“Our little contract, dear,” said Doggie, “was based on the understanding that you would not be uprooted from the place in which are all your life’s associations. If I broke that understanding it would leave you a free agent to determine the contract, as the lawyers say. So perhaps, Peggy dear, we might dismiss—well—other considerations, and just discuss this.”
Peggy twisted a rag of handkerchief and wavered for a moment. Then she broke out, with fresh tears on her cheek.
“You’re a dear of dears to put it that way. Only you could do it. I’ve been a brute, old boy; but I couldn’t help it. I did try to play the game.”
“You did, Peggy dear. You’ve been wonderful.”
“And although it didn’t look like it, I was trying to play the game when you came in. I really was. And so was he.” She rose and threw the handkerchief away from her. “I’m not going to step out of the engagement by the side door you’ve left open for me, you dear old simple thing. It stands if you like. We’re all honourable people, and Oliver”—she drew a sharp little breath—“Oliver will go out of our lives.”
Doggie smiled—he had risen—and taking her hands, kissed them.
“I’ve never known what a splendid Peggy it is, until I lose her. Look here, dear, here’s the whole thing in a nutshell. While I’ve been morbidly occupied with myself and my grievances and my disgrace and my efforts to pull through, and have gradually developed into a sort of half-breed between a Tommy and a gentleman with every mortal thing in me warped and changed, you’ve stuck to the original rotten ass you lashed into the semblance of a man, in this very room, goodness knows how many months, or years, or centuries ago. In my infernal selfishness, I’ve treated you awfully badly.”
“No, you haven’t,” she decided stoutly.
“Yes, I have. The ordinary girl would have told a living experiment like me to go hang long before this. But you didn’t. And now you see a totally different sort of Doggie and you’re making yourself miserable because he’s a queer, unsympathetic, unfamiliar stranger.”
“All that may be so,” she said, meeting his eyes bravely. “But if the unfamiliar Doggie still cares for me, it doesn’t matter.”