"Perhaps it’s as well you did not present this, Stara," he said; "I forgot to date it, as I usually do. Now, if you’re ready and won’t interrupt, I’ll explain."
"You can’t. Don’t try to. I shan’t believe you whatever you say. Oh, go on then."
"I’ll take the money first; that’s a trifle, the other’s not. You remember some time ago, when I told you I was always hard up, you offered me your quarter’s allowance. Fifty pounds it was—all you had."
"And you said that surely one friend could do a little thing like that for another. Did I fly out at you then?"
"Because I didn’t want the money. You do. There are those bills you told me about."
"I would never have told you, had I thought you’d take advantage like this. That’s not what I did it for."
"I know that as well as you do, but all the same you did tell me, and you said that, when you reached London, they’d probably serve a writ on you. Now, I’m not going to have you bothered by beastly tradespeople, and so I did the little thing you said one friend might do for another—I wrote you a cheque."
"Hector, will you swear that was all you meant?"
"Oh ... We’ll let that pass, then, though I don’t say I believe it, mind. And now for the other, rather more difficult of explanation, I imagine."
"I’m coming to that presently. First, you must take this money."
"I’ll give you another cheque to-morrow morning. That’s settled. Now..."
"Oh, please, please don’t ask me. Well, if—if I do, I won’t spend the money."
"Please yourself about that; and now for the other." He paused, and then again seizing her by the shoulders while the glow in his eyes became a leaping flame, went on: "We love each other, Stara, and love such as ours must be satisfied. What do conventions matter to you and me; leave them to the weak fools whose lives they trammel. Belong to me you shall, not, as you think, by paltry deceit, but openly, for the whole world to see. It’s marriage I offer you, not dishonour."
"What is she to me—what is anything to me? Stara, in the whole world I can see but one thing now, you, and you I swear to have."
"I don’t understand. You’re married; nothing can alter that. Oh, why talk about impossibilities?"
"There’s nothing impossible to me. There never was from the time you told me you loved me. Listen and I’ll tell you what I mean to do. To-morrow I shall see her—I will call her ’my wife’ no longer, Stara—and I’ll tell her it’s you I love and not her. I’ll say, too, I’ve come to break with her, that the past is finished and a new life begun. Oh, I’ve thought it all out; the thing’s as good as done now."