"Did you think that of me?" she asked at length, slowly. I suppose she was pale, but I could not see.
"I certainly did. How could I think anything else?"
"Harry!" she half whispered. "Why, Harry, Harry!"
"Admit that you did!" I exclaimed bitterly, "and let me start from that as a premise. Listen! If you were a man, and loved a woman, and she chucked you when you lost your money, do you think you'd break your neck to make any more success in the world after that? Why should you? Why does a man work? It's for a home, for the sake of power, and mostly for the sake of the game."
"Yes."
"And I could play that game--I can play it now, and win at it, any time I like. I quit it not because I was afraid of the game--it's the easiest thing in the world to make money, if that's all you really want to do. That's all your father wanted, or mine, and it was easy. I can play that game. But why? Ah! if it were to win a quiet home, the woman I loved, independence, usefulness, contentment,--yes! But when all those stakes were out of the game, Helena, I didn't care to play it any more. And that was why you thought I ran away. I did run away--from myself, and you."
She was silent now, and perhaps paler--I could not see.
"--But wherever I have gone, Helena, all over the world, I've found those two people there ahead of me, and I couldn't escape them--myself, and you!"
"Did you think that of me, Harry?" She half whispered once more.
"Yes, I did. And did you think that of me?"
"Yes, I did. But I did not understand."
"No. Like many a woman, you got cause and effect mixed up: and you never troubled yourself to get it straight. Let me tell you, unless two people can come to each other without compromises and without explanations and without reservations, they would better never come at all. I don't want you cheap, you oughtn't to want me cheap. So how can it end any way other than the way it has? If it was my loss of fortune that made you chuck me, I oughtn't ever to give you a second thought, for you wouldn't be worth it. The fact you did, and that I do, hasn't anything to do with it at all."
"No."
"And if you don't think me able and disposed to play a man's part in the world, you oughtn't to care a copper for me, that is plain, isn't it?"
"Yes, quite plain."
"And the fact that you did, and that you do, has nothing to do with it--nothing in the world, has it, Helena?"
"No." She must have been very pale, though I could not tell.
"Therefore, as logic shows us, my dear, and because we never did get our premises straight, and so never will get our conclusions straight, either--we don't belong together and never can come together, can we?"
"No." I could barely hear her whisper.
"No. And that is why, just before you came, I was trying to pull myself together and to advance as best an unhappy devil may, upon Chaos and the Dark! And that's all I see ahead, Helena, without you--Chaos and the Dark."
"It was all you saw that night, in the little boat," she said after a time. "Yet you went?"
"Oh, yes, but that was different."
"Is this all, Harry?" she said, and moved toward the door.
"Yes, my dear; it is all--but all the rest."
Her color must have risen, for I saw dimly that she raised both her hands to her bosom, her throat. Thus the heartless jade stood, her head drooped, unable to meet the piercing gaze of my eagle eye.
There came a faint scratching at the door, a little whimpering whine.
"It is Partial, my dog, come after you," said I bitterly. "He knows you are here. He never has done that way for me. He loves you."
"He knows _you_ are here, and he loves you," said she. "That is why things come and scratch at doors where ruffians live."
I flung open the door. "Partial," said I, "come in; and choose between us."
As to the first part of my speech, the invitation to enter, Partial obeyed with a rush; as to the second, the admonition, he apparently could not obey at all. In his poor dumb brute affliction, lack of human speech, he stood, after saluting us both, alternately and equally, hesitant between us, wagging, whining and gazing, knowing full well somewhat was wrong between us, grieving over us, beseeching us--but certainly not choosing between us.
"Give him time," said I hoarsely. "He loves you more, and is merely polite to me."
"Give him time," said she bitterly. "He loves you more, and you don't deserve it."
But Partial would not choose.
"He wants us _both_, Helena!" said I at last. "He has wiped out logic, premises, conclusions, cause and effect, horse, cart and all! He wants us _both_! He wants a quiet home and independence, Helena, and usefulness, and contentment. Ah, my God!"
She reached down and put a hand on his head, but he only looked from one to the other of us, unhappy.
"Don't you love me, Helena?" I asked quietly, after a time. "For the sake of my dog, can you not love me?"
She continued stroking the head of the agonized Partial.... And until, somewhat inarticulately, I had choked or spoken, and had caught her dark hair against my cheek and kissed her hair and stammered in her ear, and turned her face and kissed her eyes and her cheek and her lips many, many times, Partial held his peace and issued no decision.... At least, I did not hear him....
She was sobbing now, her head on my shoulder, as we sat on the locker seat, and Partial's head was on the cushion beside us, and he was silent and overjoyed, and tranquilly happy--seeing perhaps, that a quiet home would in the event be his, and that he was going to live happy ever after. And after I drew Helena's head closer to my face, I kissed her hair.
"Do you love me, Helena?" I asked. "Only the truth now, in God's name!"
"You know I do," she said, and I felt her arms about my neck.
"Have you, always?"
"I think so, yes. It seems always."
"We have been cruel to each other."
"Yes, are cruel now."
"How now?"
"You make me say I love you, and yet----"
"You will marry me--right away, soon, Helena--as I am, poor, ragged, without a cent, only myself?"
"Not here," she smiled.
"At Edouard Manning's, at once, as soon as we get in?"
"It is duress! I am in the power of a ruffian band! Is it fair? Are you sure I know my mind?"