“Perhaps. I don’t know.... You mean, if I have I’m to say it now. I can’t come again.... You’re not going to forgive me?”
“Forgive? Certainly, if there is anything to forgive. I had no thought otherwise.”
“I’m not to come again, though. You mean that?”
“I fail to see the object.... To use an expression of your own, it’s desecration to disturb the corpse.”
“Even if—”
“Let’s not argue about nothing. I’m not cursed with nerves ordinarily, but there are times—” She arose slowly, stood there beside her chair, gracefully slender, gracefully imperious. “You’ve chosen deliberately, you know.”
“Yes, I know.” Armstrong too had arisen in his dismissal, involuntarily obedient. “But you said, before I told you, before you understood, that afterward, perhaps—You remember you said that?”
“Yes; I remember. Things are changed now, though. What I had in mind you’ve answered yourself.... One thing I would like 161 to ask, however, one thing that I hope you will answer truly, no matter whether it hurts me or not. It’s this: Was I to blame in any way whatever, by word or act or suggestion, for your losing your place in the University? Will you answer me that—and truly?”
From the chair where he had thrown it down Armstrong took up the long ulster and buttoned it mechanically to his throat.
“No, Elice,” he repeated; “you’re not at fault in any way, by word or act or suggestion. There’s no one at fault except myself.”