jealousy; that was what he couldn't get over; that was what he could not forgive her for! What a small thing that was to resent, in view of what she herself had so steadfastly refrained from resenting!... However, since he wished it, there was nothing more to be done. She could be as cold and unemotional as he, if it came to the test.
"Then you definitely give up every effort toward a better understanding?"