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Rh I should not have accepted your sacrifice. I ought not to have become your wife."

"But what would you have done then?"

"I should have gone away, somewhere or other. If I had been then the woman that I am now, I should have gone away, somewhere or other. And I should have left you to your life . . . and to the happiness that was perhaps awaiting you elsewhere . . ."

"I should have had to give up the service just the same . . ."

"But you would have been freer without me. You were still so young: you had your whole life before you; and you would perhaps have found your happiness. As it is, you have never found it . . . or . . . perhaps too late."

He stood up, very restless and nervous, and his boyish eyes pleaded anxiously:

"Constance, I can't talk in this way. I'm not used to it . . ."

"Can't you face things seriously for a moment? . . ."

"No, I can't. It upsets me. I don't know: you mean to be nice, I believe, but please don't let us talk like this. We're not accustomed to it. And I . . . I can't do it. You can see for yourself, it upsets me."

"Come," she said, in a motherly tone, "you are not so much upset as all that. You can have a