bling to line it for a little time to come. Do you think yourself weary? Think how weary am I! I have done many gross deeds, and thought each one the last. Believe me: I have some knowledge of the time that may be misspent, clinging to fictions and supposing them truths.''
He has lifted his hand to his head, and now puts back his hair from his brow; and his pallor, and the dark about his eye, seem suddenly to age him. His collar is soft, and creased from the grip of his neck-tie. His beard has a single strand of grey. His throat bulges queerly, as men''s throats do: as if inviting the blow that will crush it.
I say, ''This is madness. I think you are mad—to come here, to confess yourself a villain, to suppose me willing to receive you.''
''And yet you have received me. You receive me still. You have not called for your maid.''
''You intrigue me. You have seen for yourself, the evenness of my days here.''
''You seek a distraction from those? Why not give them up, for ever? So you shall—like that, in a moment! gone!—when you marry me.''
I shake my head. ''I think you cannot be serious.''
''I am, however.''
''You know my age. You know my uncle would never permit you to take me.''
He shrugs, speaks lightly. ''We shall resort, of course, to devious methods.''
''You wish to make a villain of me, too?''
He nods. ''I do. But then, I think you are half a villain already.— Don''t look like that. Don''t suppose I am joking. You don''t know all.'' He has grown serious. ''I am offering you something very great and strange. Not the commonplace subjection of a wife to a husband— that servitude, to lawful ravishment and theft, that the world terms wedlock. I shan''t ask you for that, that is not what I mean. I am speaking, rather, of liberty. A liberty of a kind not often granted to the members of your sex.''