Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/372

 Naomi. . . do you mean that? Answer me, do you mean that?"

She closed her eyes wearily. "I don't care what happens to me."

He held her more tightly, the odd, gusty pleasure sweeping over him in terrifying waves. "Naomi . . . will you . . . will you go away . . . now . . . at once, and with me?"

"You can do with me what you want, if you'll only be kind to me."

"We've a right to be happy. We've suffered enough." She did not answer him, and he said, "God will understand. He's merciful. We've had our hell here on earth, Naomi . . . Naomi . . . listen to me! Will you go now . . . at once?" A curious, half-mad excitement colored his voice. "I've got money. I've been putting it aside for a long time, because I've thought for a long time I might want to go away . . . I've been saving it, a dime and a quarter here and there where I could squeeze it. I've got more than two hundred dollars. I thought that sometime I'd have to run away. But I meant to go away alone . . . I never knew . . . I never knew." He began abruptly to cry, the tears pouring down the lined, tired face. "We'll go somewhere far away . . . to South America, or the South Sea Islands, where nobody will know us. And we'll be free there, and happy. We've a right to a little happiness. Oh, Naomi, we'll be happy."

She appeared not to have heard him. She lay in a kind of stupor, until, raising her body gently, he stood up and lifted her easily into the big leather chair, where she lay watching him, her eyes half-closed, her mouth set in a straight, hard line, touched with bitterness. 