"Mary! Mary, you love me!"
"No, no!" she cried. "No, monsieur, it need not mean I love you,--it
need not." She fled from me and placed a table between us. "Surely a
woman can understand a man's power, and glory in it--yes, glory in it,
monsieur--without loving the man!"
"But if you did love me,--if you did love me, what then?"
"Oh, monsieur, the misery of it for us if we loved! I have seen it
from the beginning, though at times I forgot. For there is nothing for
us but to part."
"Many women have forgotten country for their husbands. The world has
called them wise."
She put out her hand. "Not in my family, monsieur."
And then the face of Lord Starling came before me. "You have changed
from the woman of the wilderness. You changed when you put on this
gown. You were different even three days ago. Some influence has
worked on you here."
She understood me. "Yes, my cousin has talked to me. Yet I think that
I am not echoing him, monsieur. If I have hardened in the last few
days, it is because I have come to see the inevitableness of what I am
saying now. I have grasped the terrible significance of what is
happening. May I ask you some questions?"
"Yes, Mary.
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