days and nights in Boston to fight!" She saw that he was not looking at her, but sitting with his head in his hands; there was something broken, almost pitiful, in his manner, and it occurred to her that perhaps for the first time he found all his life in a hopeless tangle. She thought, "If I had never known him, this might not have happened. He would have been able to fight without even thinking of me."
Aloud she said, "I can't do it, Michael. . . . It's no use. I can't."
He looked up quickly, but before he could speak she placed her hand over his lips, saying, "Wait, Michael, let me talk first. Let me say what I've wanted to say for so long. . . . I've thought. . . . I've done nothing else but think day and night for the past three days. And it's no good, Michael. . . . It's no good. I'm forty years old to-day, and what can I give you that will make up for all you will lose? Why should you give up everything for me? No, I've nothing to offer. You can go back and fight and win. It's what you like more than anything in the world . . . more than any woman . . . even me."
Again he tried to speak, but she silenced him. "Oh, I know it's true . . . what I say. And if I had you at such a price, you'd only hate me in the end. I couldn't do it, Michael, because . . . because in the end, with men like you it's work, it's a career, which is first. . . . You couldn't bear giving up. You couldn't bear failure. . . . And in the end that's right, as it should be. It's what keeps the world going."
He was watching her with a look of fascination in his eyes, and she knew—she was certain of it—that he had never been so much in love with her before; but she knew, too, from the shadow which crossed his face (it seemed to her that he almost winced) and because she knew him so well, that he recognized the truth of what she had said.
