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[Passionately—hardly able to believe his ears]

Oh, it’d be wonderful, Nina ! But are you sure you really want me to—that you’ll feel well enough?

[Repeats his words as if she were memorizing a lesson]

Yes, I want you to. Yes, I’ll feel well enough.

[He seizes her hand and kisses it in a passionately grateful silence]

[She thinks with resigned finality]

There, Sammy’s mother and Gordon I’ll play the game  it will make him happy for a while  as he was in those weeks after we’d left his mother  when I gave myself with a mad pleasure in torturing myself for his pleasure!

[Then with weary hopelessness]

He’ll be happy until he begins to feel guilty again because I’m not pregnant

[With a grim bitter smile]

Poor Sam, if he only knew the precautions as if I wouldn’t die rather than take the slightest chance of that happening! ever again what a tragic joke it was on both of us! I wanted my baby so! oh, God! his mother said “You’ve got to have a healthy baby  sometime  it’s your rightful duty” that seemed right then  but now  it seems cowardly  to betray poor Sam  and vile to give myself  without love or desire  and yet I’ve given myself to men before without a thought just to give them a moment’s happiness  can’t I do that again? when it’s a case of Sam’s happiness? and my own?