"Ah," shrieked Lena, leaping to her feet with the light beginning to
come into her eyes. "So that's what's the matter! That girl--"
"No," said Dick evenly, "that is not what cuts most. What hurts through
and through, Lena, is the knowledge that you don't even love me enough,
in spite of all my wasted passion, to keep from intriguing with another
man behind my back for the sake of a few bits of red glass."
"How--did Mr. Early--?" Lena began, but he interrupted her again.
"Did it seem such a simple thing to keep me perpetually blinded? Last
night, Lena, I paid your debt to Mr. Early. I sold my vote in the
council, along with my self-respect and my honor in the sight of others
to get back this shred of paper. Once I might have thought you sinned
ignorantly, but I know you better now. Here is that priceless scrap." He
drew it from his pocket and threw it into her lap. "Now I've swept away
all the mists! There can't be any sweet illusions between you and me,
Lena." He drew a sharp breath.
Lena's heart was beating very fast and her eyes were down. She saw
shrewdly that there was no need of argument on any of these topics. The
less she said about them the better for her. And Dick, with his hands in
his pockets, was watching her from the other side of the room. She
twisted the piece of paper in her hands. She had always a bald way of
telling herself the truth. Now she would face Dick in the same spirit.
After all, she was his wife. He couldn't get away from that.
"Well," she said, "I suppose you don't love me any more?" Her voice was
like her mother's, acid and selfish.
"Do you love me?" asked Dick.
"No!" said Lena. She saw him writhe and felt glad that she had the power
to hurt him, but he answered very gently.
"Then I still have the advantage of you, Lena. I love you, not in the
old way I once dreamed of loving--but still I love you. All this that
I've said to-night was not spoken in the heat of anger. I've known these
facts for a long time, and you have never felt any change in my manner;
but gradually I have come to see that there could never be any genuine
relations between us--you and me--so long as you thought me just a silly
dupe for you to get everything you could from, to be played on as you
pleased. We must begin again, a new way. You don't love me, you say. I
do love you, sweetheart, not for what I thought you were, but for what
you are, because you are my wife, because you need my tenderness and
help. But I'm not going to let you lead any longer. We can't even walk
side by side as some husbands and wives do." Dick seemed to hear the
voices of Ellery and Madeline by their own fireside, and he went on
hurriedly. "You needn't look at me that way, Lena, as if you were
afraid of me. I shall want you to be comfortable and happy. I shall try
to give you the things you want--things--things--things! But I have some
purposes in life, and they, not you, are to be my master-spirits."