"It's not true, Olivia. . . . You can't go back on me now . . . just when I need you most."
"I'd be betraying you, Michael, if I did the other thing. It's not me you need half so much as the other thing. Oh, I know that I'm right. What you should have in the end is a young woman . . . a woman who will help you. It doesn't matter very much whether you're terribly in love with her or not . . . but a woman who can be your wife and bear your children and give dinner parties and help make of you the famous man you've always meant to be. You need some one who will help you to found a family, to fill your new house with children . . . some one who'll help you and your children to take the place of families like ours who are at the end of things. No, Michael . . . I'm right. . . . Look at me," she commanded suddenly. "Look at me and you'll know that it's not because I don't love you."
He was on his knees now, on the carpet of scented pine-needles, his arms about her while she stroked the thick black hair with a kind of hysterical intensity.
"You don't know what you're saying, Olivia. It's not true! It's not true! I'd give up everything. . . . I don't want the other thing. I'll sell my farm and go away from here forever with you."
"Yes, Michael, you think that to-day, just now . . . and to-morrow everything will be changed. That's one of the mean tricks Nature plays us. It's not so simple as that. We're not like Higgins and . . . the kitchen-maid . . . at least not in some ways."
"Olivia . . . Olivia, do you love me enough to. . . ."
She knew what he meant to ask. She thought, "What does it matter? Why should I not, when I love him so? I should be harming no one . . . no one but myself."
And then, abruptly, through the mist of tears she saw through an opening in the thicket a little procession crossing
