Page:Night and Day (1919).pdf/271

 the cause of his suffering. Therefore, although she found it painful, she spoke:

“You asked me if I had changed my mind about you, Ralph,” she said. “I think there’s only one thing. When you asked me to marry you, I don’t think you meant it. That made me angry—for the moment. Before, you’d always spoken the truth.”

Ralph’s book slid down upon his knee and fell upon the floor. He rested his forehead on his hand and looked into the fire. He was trying to recall the exact words in which he had made his proposal to Mary.

“I never said I loved you,” he said at last.

She winced; but she respected him for saying what he did, for this, after all, was a fragment of the truth which she had vowed to live by.

“And to me marriage without love doesn’t seem worth while,” she said.

“Well, Mary, I'm not going to press you,” he said. “I see you don’t want to marry me. But love—don’t we all talk a great deal of nonsense about it? What does one mean? I believe I care for you more genuinely than nine men out of ten care for the women they’re in love with. It’s only a story one makes up in one’s mind about another person, and one knows all the time it isn’t true. Of course one knows; why, one’s always taking care not to destroy the illusion. One takes care not to see them too often, or to be alone with them for too long together. It’s a pleasant illusion, but if you’re thinking of the risks of marriage, it seems to me that the risk of marrying a person you’re in love with is something colossal.”

“I don’t believe a word of that, and what’s more you don’t either,” she replied with anger. “However, we don’t agree; I only wanted you to understand.” She shifted her position, as if she were about to go. An instinctive desire to prevent her from leaving the room made Ralph rise at this point and begin pacing up and