couldn’t bear to have anything near me that did not wish to stay. And when you wish it you will find nothing easier than getting a divorce from me.”
“Oh, please, please ———”
“Why am I not to mention the thing that is looming largest in your mind? I wish to impress on you that the things you are afraid of are the least of this business between you and me. The marriage ceremony, the divorce, mere forms easily managed for people like us. But you seem to be overlooking the real thing. I’m not asking you to do any more than you are now committed to doing. You want to live with me for a time. You don’t know how long, and I’m sure I don’t. You’ve fallen in love with me, and you have told yourself that if love came to you as you wanted it you would have it. I think you’re quite right, and I hope I’m going to be happy because it happened to be me. And I know that because you are what you are, you are going to be chained far more by your own compulsions than you are by any formal ceremony. Now, since you have let yourself in for the big thing, why on earth be so serious about the little one?”
He put an arm about her shoulder and stared up at the moon.
“Please don’t think I don’t respect your stand,” he went on. “It’s a far bigger thing to have your own unwritten laws and to live by them than it is to be swayed by mere convention. You could stand in the middle of the ruin of convention and keep your ideals. You would not succumb as so many so-called virtuous women succumb on board ship, or in the islands, or in places where conventions have lapsed, simply because everybody was running amuck around you. All I’m asking of you is that we do the thing that will help us to keep this relation fine as long as possible here. And there can be only one reason now
