"Yes. I prefer not to remain here and watch it going on under my very eyes. It's a silly prejudice, no doubt, but you must pardon it...."
He continued his pacing, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor in front of him. Occasionally he uttered a few sentences in the same cold, lifeless tone.
"It's all over now, at any rate. I had hoped we might be able to tide these things over through these first years, till we got old enough to stop caring about them, but I was wrong. You can't govern things like that.... I always had a theory that any two sensible people could get along together in marriage, even though they didn't care much about each other, if they made up their minds to take a reasonable point of view; but I was wrong there too. Marriage is a bigger thing than I thought. I was wrong all around....
"Just a year—not even that. I should have said it could go longer than that, even at the worst....
"It's all in the blood, I suppose—rotten, decadent blood, in both of you. I don't blame you, especially. Your father's daughter—I might have known. I suppose I oughtn't to blame your father much more—it's the curse of your whole civilization. Only it's hard to confine one's anger to civilizations in such cases....
"The strange part about you is that you gave no sign of it whatever beforehand. I had no suspicion, at all. I don't think any one could have told....
"There's just one thing I should like to suggest. I don't know whether it will be comprehensible to you, but I have a certain respect for my family name and a sort of desire to spare the members of the family as much as possible. So that, although you're perfectly free to act exactly as you wish, I should appreciate it if you—if you could suspend operations as long as you remain under my uncle's roof. Though it's just as you like, of course.
"I shall be in New York. You can let me know your plans there when you are ready. I suppose you'll want to sue, in which case it can't be done in New York state; you'll have to establish a residence somewhere else. Or if you prefer to have me sue, all right. That would save time, of course.... Let me know what you decide.
"Well, we might as well go to bed, I suppose. It will be the last time...."
Beatrice watched him as he took off his coat and waistcoat and threw them over a chair and then attacked his collar and tie. Then she arose from where she sat and addressed him.