“I am very glad you believed in me,” said Jimmie, laying down the unlit pipe which he had been fondling. “I would n't be human if I did n't—but you must n't exaggerate. Exposure would have ruined Morland's career, and I thought it would go near breaking your heart. To me, an insignificant devil, what did it matter?”
“Did n't my love for you matter? Did n't all that you have suffered matter? Oh, don't minimise what you have done. I am afraid of you. Your thoughts are not my thoughts, and your ways not my ways. You will always be among the stars while I am crawling about the earth.”
Jimmie rose hurriedly and fell at her feet, and took both her hands and placed them against his cheeks.
“My dear,” he said, moved to his depths. “My dear. My wonderful, worshipped, God-sent dear. You are wrong—utterly wrong. I am only a poor fool of a man, as you will soon find out, whose one merit is to love you. I would sell my body and my soul for you. If I made a little sacrifice for the love of you, what have you done tonight for me—the sacrifice of all the splendour and grace of life?”
“The lies and the rottenness,” said Norma, with a shiver. “Did you comprehend my mother?”
He took her hands from his face and kissed her fingers.
“Dear, those are the unhappy, far-off things. Let us forget them. They never happened. Only one thing in the world has ever happened. You have come to me, Norma,” he said softly, speaking her name for the first tremulous time, “Norma!”
Their eyes met, and then their lips. The world stood still for a space. She sighed and looked at him.
“You will have to teach me many things,” she said. “You will have to begin at the very beginning.”