Something of this Clive seemed to understand; and the understanding
left him very serious and silent where he stood in the soft glow of
the lamp with this young girl in his arms and her warm, sweet head on
his breast.
He said after a long silence: "You are right, Athalie. It is better,
safer, not to respond to me. I'm just in love with you and I want to
marry you--that's all. I shall not be unhappy about it. I am not, now.
If I marry you, you'll fall in love, too, in your own way. That will
be as it should be. I could desire no more than that. I do desire
nothing more."
He looked down at her, smiled, releasing her gently. But she clung to
him for a moment.
"You are so wonderful, Clive--so dear! I do love you. I will marry
you if I can. I want to make up everything to you--the lonely years,
your deep unhappiness--even," she added shyly, "your little
disappointment in me--"
"You don't understand, Athalie. I am not disappointed--"
"I do understand. And I am thinking of what will happen if you fail
to free yourself.... Because I realize now that I don't propose to
leave you to grow old all alone.... I shall live with you when you're
old whatever people may think. I tell you, Clive, I'm the same child,
the same girl that you once knew, only grown into a woman. I know
right from wrong. I had rather not do wrong. But if I've got to--I
won't whimper. And I'll do it thoroughly!"
"You won't do it at all," he said, smiling at her threat to the little
tin gods.
"I don't know. If they won't give you your freedom, and if--"
"Nonsense, Athalie," he said, laughing, coolly master of himself once
more. "We mustn't be unwholesomely romantic, you and I. I'll marry you
if I can; if I can't, God help us, that's all."
But she had become very grave: "God help us," she repeated slowly.
"Because I believe that, rightly or wrongly, I shall one day belong to
you."
He said: "It can be only in one way. The right way." Perhaps he had
awakened too late to a realisation of his power over her, for the girl
made no response, no longer even looked at him.
"Only one way," he repeated, uneasily;--"the right way, Athalie."
But into her dark blue eyes had come a vague and brooding beauty
which he had never before seen. In it was tenderness, and a new
wisdom, alas! and a faint and shadowy something, profound, starlike,
inscrutable.