She put out her hand again and pressed his, and again he kissed her
fingers. The action was reverential, and had nothing in it of the man
who loves and is accepted. Her gentle hand, maidenly and innocent, was
stretched down into the hell of word and thought and deed in which his
real self had its being, and he touched it with his lips, and in his
heart he knelt to kiss it, as something too holy to be in this
world--just because it was innocent, and his own was not. For herself he
set her on no pedestal, he did not worship her, he did not love her, he
admired her with the cold judgment of a man of taste. It is the purity
of the unblemished and unspotted victim that makes the outward holiness
of the sacrifice. He thought of his own life and of hers, hitherto side
by side, and he thought of their joint life in, the future, she taking
him for what he was not, and he was ashamed.
In the first moment he had a brave impulse to tell her everything and be
a man, even if he ruined the woman he had loved so long, as well as the
brother who bore his name. It was only an impulse, and his lips remained
sealed and his face calm.
"I do thank you," he said in a low voice, when he had kissed her hand
that second time. "I will do what I can to make you happy."
Yet he knew now, from the strength of that passing impulse, that if she
had not spoken first, he would not have asked her directly to marry him.
Twenty times during that long day, alone in his room, he had sworn that
he would not marry her, whatever happened.
Pages:
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189