Yes--giving you up; for
you have a traitor in your fortress who has offered me the keys, who offers
them to me now. But I do not trust you; and I can't trust myself. The curse
of luxury is on you, the curse of ambition on me. If we had found each the
other younger; if I had lived less alone, more in the ordinary habit of
dependence upon others; if you had been brought up to live instead of to
have all the machinery of living provided and conducted for you--well, it
might have been different."
"You are wrong as to me, right as to yourself. But yours is not the curse
of ambition. It is the passion for freedom. It would be madness for you,
thinking as you do, even if you could--and you can't."
He stood up and held out his hand. She did not rise or look at him.
"Good night," she said at last, putting her hand in his. "Of course I am
thinking I shall see you tomorrow. One does not come out of such a dream,"
--she looked up at him smiling--"all in a moment."
"Good night," he smiled back at her. "I shall not open 'the fiddler's bill'
until--until I have to." At the door he turned. She had risen and was
kneeling on the sofa, her elbow on its low arm, her chin upon her hand, her
eyes staring into the fire. He came toward her.
"May I kiss you?" he said.
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