"
"I did not inquire for your intention; I asked what you would
believe to be your duty."
"It will never become my duty. But if it should, I would never
marry without being true to the woman; and to be true is to tell
the truth."
"You mean that you would tell her?"
"I mean that I would tell her."
After a little silence she stirred in her seat and spoke, all her
anger gone:
"I am going to ask you, if you ever do, not to tell her as you have
told me--after it is too late. If you cannot find some way of
letting her know the truth before she loves you, then do not tell
her afterward, when you have won her life away from her. If there
is deception at all, then it is not worse to go on deceiving her
than it was to begin to deceive her. Tell her, if you must, while
she is indifferent and will not care, not after she has given
herself to you and will then have to give you up. But what can
you, a man, know what it means to a woman to tell her this! How
can you know, how can you ever, ever know!"
She covered her face with her hands and her voice broke with tears.
"Isabel--"
"You have no right to call me by my name, and I have no right to
hear it, as though nothing were changed between us."
"I have not changed."
"How could you tell me! Why did you ever tell me!" she cried
abruptly, grief breaking her down.
"There was a time when I did not expect to tell you. I expected to
do as other men do."
"Ah, you would have deceived me!" she exclaimed, turning upon him
with fresh suffering.
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