I could never urge you into an injustice, a wrong;
at last I have got above that; what I want is the most reasonable thing
imaginable, the best, in every conceivable way, for yourself and--any
other. You are harming, depriving, no one. You are taking nothing but
your own, what has been yours, and only yours, from the first moment I
saw, no--from my birth. What has happened brought me in a straight road
to you, the long road I have never, really, left."
"I can't," she said still again. "I want to, Jasper. Oh, with a heart
full of longing; I am so tired that I would almost give the rest of my
life for another secure hour with you. And I would pay that to give you
what you want, what you should have. But something stronger than I am,
more than all this, holds me; I can't forget that miserable woman, nor
her child and yours, so thin and suspicious. I am not good enough to be
her mother myself, even if I felt I had the right. Inside of me I am
quite wicked, selfish. I want my own. But not with the other woman
outside. She'd be looking in at the windows, Jasper, looking in at my
heart. I would hear her." She leaned against her arm, her face hid, her
shoulders trembling.
The musty odour of the stores floated out and enveloped him.
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