“Do you mean you like me less because I’m reliable and efficient and—well, I take your own word—on the road to success? Would you want to marry an irresponsible failure?”
The allusion was plain, and she did not like him better for it. None the less, she recognized that this man, standing there in the quiet arrogance of strength, had qualities admirable and worthy of great respect. He was master of himself and, so far as one can be, of his destinies. The cleft chin, the square jaw, the cold gray eyes so keen and steady, expressed character, and of a kind that would take him far. But it was a road she would not travel with him.
“No. But I’d like to know that I was a help to my husband in making his success. You can’t understand, Justin. I’m not what you want—not at all. If you saw me as I am, you’d know it. I’d always be affronting your sense of the fitting thing. The right wife for you is one who would sit at the head of your table well-dressed, handsome, and charming, an evidence of your standing in the community. You know—a gracious hostess, good at teas and bridge and that sort of thing. You’re really a city man. I’m not a city woman and never shall be.”
To Merrick, clear-eyed in spite of his fondness for her, came a flash of insight that told him she had been wiser than he. He could never mould this wildling to his heart’s desire. Some day he would look back on this episode and smile at it. But he had not reached that state of philosophy yet. His vanity was still engaged, and more than that—the last passionate flame of the boy in him that was being sacrificed to ambition. He craved inordinately the willful charm of this devastatingly sweet girl with the quick, disturbing eyes. She represented to him certain values he was deliberately trampling down, not because they did not seem to him good, but because they warred with something that he wanted more. He had impossibly dreamed that she might stay what she was and yet become something different.
“Are you going to marry Hollister?” he asked.
She might reasonably have told him this was a private matter of her own. She might have evaded the question. Instead, she told him the truth.
“I don’t know.”
“Has he asked you?”
“No.”
“But you will if he does.”